The Players Championship, round one leaderboard

-5 S Straka (Aut), M McNealy (US), L Hodges (US), S Theegala (US), A Smotherman (US)*; -4 J Thomas (US), R Henley (US), T Moore (US), C Young (US)

Selected: -3 T Fleetwood (Eng), L Aberg (Swe), V Hovland (Nor); -2 M Fitzpatrick (Eng); E R MacIntyre (Sco); +3 M Penge (Eng)

* denotes yet to finish round one

Full leaderboard

Rory McIlroy recovered sufficiently from a back injury to begin his defence of the Players Championship but he ended round one seven shots off the pace.

The world number two only arrived at TPC Sawgrass on the eve of the PGA Tour's flagship tournament, having opted to stay at home for treatment on the injury that forced him to pull out of last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

He showed no obvious signs of discomfort in crushing his opening drive 329 yards down the middle of the fairway, but he took 73 more shots for a two-over par total, with birdie putts on the 16th and 17th holes grazing the edge of the cup.

McIlroy's Ryder Cup team-mate Sepp Straka is alongside three Americans setting the clubhouse pace on five under.

Austrian Straka chipped in for an eagle three on the par-five 16th in his bogey-free 67 to join Maverick McNealy, Lee Hodges and Sahith Theegala atop the leaderboard.

"We were fortunate to play in the afternoon with hardly any wind and the greens a lot softer," said Straka, referring to the heavy rain that doused the course earlier in the day.

England's Tommy Fleetwood was among those playing in the worst of the weather. He briefly reached five under, after a run of eagle-birdie-birdie on Sawgrass' notoriously difficult 16th, 17th and 18th holes. He called it a "complete bonus of a stretch" of holes.

Having started on the 10th, the world number three then birdied the second but a torrential downpour that halted play for around 25 minutes checked his momentum, and successive bogeys on the fourth and fifth holes dropped him back into the pack.

He is in good company on three under, with Sweden's Ludvig Aberg, Norwegian Viktor Hovland and American Xander Schauffele also enjoying solid starts.

The rain delay meant four players were unable to finish their opening rounds as the sun set and darkness fell. Among them is unheralded American Austin Smotherman, who will return on Friday morning to face a 15-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole – his 18th – to take the first-round lead.

In rapidly fading light, Smotherman hit his second shot on the par-five hole into the heart of the green, but while his playing partners opted to finish the hole, he decided to mark his ball and wait for the morning light.

No golfer has won the Players after an opening round of 74 or worse.

That stat will not unduly trouble McIlroy but it does highlight the task facing him, particularly as his tee-time for round two is 08:52 local time (12:52 GMT), giving him less time to rest his back after being among the late starters on Thursday.

McIlroy said on Wednesday that he was confident he will not aggravate the injury by playing this week, with the first major of the year, the Masters, four weeks away.

"It's not structural, it's not joint – it's purely a muscular sort of discomfort and fatigue," he said.

"Obviously I'll listen to the professionals. But there's nothing that I can do that's going to harm that."

He had one birdie, on the sixth, but bogeys on the fourth, fifth and 11th saw him sign for a 74.

McIlroy is hoping to join Jack Nicklaus as a three-time winner of the event, having also won the title in 2019 – and the first to win all three of them at Sawgrass.

World number one Scottie Scheffler, the first to win successive titles in 2023 and 2024, is also chasing a third victory. But he had an erratic start with four birdies cancelled out by four bogeys as he opened with a level-par 72.

Playing alongside Fleetwood, he said: "I did some good things in changing weather, but overall I felt like I gave away some shots, made some mental errors."