PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida: Camilo Villegas was on the phone the day before The Players Championship trying to sort out his swing with a coach who is in Singapore caddying at a LIV Golf event. He wound up tied for the lead, a peculiar twist in a tournament filled with them.

Thursday was no exception.

Lucas Glover had nine birdies in his round of 6-under 66, leaving him tied with Villegas and J.J. Spaun, who managed to get around the TPC Sawgrass without a bogey.

Max McGreevy, who tied the tournament record for the highest score two years ago with an 89, had a chance to join them. He was at 5 under and faced a 15-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole when play was suspended by darkness.

Rory McIlroy made four birdies from tee shots that found the rough or the pine straw, including the 18th hole when he punched a shot off the pine straw and out of the trees to 7 feet, putting him in the group at 67.

“You’re just hoping for a backswing and a gap, and I had both of those,” McIlroy said. “Just trying to chip-and-run a 5-iron up around the front of the green and make 4 and get out of there. It was a bonus to get it up on the green and hole the putt was a lovely way to finish.”

Two-time defending champion Scottie Scheffler figures he left a few shots out there — two birdie chances were in the 8-foot range — but was satisfied enough with a 69.

Villegas was on the verge of losing his card two years ago when he connected with Jose Luis Campra, a respected Argentine professional who caddies on the side. He currently is looping for Sebastian Munoz on LIV, which is in Singapore this week.

“It was 9 a.m. here, it was 9 p.m. there,” Villegas said. “We worked for a couple hours. He’s a very, very hard worker. Very few guys give more golf lessons than Jose Campra, and he’s always available for me. So it’s great.”

It was a small tweak on the downswing, and Villegas took that to the dangerous Stadium Course and promptly made five birdies on the back nine to start his round. There were a few mistakes, typical for most players.

That’s what this course does. Slight misses can turn into big numbers.

Chandler Phillips experienced both. He set a Players Championship record with three eagles. He also had four birdies, an astonishing performance wiped out by a triple bogey on the par-3 eighth hole that started with a tee shot into a palmetto bush.

Justin Lower had the best par of all. He was one of 10 players to hit their tee shots into the water on the island green at the par-3 17th. He was the only player to walk away with par, going to the drop zone and holing his wedge.

Max Greyserman wasn’t so fortunate. He put two in the water and had to make a 12-foot putt for his quadruple bogey.

Glover isn’t sure what to make of his record at the TPC Sawgrass, 10 times missing the cut with only two top 10s. But there was no big secret on this day. He hit it where he was aiming and made putts, with birdies on his final four holes.

It stood out amid some surprising scores on a gorgeous day. Justin Thomas hit four tee shots into the water and had to birdie the last two holes for a 78. Viktor Hovland had three double bogeys in his round of 80.

Jordan Spieth had an eagle, birdie, par, bogey and double bogey in his opening six holes. He played far boring golf — which he prefers — with seven pars, a birdie and a bogey on the back nine and it added to a 70.

“That’s the thing about this place,” Glover said. “There’s always some really good scores and always some really bad scores. The margins are razor thin here, akin to say Augusta or Bay Hill. You get off just a little, you can make big numbers in a hurry.

“I happened to have a bunch of good numbers today and a bunch of good yardages and was able to be aggressive and I putted great.”

Glover was not immune. He was too aggressive on the par-5 11th with a wedge and wound up in a pot-shaped bunker for bogey. He dropped another shot on the next hole.

But it was the finish that set him apart — an approach to 5 feet on the 15th, a chip to tap-in range on the par-5 16th, an 18-foot birdie putt on the island green par-3 17th and a shot that caught the slope and fed down to 8 feet for birdie on the 18th.

The 45-year-old former US Open champion is having a late resurgence in his career, particularly impressive from having overcome the putting yips about a decade ago. He never gave up the grind and finally cashed in by winning the Wyndham Championship and the opening FedEx Cup playoff event in consecutive weeks in 2023.

“Just don’t want to be done at 45, honestly,” Glover said. “I deep down believe I can still compete out here at 45 and I don’t want to stop anytime soon.”

McGreevy was among five players who didn’t finish before darkness. He was to resume at 8 a.m., and then everyone gets to do it all over again.

MIAMI: President Donald Trump’s intervention in negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has “significantly bolstered” hopes of reunifying the fractured sport but “hurdles” to a deal remain, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said Tuesday.

Speaking ahead of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, Monahan said Trump, who has hosted two rounds of talks at the White House involving leaders of the PGA and Saudi Arabia-financed LIV, had made a deal between the two sides more likely.

But Monahan told a press conference that while some hurdles had been removed during negotiations, “others remain” without revealing what were the stumbling blocks preventing a final agreement.

Hopes of a breakthrough had risen after Trump hosted PGA and LIV chiefs at the White House last month in talks that Monahan described as “real and substantial.”

“Those talks have been significantly bolstered by President Trump’s willingness to serve as a facilitator,” Monahan said Tuesday.

“President Trump is a lifelong golf fan. He believes strongly in the game’s power and potential, and he has been exceedingly generous with his time and influence to help bring a deal together.

“He wants to see the game reunified. We want to see the game reunified. His involvement has made the prospect of reunification very real.”

Monahan said he had built a relationship of “mutual respect” with LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who he said could conceivably be welcomed onto the board of the PGA Tour eventually “to move the global game forward.”

However, Monahan said that while “important aspects” LIV Golf could be incorporated into the PGA Tour, any unification deal would not “diminish the strength of our platform.”

“Our team is fully committed to reunification,” Monahan said. “The only deal that we would regret is one that compromises the essence of what makes the game of golf and the PGA Tour so exceptional.”

Asked for an example of what might diminish the PGA Tour, Monahan was tight-lipped but hinted that the impasse could be linked to the PGA Tour’s traditional four-round, 72-hole format versus LIV’s abbreviated 54-hole standard.

“If you look at the PGA Tour today and the strength of our organization, the momentum that we have as an organization and what we stand for, I mean ultimately if you’re a player anywhere in the world, this is the platform that you want to get to,” he said.

“These tournaments are 72-hole stroke play tournaments at historic, iconic venues ... That’s who we are as an organization, and that’s who we’ll always be as an organization.”

Monahan said fans simply wanted to see the best players playing against each other. At the moment, golf’s four annual majors are the only events that see players from both circuits competing against each other.

“I think what our fans are telling us is that they want to see the best players in the world playing together more often and that’s what really is the focus of the conversations,” he said.

Two-time major-winner Justin Thomas, meanwhile, said players were fatigued by the long-running saga of golf’s schism.

“I think this is the third time I’ve played this tournament while this has been going on in some way, shape or form,” Thomas said. “I think we’re kind of like past the level of exhaustion... obviously like the rest of us, we would love for it to be done sooner rather than later.”