Rahm and Rory leading the way ahead of informative PLAYERS Championship

"He has a schedule, he is trying to win majors and the TPC was not the most important tournament on his schedule," said Westwood's manager at the time, Chubby Chandler. He was also McIlroy's manager back then, and put his absence down to not particularly liking Sawgrass. Nine years on, it would be fair to say much has changed: Westwood's relationship with Chandler no longer exists, and McIlroy is the reigning PLAYERS champion.

It's undoubtedly true that the cache of an already prestigious event received a boost in 2019, when a schedule switch from May to March could hardly have gone better. Not that previous renewals lacked drama because of the date, rather that Jason Day, Si Woo Kim, and Webb Simpson all dominated this tournament and sucked the life out of it. McIlroy, with a little help from a diverse supporting cast, brought it back. The approach shot he hit to seal the tournament was swaggeringly 2014, and since then he's been the best golfer in the world.

Following last week's effort at Bay Hill, where his run of top fives was extended to seven, McIlroy has now ended his last 26 rounds in the top 20. He has become a permanent fixture in a sport with more ebb and flow, and more off than on, than any other. The numbers behind his performances are robust: he has beaten the field average in every start since that fateful Open Championship, and currently gains around 2.5 shots per round everywhere he plays. The gap between McIlroy, at number one, and second-ranked Justin Thomas, sits close to half a stroke over 18 holes. It might not sound much, but that makes him more than a shot and a half better than Thomas over a tournament. It's a big divide to bridge.

To find an equivalent gap, you have to scroll to the very bottom of the PGA Tour's strokes-gained: total page, where the tiny group of players fighting to convince themselves they have a future can be separated by half a shot here or there, not that it matters all that much. At the top of the sport, it matters. McIlroy has elevated his game to a level at which it becomes impossible to argue who is and who isn't the best golfer on the planet. His name is Rory McIlroy, and it is not particularly close. This is a truth of the sport in its current form: no less true than Novak Djokovic being the best in his.

Golf has greater nuance than tennis, where one could reasonably state that Djokovic is the best by looking at his trophy cabinet, and where to have a chance to win, first you have to win. So rare is it that a surprise finalist emerges in a men's grand slam, for instance, that so few have their reputations burdened by a question mark over their fortitude. For every Tomas Berdych, there are 30 or 40 golfers who 'don't win enough' and McIlroy, with his 26 worldwide wins at something like a once-a-dozen strike-rate, is, to some, one of them.

McIlroy does not have the luxury of an early exit, or a single opponent, or someone doing the really hard work for him, and has not yet won in 2020. Thomas has. McIlroy has not won a single major during the period in which Brooks Koepka has collected four. McIlroy has been close enough to the lead entering the final round to have won every tournament he's played in this year, and yet he has won none of them. McIlroy averages less than 68 on Thursday, and more than 69 on Sunday.

These things are also true, but they need that kind of earthy realism which tells us why he's the right number one. By any measure, four wins in a 12-month period is outstanding in a sport where upwards of one hundred players have claims on the trophy. Djokovic might have to win four, five, or six matches. Usain Bolt, in a sport of zero legal nuance, knew that if he ran his race he would win. Lewis Hamilton can't really lose an F1 world title while his car his so far superior; nor will he be able to win one if that mechanical advantage finds its way to another garage.

One man's excuse is another man's reality check, but McIlroy is unquestionably the finest golfer on the planet. Koepka has a remarkable ability to perform when he needs to, but unless he finds a working game, it won't be enough; Woods is Woods, absent for now with an ailing back, and Johnson is Johnson, and right now alarm bells ring loudly. It says much about golf and its open and wild nature that even knowing this, we can't know much about what is to come. Imagine that in one of those other sports; imagine knowing that only one of the world's best players is at his best, yet still having no guarantee that it will count for much more than nothing.

Next for McIlroy comes a PLAYERS Championship defence, likely a valiant one at a course he once hated. Then comes the road to Augusta where, if the last six months are anything to go by, he will have an opportunity to win. It's a shame that so much stock will be placed in whether he happens to take it or not. And yet McIlroy has never been better equipped to play the cards as they are dealt, and if that means he leaves Augusta without a Green Jacket, that will be okay with him. There's a reason he hardly picks up his phone.

This year has in fact been notable for the best players threatening to win, without quite doing it. Thomas of course did manage it, but that was the Tournament of Champions, which always feels part exhibition and is almost bound to go to somebody world-class. Webb Simpson too, but for all his admirable refusal to be swallowed whole by a sport hungry for bigger, longer, he's not quite in that calibre of player we're talking about here.

Rahm is, and right now he's alongside Thomas as the biggest threats to McIlroy - a comment which might apply to both Sawgrass and Augusta. It was in the PLAYERS Championship a year ago that Rahm and McIlroy both laboured early on, the Spaniard three-over through four and his Ryder Cup team-mate just a shot better. But as Rahm's impetuosity got the better of him, a wild decision costing him at least one and maybe two more shots at the 11th, it was McIlroy who regathered himself and strode on to a mature victory.

So swift has been Rahm's rise to the world's top five that we expect of him all of the traits of someone who has spent a decade there. But this was just his third PLAYERS Championship, and he was - in fact, he is - still learning. Last year, he won three titles, all of which he'd won before. The next step for this mighty youngster, who only turned 25 in November, is to go and do something new. That means to win a world-class event, and to do so at the expense of a world-class player. He has the opportunity to take care of both at Sawgrass.

There are others threatening to take the first really significant title of the year. Bryson DeChambeau, whose search for extra yards has swiftly been rewarded, is playing as well as he did in 2018, when he stockpiled titles as though he knew what was coming. Bloody scientists. Thomas has had three opportunities now, Johnson even one himself, and the next wave are bubbling away.

It promises then to be an informative PLAYERS Championship, likely producing a winner who can reasonably argue that they're among the most likely Masters champions. And yet it's by worrying a little less about who happens to win that we can open our eyes to the reality in front of us. Since duelling for this title in 2019, Rahm and McIlroy have been the best two players in the sport. With major season approaching, they have fewer questions to answer than the rest.