On Thursday, March 13, Sepp Straka, Maverick McNealy, Sahith Theegala, and Lee Hodges each carded a 5-under 67 to take the first-round lead at the Players Championship 2026. They were also joined by Austin Smotherman, who was at 5-under with one hole to go before play was suspended.
According to Data Golf, the most likely projected cut for TPC Sawgrass is 2-over, with a probability of 38.8%. Meanwhile, the probability of the cut moving to 1-over is around 33% and it being 3-over is near 15%.
Currently, players like Brian Harman, Jake Knapp and Shane Lowry are in the bottom half of the leaderboard. Rory McIlroy, Aaron Rai and Nico Echavarria are among the names sitting at 2-over and will need a lower round to keep themselves safe at the Players Championship.
Projected cutline for the Players Championship 2026 explored
Here’s a look at the projected cutline for the Players Championship 2026 (as per Data Golf:)
Cutline at 1-over (33.5% percent probability)
- T69. Mark Hubbard: +2
- T69. Mackenzie Hughes: +2
- T69. Michael Thorbjornsen: +2
- T69. Taylor Pendrith: +2
- T69. Aldrich Potgieter: +2
- T69. Haotong Li: +2
- T69. Seamus Power: +2
- T69. Kurt Kitayama: +2
- T69. Nick Taylor: +2
- T69. Rory McIlroy: +2
- T69. Brian Campbell: +2
- T69. Aaron Rai: +2
- T69. Nico Echavarria: +2
Cutline at 2-over (38.8% percent probability)
- T82. Rasmus Højgaard: +3
- T82. Kristoffer Reitan: +3
- T82. Gary Woodland: +3
- T82. Jhonattan Vegas: +3
- T82. Matt McCarty: +3
- T82. Brian Harman: +3
- T82. Jake Knapp: +3
- T82. Sungjae Im: +3
- T82. Kevin Roy: +3
- T82. Marco Penge: +3
- T82. Pierceson Coody: +3
- T82. Stephan Jaeger: +3
- T82. David Ford: +3
- T82. Andrew Novak: +3
- T82. Steven Fisk: +3
- T82. Matthieu Pavon: +3
- T82. S.H. Kim: +3
Cutline at 3-over (15.3% percent probability)
- T99. Garrick Higgo: +4
- T99. J.T. Poston: +4
- T99. Zecheng Dou: +4
- T99. Johnny Keefer: +4
- T99. Denny McCarthy: +4
- T99. Harry Hall: +4
- T99. Shane Lowry: +4
- T99. Sam Burns: +4
- T107. Rico Hoey: +5
- T107. Vince Whaley: +5
- T107. Cam Davis: +5
- T107. Adam Schenk: +5
- T107. Erik van Rooyen: +5
- T107. Joel Dahmen: +5
- T107. Keegan Bradley: +5
- T107. A.J. Ewart: +5
- 115. Sami Valimaki: +6
- T116. Thorbjørn Olesen: +7
- T116. Jordan Smith: +7
- T118. Chandler Phillips: +8
- T118. Kevin Yu: +8
- T118. Patton Kizzire: +8
- T121. Emiliano Grillo: +12
- T121. Davis Riley: +12