Rory McIlroy overcame an erratic day of golf to finish one shot off the lead after the first day of The Players Championship at Sawgrass on Thursday.

Lucas Glover, Camilo Villegas and JJ Spaun share top spot in the tournament, with McIlroy, Billy Horschel and three others just one shot behind, while defending champion Scottie Scheffler is three back.

McIlroy found just four fairways during a mixed opening round, where he registered seven birdies and two bogeys to go five under, but remained in good spirits.

McIlroy's mixed round continued and it seemed to be a case of one step forward, one step back before charging up the leaderboard after making an eight-foot birdie at the ninth.

"I was trying to be disciplined and strategic, I just didn't execute that very well... I didn't hit a lot of fairways," he said.

"I was trying to cut it into play, didn't do it very well, but any time I did miss a fairway I was able to do something with it.

"I'm not going to be able to ride my luck like that the rest of the week, so I'm going to go hit some balls here and try to figure it out."

He made an impressive start, putting from eight feet on the first and two-putting from 40 feet on the second before bogeying the next and miss a 10-foot birdie at the fourth hole.

How it stands at Thursday’s end. #THEPLAYERS pic.twitter.com/ndi8Czo25T

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Horschel, meanwhile, finished tied with McIlroy after his first round and acknowledged that he found it hard to deal with the pressure on Thursday.

"This is my 12th Players Championship... 12 straight years of putting undue pressure on myself," he said.

"As much as I talk about not trying to do that and put any added pressure, at the end of the day, it happens. This morning I woke up and I was in a really good space and I felt really good with my warm-up, I then birdied the first two holes, which should have calmed me down, but it didn't. 

"I started playing defensive and trying to steer things around and not make mistakes, because I knew things were going well. I had to give myself a little kick in the butt walking over to the 10th, saying 'if we're going to play bad, let's at least do it when actually trying to hit quality golf shots.'"

Elsewhere, defending champion and world no.1 Scheffler is three off the lead following his first round and is targeting improvement ahead of his next one.

"I feel okay about the round. I think the golf course is playing nice. There's punishment out there with the heavy rough, and obviously a lot of hazards," he said.

"Overall felt like I did some decent things out there and gave myself some chances. Felt like I could have holed a few more putts. At the end of the day I did a lot of good things on the course. I stayed patient out there.

"I gave myself enough opportunities to shoot a better score, I just wasn't able to score as well as I would have hoped to."