Players Championship first-round highlights: Best shot, key hole and the Island Green report

Shot of the day

Ryan Fox of New Zealand ensured that there would be a hole-in-one at the par-3 17th at the Players Stadium Course for the fourth year in a row when he used a gap wedge from 124 yards to ace the Island Green. The ball landed, bounced once and rolled in. It was the 14th hole-in-one at No. 17 in Players history and the eighth in the last eight years.

Hole of the day

The par-5 11th hole was a nice early breather for players beginning their rounds at No. 10, and birdies were easy to come by. Eight of the 12 players tied for sixth or higher birdied it and there were fewer bogeys (six) than any hole on the course. The 11th averaged 4.489, the easiest on the course after the par-5 16th, with nine eagles, second to the 12 at No. 16. No other hole had more than two eagles.

Stat of the day

10: Rory McIlroy tied the record for the most birdies in one rounds at the Stadium Course, joining Patton Kizzire (2022), Cameron Smith (2022), Colt Knost (2016) and Justin Thomas (2015).

Island Time

With six players yet to finish No. 17, the hole averaged 3.087, seventh in difficulty on the course in the first round. With the front pin enabling players to land balls against the upper tier and feed them back to the lower shelf, there were only nine balls hit in the water, the lowest in the first round since six in 2016.

There were 23 birdies, 86 pars, 20 bogeys and seven double-bogeys.

There have now been 350 balls hit into the water at No. 17 in the first round since the Tour began keeping ShotLink statistics in 2003.

They said it

"You get up there, most of the crowd probably either wants you to make a 1 or hit it in the water, so I'm glad to be on the right side of it in that respect."

Ryan Fox on his hole-in-one at No. 17

"I like this type of grass, but I like the way that the golf course used to play in May, just because I could hit like this hard 2-iron, driving iron, never miss a fairway, but it would go forever ... But I definitely like the playability of this type of surface. I don't know. I go back and forth. I'll let you know at the end of the week."

2016 Players champion Jason Day on the difference in the Stadium Course between March and May

"I feel like I'm one of the most conscientious golfers out here, so if I feel like I've done something wrong, it'll play on my conscience for the rest of the tournament. I'm a big believer in karma, and if you do something wrong, I feel like it's going to come around and bite you at some point."

Rory McIlroy, on his insistence that he made a correct drop at No. 7

They wrote it

Gene Frenette bumped into a celebrity while following the McIlroy-Spieth-Hovland group. The guy won a Heisman Trophy (no, it's not Tebow).

Clayton Freeman writes that Ludvig Åberg got off to a good start on a bid to win the two area PGA Tour events, the RSM Classic on Sea Island, Ga., and The Players.

Adam Hadwin has his troubles at No. 18. As Cameron Jourdan of golfweek.com writes, Hadwin then fed the lake a club to go with two balls. And yes, there's video:

And predictably, the always-entertaining Jessica Hadwin had something to say about her husband on X:

Adam Schupak of golfweek.com breaks down the issue of Rory McIlroy's tee shot at No. 7.

There are three shopping days left in The Players Championship. Juston Lewis gives fans a scouting report on what's in the PGA Tour Fan Shop.

There were no withdrawals before The Players. But the tournament lost one during the first round. Clayton Freeman explains who and why.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Ryan Fox ace at the Island highlights first round of The Players Championship