PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla.: Tiger Woods by no means did it. Neither did Jack Nicklaus, even earlier than The Players Championship discovered its dwelling in a former swamp now generally known as the TPC Sawgrass.
This is the fiftieth version of the PGA Tour’s premier championship, and nobody has ever defended his title. Next up is Scottie Scheffler, and the percentages are as a lot in his favor as any of the earlier winners.
That contains Woods, who solely acquired one crack at it in 2002, didn’t break 70 and tied for 14th.
“I just think it’s a golf course where you don’t see a lot of repeat winners in general,” Scheffler stated. “There’s not a guy that you have seen win on this golf course a bunch.”
Only 5 gamers have received twice on the Stadium Course on the TPC Sawgrass. Nicklaus received The Players 3 times, however that was earlier than it moved completely to this Pete Dye enviornment of countless thrills and that one (principally) island inexperienced on the par-3 seventeenth.
Scheffler is the No. 1 participant on this planet, the primary time the defending champion of The Players has been atop the world rating since Jason Day in 2016. The distinction is Scheffler arrived at Sawgrass straight from a dominant efficiency to win at Bay Hill by 5 pictures.
Already one of the best from tee-to-green, his putter lastly got here to life and the remainder of golf’s greatest had each motive to be nervous.
“I’ve personally had some really, really nice ball-striking weeks,” FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland stated. “But for him to have done that for so long and won so many tournaments that he’s done the last couple years is very, very impressive. Because you get into periods of times where you feel like you can’t miss and you’re hitting it on a string, but then next month it might feel a little bit difficult. He just seems to keep doing what he’s doing.”
Scheffler has been No. 1 for the final 10 months, and it’s not tough to do the maths. Along with three victories within the final 12 months — that features the Hero World Challenge within the Bahamas — he has completed out of the highest 10 solely 3 times in 22 tournaments.
How that interprets to Sawgrass is but to be seen, even on a course the place a 12 months in the past it regarded as if he was enjoying alone. He led by six pictures at one level and received by 5 pictures, simply as he did on the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
History, nonetheless, will not be on his facet. The Stadium Course has a popularity of by no means favoring a single type of golf, and there’s hassle nearly in every single place that everybody appears to search out sooner or later over the event.
“That’s why I think it’s one of the best places we play on tour, just because it really doesn’t suit one type of player,” Scheffler stated. ”Bomb-and-gouge doesn’t actually work out right here. But you then even have the shorter hitters that plot it round that may battle right here, since you acquired to hit it precisely the place you’re wanting otherwise you’re going to be punished fairly severely.”
What has modified is The Players now wants an asterisk, however provided that it claims to have the strongest and deepest discipline in golf. World rating apart, golf is so divided now due to the defections to LIV Golf that each one one of the best will not be at Sawgrass — not Masters champion Jon Rahm or Cameron Smith, who conquered Sawgrass two years in the past. Not Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka or Bryson DeChambeau.
And by the sound of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, there’s not an instantaneous repair.
“It’s going to take time,” Monahan stated of any take care of the Saudis and any answer to the fractured panorama in golf.
The Players will get began on Thursday, and if nothing else, it’s a time to return the main focus to contained in the ropes, at the least for 4 days.
Xander Schauffele isn’t a fan of Monahan, saying the commissioner has “a long way to go” to regain belief. Rory McIlroy spoke out in favor of Monahan on Wednesday morning, saying he was the best man for the job and the tour was in a stronger place with new cash from a bunch of personal buyers.
And then there was Scheffler, suggesting any blame for the divide must be on the gamers who will not be at Sawgrass this week due to LIV.
“If the fans are upset, then look at the guys that left,” he stated. “We had a tour, we were all together, and the people that left are no longer here. At the end of the day, that’s where the splintering comes from.”
Schauffele maybe summarized it greatest.
“I think you would like to have those players playing in an ideal world, but I feel like we’re sort of beating a dead horse in this media room a little bit,” he stated.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)
