PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The easy way out was to go low under a tree 20 feet in front of Rory McIlroy.

He was looking up.

Coming off a 10-foot eagle and a 20-foot birdie that tied him for the lead Friday in The Players Championship, McIlroy risked wasting that great finish with a bold shot. His caddie, Harry Diamond, tried to talk him out of it. McIlroy instead opened the face of a pitching wedge and sent it straight up in the air, letting the right-to-left wind carry it onto the green 15 feet away.

“I stepped over it a couple times like, `No, I think I can do this,”’ McIlroy said. “I just opened up a wedge as much as I could and just took a swipe at it, and the ball sort of came out the way I thought.”

He got his par for a 7-under 65 and was tied Tommy Fleetwood, who had a better start than McIlroy finished. Fleetwood opened birdie-eagle-birdie on his way to a 67, giving him a share of the 36-hole lead for the second straight week.

They were at 12-under 132, three shots clear of anyone else.

And they were nine shots ahead of Tiger Woods, who played solid golf except for one hole — the wrong hole. Woods put two balls into the water on the notorious par-3 17th, leading to a quadruple bogey that wiped out a good start and forced him to settle for a 71.

Given the nature of this golf course — and a forecast for a different wind — the fun might just be starting.

And that’s as far as McIlroy was willing to look.