Players Championship Odds 2017: Vegas Projections for Top Players in Field

Golf's so-called fifth major will tee off Thursday at TPC Sawgrass, with nearly all of the sport's top players making the trip to Florida for the Players Championship.

World No. 1 Dustin Johnson, who was forced to miss last month's Masters Tournament after falling down stairs, will be paired with Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas. Johnson returned for the first time since suffering his back injury at last week's Wells Fargo Championship, finishing in a tie for second place.

"I did have a lot of time off so I didn't really know what to expect this week because I didn't really get to practice leading into this tournament, either, so most of my practice I've done since I've been here," Johnson said after coming up short, per Ryan Herrington of Golf Digest.

McIlroy, looking for his first win of the 2017 season, has not played on the PGA Tour since the Masters. He's spent most of the last month tinkering with his swing and making a decision bout a long-term club agreement. Nike's decision to discontinue making golf clubs last year left McIlroy, Tiger Woods and others without a home, though they will continue wearing Nike apparel.

Golfer	Odds
Dustin Johnson	+700
Rory McIlroy	+1000
Jordan Spieth	+1400
Sergio Garcia	+1800
Hideki Matsuyama	+2000
Jon Rahm	+2000
Rickie Fowler	+2000
Jason Day	+2200
Justin Rose	+2500
Justin Thomas	+2800
Brooks Koepka	+3300
Henrik Stenson	+3300
Adam Scott	+4000
Kevin Kisner +4000	+4000
Paul Casey	+4000

The former world No. 1 announced an agreement with TaylorMade on Tuesday after an extensive research phase.

"I wasn't really happy with the golf ball I was playing and I needed to do something," McIlroy said, per Jason Sobel of ESPN.com. "So I sort of went back to the drawing board and tested for about 10 days pretty extensively after Augusta, worked with a lot of different things. ... I tested quite a few balls, and the one that I landed on, that was really it.

"The ball was what led me to this point, because it was like, this is the best ball I've hit in, well, ever. I feel like it's really the best ball for me going forward, and then it was just trying to match everything up to that, and that's why I feel like this is the best way forward."

Also among the high-profile pairings are Jason Day, Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson. Day has spent most of the year struggling, finishing outside the top 20 in four of his last five PGA events. He's dropped to No. 3 in the world but could ascend back to the top spot with a win this weekend.

"There's no other, no better feeling than being the best," Day said, per Steve DiMeglio of USA Today. "For a moment there after I lost my No. 1 world ranking, I kind of lost the desire to kind of be there, and I think it was just because I was mentally burnt out from everything that had gone on. Earlier this year with some distractions, finally I can kind of take a breath and sit back and go, ‘OK, I need to kind of start my trip back to up the mountain again.'"

Fowler is coming off being cut at the Zurich Classic, while Stenson is off to a miserable start to 2017. The world No. 7 has been cut in each of his last four tournaments and five of his last six.

Jordan Spieth will be paired with Phil Mickelson and Hideki Matsuyama. After tying for fourth in his debut at the tournament, Spieth has missed the cut each of the last two years. Having finished five of his last six tournaments outside the top 10, Spieth will look to build on his fourth-place outing at the Zurich Classic.

Matsuyama, who began his year with the hottest run of his career, has tapered off a bit over the last three months. He does not have a top 10 since winning February's Phoenix Open.

In all, basically every contender in this tournament is attempting to right the ship after a recent stretch of shaky play. Masters champion Sergio Garcia is the only one who comes into Thursday at the top of his game.