FLORIDA
FEATURES
The Players
Championship:
Tiger and Company
Have Major Goals
in Mind
By Derek Duncan,
Senior Writer
PONTE VEDRA, FL (March 18, 2002) - For years NBC has been touting The Players Championship as “The Fifth Major,” and they’ve almost got everyone believing it.
The pros gear up for The Players as much as they do for any of the four acknowledged majors and until they win one of the official biggies, hoisting the crystal trapezoid is the next best thing. If there is one non-major tournament that fans most look forward to it’s this, if for no other reason than to watch the world’s best dump balls in the lake at the island green 17th.
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The field each year is typically the most competitive and highly rated of the season. In any given year the majority of the world’s top players arrive in humid Ponte Vedra, twenty minutes southeast of Jacksonville, to shoot it out with the fabled Stadium Course. Defending champion Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Jacksonville native David Duval, Sergio Garcia, and Vijay Singh will highlight this year’s field, along with U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen and PGA champion David Toms.
The first Players competition was held in 1974 when it was known as the Tournament Players Championship. The inaugural event, played then at the nearby Sawgrass Country Club, was won by Jack Nicklaus (who saw victory in three of the first six events). Since then the winners’ list is a veritable who’s who of professional golf from the last quarter century. In addition to Nicklaus, the names of Lee Trevino, Lanny Wadkins, Ray Floyd, Hal Sutton (twice), Fred Couples (twice), Davis Love III, Nick Price, Greg Norman, David Duval and Woods are all etched on the trophy.
The Stadium
Course normally
provides entertaining
viewing if not
grueling conditions.
The victor seems
to either blitz
the field and
make the course
look soft (Davis
Love III in
1992, Price
in 1993, Norman
in 1994, Couples
in 1996, Steve
Elkington in
1997), or the
tournament comes
down to the
wire with the
gut-wrenching
17th and the
brutish 18th
figuring prominently.
In 1999 Duval bravely held off all comers in firm and windy conditions not seen since the early days of the event. The 2000 Players saw Hal Sutton out duel Tiger Woods in one of his most memorable victories, and the following year Woods did the same to a game Vijay Singh. This year Woods, who last week became the first player to win at Bay Hill three straight years, will try to become the first player in this tournament’s history to successfully defend his title.
The Course
As long as the Players Championship is played at its current location the course will be as much a part of the storyline as the tournament itself.
When the tournament moved across the highway to the new TPC Stadium Course in 1982 the path of American golf course architecture changed along with the venue. It’s not a stretch to say the Stadium Course was ushered into this country in the era of “target golf” and steroid golf design. Throughout the 1980’s, seemingly every architect tried to copy the severe, knee-knocking nature of the Stadium Course and every owner wanted an island green.
It all started
in 1978 as the
brainchild of
former PGA Tour
commissioner
Deane Beman,
who wanted a
“home”
course for the
tour and an
exalted stage
for its primary
tournament.
Beman hired
Pete
Dye to transform
the wet and
severely disadvantaged
site near Highway
A1A into a course
that would identify
the Tour’s
best players
and provide
unfettered viewing
perspectives
for tournament
spectators.
As the early results proved, the Stadium was wildly successful at both. Many contestants found the new layout too punishing and unpredictable for their pampered games while audiences raved about the thrilling play and vantage points the elevated mounding provided.
Never before had a tournament golf course of such extreme character been manufactured, and the pros hated it. Narrow fairways (only 30 acres of mown grass in 1982), abundant water, severe unkempt rough, and what some complained were impossibly contoured greens wreaked havoc on the nerves of the pros. J.C. Snead summed up the players’ feelings about the Stadium course when he said, “It’s 90% horse manure and 10% luck,” and, “They messed up a perfectly good swamp.”
To say that Beman, and the pros as well, got more than they initially bargained for is an understatement. History shows that Dye delivered a course that ultimately turned golf architecture (and the collective angst of the pros) on its ear. While the course was a marvel of engineering and a personal glimpse into the mind of a genius, the long-term dubious influence of the Stadium Course on modern design and subsequent lesser architects is to this day being overcome.Vocal criticism from the players caused the Tour to revise and soften the course in 1983 under the reluctant supervision of Bobby Weed. Now, after years of mollifying adjustments, the Stadium Course is a shadow of Dye’s original house of horror and no longer scares the pros the way it did 20 years ago. True, it’s lost much of its uniqueness, but it nevertheless remains one of the more popular tournament venues for players and fans alike as well as one of the country’s most desirable golf destinations.
You Can Play
It
The Stadium Course is operated by the Marriott Sawgrass Resort in Ponte Vedra. Although it is one of the more pricey rounds of golf in the country, it’s also one of the most alluring. No American player’s golf experience would be complete without at least one round at the Stadium Course and a shot at the 17th green.
Dye’s other course at the Marriott Sawgrass Resort is the Valley Course, which offers excellent golf in its own right, just not at the world-class level of the Stadium Course. The two courses offer a spectacular one-two punch and the complex as a whole offers every amenity and practice opportunity a player could want (indeed it’s not uncommon to find a PGA Tour pro banging balls somewhere on the vast range). The Marriott is just a couple of drivers from some of the most beautiful beaches in Florida and offers top-notch lodging and entertainment accommodations. For more information call 1-904-285-7777.
Ticket Information
Daily tickets are $45 and packages begin at $135. For ticket information call 1-904-285-PUTT.
Records
Course record:
63 (Fred Couples
1992; Greg Norman
1994)
Tournament record:
264 (Greg Norman,
1994)
Highest winning
score:
Sawgrass Golf
Club: 289 (Mark
Hayes, 1977;
Jack Nicklaus,
1978)
TPC Stadium
Course: 285
(David Duval,
1999)
First winner:
Jack Nicklaus
in 1974
Repeat winners:
None
Margin of Victory:
7 (Steve Elkington,
1997)
2002 Players Championship Preview:
The Tour
Comes to the
Swamp
When:
March 18-24,
2002
Where:
Marriott Sawgrass
Resort, Tournament
Players Club
at Sawgrass
Stadium Course,
Ponte Vedra,
FL
Vitals:
7,093 yards,
par 72
At Stake:
$6 million in
prize money,
$1,080,000 to
the winner
Defending
Champion:
Tiger Woods
(274)
Runner Up:
Vijay Singh
(275)
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