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The post Cameron Smith’s throwback style thrives at wet, windy, wild Players Championship appeared first on Golf.

Crazily, astonishingly, the slender and bold Australian golfer, from a long line of slender and bold Australian golf talents — looking at you, Greg Norman and Adam Scott! — hit driver on 18 when another golfer might have hit a 2-wood or a 3-hybrid or a 4-iron, on account of the lake on the left and the pine needles on the right.

But Mr. Smith didn’t come to PVB to lay up!

Bam! Right on the pine needles.

Now he had a hook lie. (Ball above his feet.) To a hook fairway. (Tilting toward the lake.) With a hook club on a hook path. (Slightly hooded iron, struck from the inside.) Riding a hook wind. (Right to left.) Plus, that blowing mullet and those drying fairways.

Balls

Bomba-bomba-bomba-bomba-bomba.

Is this ball ever gonna stop?

Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling.

Across the fairway. Through the courtesy rough. Across the top of the wooden bulkhead.

Plop.

Like that old Nike spot where Rory and Tiger played shots into champagne glasses.

But this one was in the lake.

You probably have done this math in your golfing life: one on the pine needles, two in the drink, three out. And now you’re looking at the pitch shot of your life, with a $3.6 million payday on the line. OK, not you. Cam Smith, aged 28 and seven months, born and raised in Queensland and now living in Jacksonville, Fla.

Let’s review his collegiate playing record.

Well, that was fast.

Dude turned pro at 19. You know, to play golf for money! Just like Bruce Devlin and Graham Marsh and Greg Norman and Adam Scott. 

Quick note, for you historians of PGA Tour paydays. The most dominating performance in the history of golf was brought to you by Tiger Woods at the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, when he won by 15 and earned $800,000.

How quaint.

When Smith was on 18, Anirban Lahiri, aka The Man Who Does Not Quit, had not yet made his 2 on 17, the par-3 with the island green. The likable golfer from India was in the day’s final threesome. Smith was in the group ahead of him. Smith’s birdie on 17 got him to 14 under and, with Lahiri at 11 under at the time, all Smith really had to do on 18 was not pull a van de Velde.

(See: 1999 British Open, not won by Jean van de Velde, le golfing Frenchman who made a 6 on 18, resulting in a three-man playoff.)

Smith almost pulled a van de Velde.

He almost did a lot of things.

His first 13 holes featured one par! You talk about walking a tightrope.

Birdie on 1.

On 2.

On 3.

On 4.

News

At this point, he had to be channeling Tiger. Just two questions: What’s the course record, and which way to the first tee? (Tiger, in his Hall of Fame remarks.)

Well, they give you an escort to the first tee here, if you’re a player in the Players. As for the course record, it’s 63, now shared by Dustin Johnson, who finished his record-tying round Monday with a nifty 9th hole pitch-in.

PAR! Yes, Smith made par on 5.

Another birdie on 6, just because.

A bogey on 7.

Another on 8.

Another on 9.

He went out in two under par, but it had to be about the damnedest 34 ever recorded in this tournament. 

Birdie on 10. In the rain, of course. The theme of the week, but this time the shower was only passing.

Birdies on 11 and 12 and 13.

After two pars on 14 and 15, the par-5 16th hole at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, aka the Stadium Course, represents your last best chance to make a birdie. Cam Smith needed one. He was leading. But, you know: cush.

Once, 16 at Sawgrass played like 13 at Augusta National. Dye wanted righty pros to draw a driver or hook a 3-wood and have to think about whether you wanted to go for the green in two, with a lake to the right of the green. Those days are so over, both at 16 at Sawgrass and, to a lesser degree, at 13 at Augusta. Now the players, one after another, hit a high bombed driver almost over the left trees. Smith looked to do the same. But he hit a dead pull off the tee, right into the trees. It rattled among them. Everybody else took the right bridge off the tee. He took the left. The tee shot went all of 180 yards.

The four shots he hit after that were as big as anything he did all week. Punch shot out through a corridor that was maybe 15 feet wide.

Smoked an iron from 240 yards to the front left of the green. Two-putted from 50 feet, the second one a four-footer.

They should give you half a mil just for that.

So he made a par where he might have made a birdie, on 16. He made a birdie where par is a damn good score, on 17. He made a bogey on 18 but did it the hard way — with a world-class pitch — when he could have made an easy one. With Lahiri birdieing 17 himself, he needed that bogey. He won by a shot. It was great March-in-Florida golf.

Smith couldn’t say what the money meant to him, not directly. But he did offer this, describing his mother’s family and his father’s family: “They’re working-class people who have had to work their whole life to live. That’s just kind of what I grew up in.”

Tiger Woods, in an interview with Mike Tirico of NBC Sports that aired last week, said almost the exact same thing:

“I’m a kid from Southern California that really didn’t have a whole lot.”

Smith has a penguin on his shirt, an old-timey neutral grip, a flowing swing with no hit in it, irons with an oil-can finish, a mullet haircut, a mustache, a Jacksonville address, a cold one on tap and maybe another after that. A throwback. How refreshing.

It took a while to get there, but this Players was golf. In the end, this thing got good. It was the course, the moment, the leaderboard. The winner.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com

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Players Championship final-round primer

We’ve got a rare Monday finish in pro golf this week, and it comes at the PGA Tour’s flagship event — the Players Championship. With uncooperative weather blanketing TPC Sawgrass over the weekend, Tour officials were forced to move the Players finish to an extra day, and what a finish we have in store.

News

While many of the game’s stars have all but disappeared this week, the stage is set for a Cinderella story at TPC Sawgrass. Of the 20 players within six shots of the lead early in the final round, just one (Keegan Bradley) has won a major championship.

Cameron Smith is currently the man everyone is chasing at the top of the leaderboard, but there is plenty of talent hot on his heels. Anirban Lahiri, Kevin Kisner, Viktor Hovland and Paul Casey are all within striking distance of Smith’s lead, and as we’ve seen in the past at Sawgrass, anything can happen.

Below is the payout information, including winner’s share, for the Players Championship’s $20 million purse (the largest in PGA Tour regular-season history); you can catch the action all afternoon on Monday on the Golf Channel and ESPN+.

SIGN UP FOR PGA TOUR LIVE ON ESPN+ TO STREAM THE ENTIRE 2022 PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP ONLINE.

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Players Championship payout information, winner’s share

1. $3,600,000

2. $2,180,000

3. $1,380,000

4. $980,000

5. $820,000

6. $725,000

7. $675,000

8. $625,000

9. $585,000

10. $545,000

11. $505,000

12. $465,000

13. $425,000

14. $385,000

15. $365,000

16. $345,000

17. $325,000

18. $305,000

19. $285,000

20. $265,000

21. $245,000

22. $225,000

23. $209,000

24. $193,000

25. $177,000

26. $161,000

27. $155,000

28. $149,000

29. $143,000

30. $137,000

31. $131,000

32. $125,000

33. $119,000

34. $114,000

35. $109,000

36. $104,000

37. $99,000

38. $95,000

39. $91,000

40. $87,000

41. $83,000

42. $79,000

43. $75,000

44. $71,000

45. $67,000

46. $63,000

47. $59,000

48. $55,800

49. $53,000

50. $51,400

51. $50,200

52. $49,000

53. $48,200

54. $47,400

55. $47,000

56. $46,600

57. $46,200

58. $45,800

59. $45,400

60. $45,000

61. $44,600

62. $44,200

63. $43,800

64. $43,400

65. $43,000

66. $42,600

67. $42,200

68. $41,800

69. $41,400

70. $41,000

71. $40,600

NEWSLETTER

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The post What’s the key to surviving an impossible golf hole? appeared first on Golf.

Much like reports of those awaking from their death beds claiming to have caught a glimpse of heaven, finding “the zone” is among the most intriguing mysteries in golf.

What is it? How do you access it? What is it like? Those who embark on answering those questions must set sail into an ocean of unknowns, leaving the rest of us to watch from the shores. Yet throughout, there’s one consistent report that keeps coming back, assuring us that there is, indeed, salvation on the other side.

Maybe you’ve even experienced it yourself: That in those blessed moments when you’re in the zone, the target looks bigger, the ball itself looks smaller, and then everything around it fades into irrelevance.

Nicklaus would talk about the ball looking like the size of a marble, putting into a hole the size of a bucket. Tiger would begin noticing the tiniest blades of grass within the hole itself, and nothing else around it. It’s a story that transcends golf: Micheal Jordan would describe everything around him — even the other players — moving in slow motion.

One can only wonder what the 17th hole at the Players Championship looked like to players last week. The spine in the middle of the green makes the green look smaller than it actually is, but with the wind whipping, the crowd humming, and the frustration from the round mounting, how did it appear in the mind’s eye then?

The hole played so difficult, especially on Saturday, that it brought a previously unthinkable question to the fore, notably by Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee: Was the hole in due of a redesign?

It was more of a thought experiment than anything else, and one that should be viewed in context: Even in the most difficult of circumstances, more than 80 percent of tee shots on the hole avoided the water. What was perhaps more interesting was the psychological toll it extracted from players. Fear of the hole itself prompted a variety of shots so bad, pros may remember it as the worst shot of their professional career. And to make matters worse, by any objective measure, the 17th hole was actually just appetizer for the main dish: The 18th hole, which boasted the smallest number of fairways and GIRs, fewer birdies, and more water balls, more bogeys, doubles or worse than any other hole on the course.

Whatever the opposite of playing golf in the zone is, the the closing stretch at TPC Sawgrass this week offered us a glimpse.

All of which begs the question: How do you play an impossible golf hole? Or for that matter, two impossible golf holes?

1. Play safe, swing aggressively

Stress is our mind and body’s way of responding to a perceived threat. When we feel in danger, we stress about it, which enhances our ability to do things like run away a little faster. Or, if need be, to fight a little harder.

Golf rarely poses a threat to our livelihood, but its nervier moments do produce a similar (albeit smaller) stress response. Your instinct may be telling you to flee from the challenge in front of you: To swing softer; to guide it; to settle for a wider target.

Counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s doing the opposite that will actually produce the best shots, says Rory McIlroy.

“It’s trusting what you’re doing and committing 100 percent of the shot you’re trying to hit, not to try to guide it, not to try to be too careful with it,” he explains. “It’s almost like you have to almost let go and give up a little bit of control. That’s certainly when I swing at my best and hit my best golf shots.”

This can be especially tricky when the task at hand is actually to play safer. But it’s a mindset that Bubba Watson, who recorded one of just two bogey-free second rounds on Saturday, thinks is essential.

“I tried to play aggressive to the targets and the places I was trying to hit,” he said. “Like my 5-iron on the last hole. I was trying to be aggressive, but it only went 156.”

2. Think the unthinkable

Along those lines, strange things will happen in the wind and the cold. Things that may have never happened to you before or since. All you can do is embrace the chaos. Throw your expectations out the window and deal specifically with the shot in front of you. Often, that will mean hitting clubs or shots that you would never have otherwise considered if it means navigating the hole in front of you safely, as Justin Thomas, who joined Bubba Watson as Saturday’s only other bogey-free round, explains:

“I hit two pitching wedges 185 yards today, and I hit a 5-wood 193 yards. It was some of the most bizarre conditions I’ve played in,” he said. “That was exactly where I was looking, exactly the yardage I was trying to hit it, a 5-iron from 167. I’m taking a little off an 8 or step off a 9 normally, but trying to finesse a 5-iron in there with that amount of wind was probably the purest shot I hit today.”

Ultimately, a lot of the pitfalls on the difficult days are created by your own outsized expectations. The chaos otherwise known as the 2022 Players Championship is no time for any semblance of normal expectations. On the toughest holes, pros look for positive momentum wherever they can find it. Even when it breaches the absurd: Like hitting a 5-iron from 167, missing putts, or seeing others miss cuts.

“I think you can build confidence off hitting decent putts that don’t go in, and know that on another day those can go in,” Tommy Fleetwood says. “Overall, I consider myself very lucky.”

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The first order of business Monday is to complete the third round, with some players still needing to play nine more holes. Immediately following the third round, the field will play the fourth round, remaining in threesomes and playing off both the 1st and 10th tees. When darkness ended play Sunday, Anirban Lahiri was leading at nine under. Two back were Tom Hoge and Harold Varner III. Three off the pace were Sebastian Munoz, Paul Casey and Sam Burns.

Follow along here for regular updates throughout the third and fourth rounds:  

Players Championship Leaderboard | How to watch the Players Championship Monday finish

Players Championship 2022 live blog: Updates, scores, highlights

All times ET. Refresh for updates.

6:25 p.m. ET: Anirban Lahiri’s approach comes up short and right of the green at 18. He hits an impressive chip, but it fails to drop for birdie. Cameron Smith is officially your 2022 Players Champion.

6:19 p.m. ET: And he makes it. Cameron Smith drains his short bogey putt at 18 to finish off a final-round 66. He ends the day at 13 under. Anirban Lahiri, who is currently sitting in the middle of the 18th fairway, needs a birdie to force a playoff. Otherwise, Smith takes home the title and the $3.6 million winner’s check.

6:16 p.m. ET: With the tournament on the line, Cameron Smith regrouped from his water ball, made his drop and hit a great fourth shot that settles a few feet from the hole. He’ll have that for bogey to finish at 13 under.

6:11 p.m. ET: Now things are getting interesting. Trying to punch out into the fairway after his poor drive at 18, Smith overcooks it and hits it all the way across the fairway into the water. Meanwhile, Anirban Lahiri drains his birdie putt at 17 to move to 12 under. This thing isn’t over yet.

6:06 p.m. ET: Playing behind Smith in the final group and trailing by three, Anirban Lahiri hits a great tee shot on 17 that drops and then spins toward the hole, leaving him a 13-footer for birdie to get one closer. Smith’s drive at 18 goes right and finds the pine straw amid some trees.

6:00 p.m. ET: Never a doubt. After his courageous tee shot, Smith rolled in the remaining four-footer for another birdie, moving him to 14 under and giving him a three-shot lead heading to the final hole. Paul Casey saved par to remain at 11 under.

5:53 p.m. ET: Despite holding a two-shot lead and only needing a par, and immediately after Sam Burns hit one into the water, Cameron Smith went right after the far right pin position at the 17th, sticking a clutch shot to just a few feet to set up a great look at birdie. Paul Casey safely landed his own tee shot in the middle of the green.

5:48 p.m. ET: Despite bad break after bad break, Casey drains a six-footer for par at 16 to remain at 11 under. Smith matches him with a short par make of his own to maintain his two-shot lead as they head to the island-green 17th hole.

5:43 p.m. ET: Paul Casey got a horrible break on 16 when his drive landed in a ball mark, making an attempt at the green impossible. Cameron Smith made another poor drive on the same hole, but after a solid punch out he reached the green in three on the par-5.

5:35 p.m. ET – Kevin Kisner rolls in his third consecutive birdie at the 17th to move to 10 under. Keegan Bradley, on the other hand, hits his second shot from the pine straw at 18 into the water, likely ending his chances.

5:27 p.m. ET: Keegan Bradley’s tee shot at 17 found dry ground but left him with a lengthy second putt. He was unable to get it down in two from there, settling for a bogey that drops him back to 11 under. Cameron Smith once again has a two-shot lead.

5:23 p.m. ET: If Cameron Smith stumbled, several players would have a great chance to win. But so far, Smith is refusing to back down. After another wayward drive and an approach that failed to reach the putting surface at 15, Smith put together another clutch up-and-down to save par, and his one-shot lead, once again. Meanwhile, Dustin Johnson holed out for eagle to finish off a course record-tying 63.

5:17 p.m. ET: Anirban Lahiri is hanging in there. He saved par at 14 with a terrific up-and-down to remain at 11 under. Meanwhile, leader Cameron Smith is in a little trouble at 15.

5:09 p.m. ET: We have a new player in solo second place. Keegan Bradley two-putted for birdie from downtown at the par-5 16th to move to 12 under, one shot behind Smith.

5:02 p.m. ET: Just when it looked like Cameron Smith would surrender a shot at 14 — thanks to a layup approach and a poor chip for his third shot — Smith leaned on his putter again, sinking a 14 footer for just his second par of the day to remain at 13 under, two shots clear of his chasers.

4:53 p.m. ET: The contenders are starting to make their way to the treacherous final few holes on the course. Tyrrell Hatton, fresh off a birdie at 16 to move to nine under, came up just short with his tee shot on the island-green 17th, and his ball joined the many others on the bottom of the lake.

4:45 p.m. ET: And the birdie train keeps on rolling for Cameron Smith. After a great tee shot to 12 feet on the par-3 13th, Smith drained the ensuing putt to move to 13 under. He currently holds a two-shot lead over Paul Casey, Keegan Bradley and Anirban Lahiri.

4:36 p.m. ET: Not to be outdone, Paul Casey rolled in a birdie of his own at 11 to make it a three-way tie for the lead. But it didn’t last long. After a nifty chip to a few feet, Cameron Smith sank a short putt at 12 for his third birdie in a row to move into the lead alone at 12 under.

4:30: p.m. ET: Shortly after Cameron Smith birdied the 11th to take the solo lead at 11 under, Anirban Lahiri rolled in a 15-footer for eagle at the same hole to match Smith for the lead.

4:23 p.m. ET: Play has slowed to a standstill. In part because of a drop disagreement between Joel Dahmen and Daniel Berger. This back nine is going to take quite a while.

4:07 p.m. ET: We have yet another leader. Paul Casey makes birdie on 11 to reach 10 under alongside Smith and Bradley. Are we headed for a playoff?

3:58 p.m. ET: Of course, torrential downpour has broken out because this event hasn’t seen enough rain. Keegan Bradley makes birdie to tie Smith at 10 under. Three others at nine under. A juicy ending headed our way.

3:50 p.m. ET: After surrendering the lead with three straight bogies, Cameron Smith tosses in a dart on no. 10 to regain the lead. Tap-in birdies are nice.

3:40 p.m. ET: Leaderboard look!

3:30 p.m. ET: Things are getting TIGHT. Keegan Bradley in birdie position on 11. Lahiri making bogey on 8. Cameron Smith makes bogey on 9. Berger bogies 13. Hovland now just one back.

3:22 p.m. ET: And another update on Lahiri.

3:17 p.m. ET: Here’s an update on Anirban Lahiri.

3:14 p.m. ET: After hitting his tee shot within 30 yards of the hole on the par-4 12th, Viktor Hovland pitched it through the green and nearly into the hazard. Then flopped onto the green and missed the par saver. Horrible dropped shot. Is now two back.

3:04 p.m. ET: Also in contention is Daniel Berger, eight under and three back, who is in the same group as Hovland. Feels like whichever of those guys posts the best score will be the score we talk about for the last hour of the broadcast.

2:54 p.m. ET: Viktor Hovland is charging! The Norwegian just made his fifth birdie of the day on 11 to reach nine under for the tournament. He’s a couple groups head of the leaders, so we could potentially see him post a score and wait in that lavish clubhouse. Just TWO back with Cam Smith making bogey on No. 7.

2:38 p.m. ET: Cam Smith, putting MACHINE. He cans another birdie putt, this time from 10 feet, to reach 12 under and take a two-shot lead. He is leading the field in Strokes Gained: Putting.

2:26 p.m. ET: At the moment, there are just over a handful of players within realistic striking distance of Smith at 11 under and Lahiri at 10 under: Kevin Kisner, Russell Knox and Paul Casey are three shots back, and Sepp Straka, Russell Henley, Viktor Hovland and Doug Ghim are four back at seven under.

2:18 p.m. ET: A birdie on No. 4 brings Anirban Lahiri to 10 under and one back.

2:11 p.m. ET: To give you an idea of the money at stake this week: If Henley finished the tournament in 35th place, he’d bank $109,000. For 5th? A whopping $820,000! Cue the head-exploding emoji.

2:05 p.m. ET: The putts are droppin’ today, folks! Cameron Smith is now four under through four today to lead the field by two shots. Meanwhile, Russell Henley has moved up 30 spots on the leaderboard since he teed off today. He’s five under through 11 holes, seven under overall, and four shots behind Smith.

1:51 p.m. ET: After making his third birdie in four holes, Rossell Knox is one shot back.

1:45 p.m. ET: A third-straight birdie from Cameron Smith gives him the outright lead at 10 under par.

1:37 p.m. ET: After draining another birdie putt on the second hole, Cameron Smith is now tied for the lead at nine under par.

1:29 p.m. ET: Russell Knox birdies the first two holes to get to eight under overall — one shot behind leader Anirban Lahiri, who parred the first to remain nine under.

1:22 p.m. ET: Cameron Smith is now one shot from the lead after draining a 38-foot a birdie on the first hole.

1:08 p.m. ET: The leaders are off! And we have a hot round alert: Canadian Taylor Pendrith is three under through seven holes today, bringing him to six under overall and three shots off the lead.

12:47 p.m. ET: After parring the first hole, Harold Varner III remains six under overall — three shots off the lead.

12:37 p.m. ET: We’re less than a half hour away from the leaders teeing off! Should be an exciting day. Already seeing some early moves: Abraham Ancer is now T14, five under overall, after making two birdies in his first six holes.

11:15 a.m. ET: We’ll get this live blog fired up again when the leaders get to the tee box.

11:10 a.m. ET: Final round tee times began at 11 a.m. ET. The final grouping of Anirban Lahiri, Sebastián Muñoz and Doug Ghim goes off at 1:01 p.m. Paul Casey, Sam Burns and Cameron Smith are at 12:50 p.m. Check out full tee times here.

10:58 a.m. ET: And, finally, we have 54 holes complete at TPC Sawgrass. Only took until late Monday morning! Anirban Lahiri leads at nine under, and one back at eight under are Sebastian Munoz, Doug Ghim, Paul Casey and Sam Burns. Others: Cameron Smith and Tom Hoge are tied at seven under, and seven players — including Shane Lowry, Kevin Kisner, Louis Oosthuizen and Will Zalatoris — are all at six under.

10:39 a.m. ET: With the final group playing the 18th, it’s Lahiri leading at nine under, and four others (Sebastian Munoz, Doug Ghim, Paul Casey and Sam Burns) all tied at eight under. Burns has a chance on 18 to tie Lahiri. Final found tee times coming out soon!

10:25 a.m. ET: Anirban Lahiri leads alone. His third-round 67 featured seven birdies and just two bogeys as he looks to win on the PGA Tour for the first time. He will play in the final grouping this afternoon.

9:24 a.m. ET: Ace alert! Viktor Hovland cards a hole-in-one at the par-3 8th — his second eagle of the front nine — and now sits at four under for the championship.

9:15 a.m. ET: Louis Oosthuizen is lurking. Four back-nine birdies, including this nifty chip-in below, have vaulted him into the top 10 at Sawgrass.

8:52 a.m. ET: Sebastian Muñoz has posted at eight under and is the leader in the clubhouse. His third-round 65 is the round of the tournament thus far. He’s tied with Lahiri and Sam Burns, who still have some holes to complete in their third rounds.

8:03 a.m. ET: Play has officially restarted. The weather forecast looks promising for the rest of the day, and it should be a good one in Ponte Vedra. Let’s get after it.

7 a.m. ET: Happy Monday! We’ve got a rare Monday finish on the docket live from TPC Sawgrass. Golfers are getting set to resume their third rounds in about an hour and Anirban Lahiri is your current leader at nine under. Let’s have a day.

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The post The weirdness at this never-ending Players Championship? It’s only fitting. appeared first on Golf.

The post The weirdness at this never-ending Players Championship? It’s only fitting. appeared first on Golf.

There’s no Tiger, no Phil, no Rickie, no Bryson here. They were never in the field, as we’ve known for days.

But what about Collin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka or Xander Schauffele? Might they fill the void?

Nope.

They all missed the cut.

News

You already know that Sunday night did not close with a new Players Championship champion. Thursday’s rain, working hand-in-hand with Friday’s rain and Saturday’s rain, killed any chance of that happening. Why the PGA Tour can’t get a weather agreement with Mother Nature Inc. is hard to fathom. It has deals with most everybody else. But there it is.

The new champion — likely a player* who has never won a Players or a major — will be decided at the end of a long Monday. The third round should finish Monday morning. The fourth round will be played Monday afternoon, in threesomes, off two tees and without the customary grandeur this tournament prizes. 

What a way for a fella to win $3.6 million.

Not that Anirban Lahiri, Harold Varner, Sebastian Munoz, Cameron Smith, Sam Burns, Tom Hoge and other contenders are complaining.

*Yes, Francesco Molinari, Sergio Garcia and Shane Lowry** have all won Grand Slam events, and Garcia has won a Players. Any of them could win. But they are long shots.

**Shane Lowry, Irish winner of the 2019 British Open at Royal Portrush, made a hole-in-one on Sunday on 17 — a par-3, with an island green surrounded by a lake. Soon after, and with Lowry still on the course, PGA Tour officials, in concert with the good people at PGA Tour catering, generously put out a cooler filled with slender 12-ounce cans of Michelob Ultra on the mock-wood floor of the press-building café. Taped to the cooler was a sign: “Michelob Ultra courtesy of Shane Lowry. Thanks!!”

News

Well, thanks indeed, but it could be noted that Lowry was on the course at the time. Also, have you seen this Shane Lowry? He doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy who is going to sweat over the carb-count of his preferred beer.

So, yes, things are a little weird at this Players. Well, what did you expect for the PGA Tour’s so-called signature event in 2022? Men’s professional golf has been running on weirdness for two years now.

You know: the pandemic; Tiger Woods terrifying car crash last year; the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots and how they caused the relocation of this year’s PGA Championship from a Trump course, in New Jersey, to Southern Hills,  in Tulsa; the many reports about the prospect of an international tour, backed by the Saudi ruling class, is attempting to challenge the PGA Tour; the immolation of Mickelson, the reigning PGA Championship winner, by way of his pointed comments about both the PGA Tour and this Saudi-backed tour.

Enter your leader, through the 47 holes he has played, the hugely amiable Anirban Lahiri of India, age 34. His father is a gynecologist. We note that because it’s unusual. Justin Thomas’ father is a golf pro. That’s more common.

Lahiri is nine under par. Burns, who has played 45 holes, is seven under. He is playing the role, in this changing-of-the-guard theme, formerly played by Sean O’Hair. O’Hair was a quiet, hardworking, hard-on-himself mega-talent who caught Tiger’s eye. Burns is a quiet, hardworking, hard-on-himself mega-talent who caught Tiger’s eye. In 2007, when O’Hair had a one-shot lead in the Players through three rounds over Mickelson, it was an open secret on Tour that Woods was rooting for O’Hair in the finale. No saying who Woods is rooting for this year. He’s not doing any TV commentary, not that he would give much away if he did.

We can guess who Rory Sabbatini is rooting for. Lahiri! Sabbatini was paired with Lahiri last week at Bay Hill, when the third round was played on its traditional day, Saturday. Sabbatini withdrew from the tournament after 13 holes with a knee injury but walked the remaining five holes with Lahiri, just to keep him company. That’s a rare thing to happen — if it has ever happened! Sabbatini said later that he would have only done that for 20 percent of the players on Tour. Sabbo is a particular guy.

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Earlier on Sunday, Lahiri was asked about this odd-couple friendship. He said, “I came over early in 2016 and I played with Sabbo a few times. Sabbo’s Sabbo. There’s no one else like him. I kind of enjoy that. I played a lot of golf in Europe and Asia. Spent a lot of times with Aussies and South Africans, they’re all different, they have their own quirks, they have their own humor. More sarcasm, a little drier. I get it. I think Sabbo and I hit it off well in that sense.”

Lahiri spent several holes at Bay Hill trying to get Sabbatini to withdraw. He could see he wasn’t right. 

“I tried to tell him on the 9th to go home. He wouldn’t listen to me. On the 11th I called an official. He was like, ‘I can’t force him.’ But Sabbo was just adamant that he wouldn’t leave me out there.”

This guy is such a gem. Asked to compare the courses of his boyhood in India with TPC Sawgrass, he said this:

“I’ll invite you to come and play the courses I played growing up! It doesn’t compare.

“We do have some good golf courses in India, don’t get me wrong, but I grew up playing on Army golf courses. The first junior event I played at the age of 10 at Royal Calcutta Golf Club was the first time I ever played on a no-preferred-lie golf course. That’s what I grew up on, greens rolling about 6 [on the Stimpmeter] on a good day. This doesn’t really compare.”

The Royal Calcutta fairways were mown. Lahiri had never seen such a thing before. He asked his father to buy him a 7-wood, to help him get the ball in the air.

As for TPC Sawgrass, well, we all know what Hogan said about it: There are no 7-wood shots at TPC Sawgrass. But you do have to take some spin off the ball playing 17. Make a 1, but the press room some beer. Win the $3.6 mil, call a Grant Thornton advisor immediately.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com

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The post Why island-green 17th looks dramatically different at this year’s Players Championship … so far appeared first on Golf.

The post Why island-green 17th looks dramatically different at this year’s Players Championship … so far appeared first on Golf.

By 5 p.m. local time on Thursday, their blood lust had turned to utter frustration. For eight hours, they’d waited patiently in their perch surrounding the 17th tee box at the Players Championship. Now, it was becoming increasingly clear that they would leave TPC Sawgrass unfulfilled.

They’d outlasted the doldrums of the morning wave without hesitation, survived the afternoon rain storm, even withstood a forced evacuation of all but those seated in corporate hospitality. Now it was evening — the ninth hour of Michelob Ultra and Grey Goose consumption — and the masses had seen but a single sacrificial lamb.

On Thursday at the Players, more than 75 tee shots were struck on the 17th, and of those tee shots, only one wound up in the water.

Soon, a Canadian pro named Roger Sloan stepped up to the tee box, and the coliseum snapped to attention. As close to a hundred golfers had done before him, Sloan plunged his wedge into the ground and sent his ball flying toward the large, island green.

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It landed safely on the putting surface with a hard thud, then zipped back in Sloan’s direction. Within seconds, the ball was picking up steam, headed directly toward the island green’s wooded edge.

The crowd smelled blood, hooting with anticipation as it neared closer to the pond.

Suddenly, Sloan’s ball crashed into a small tuft of grass along the water’s edge and screeched to a stop. It’d remained in play by no more than eight inches.

The masses groaned.

“Oh, come on!” A spectator cried out.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Yelled another.

It was hard to blame them for their frustration. The 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass is typically renowned for its ability to create chaos. Last year, 35 players dumped their tee shots into the water during round one. In 2007, 50 players, or more than a third of the field, found the drink, the most ever.

On Thursday though, the 17th was renowned mostly for its alcohol selection. Of the 69 players who completed the first round Thursday, 44 of the made par on the 17th, and 13 made birdies. There were no aces, only 11 bogeys, and the yawning lake managed to claim only a single tee shot.

So what gives? Apparently, the greens.

“I’ve got to say these conditions are very much what I grew up in, rainy, muggy, soft conditions,” said Jon Rahm. “I couldn’t have imagined anything better for me to kind of get back into the groove.”

The weather saved Rahm (three under) from an uncharacteristically poor ball striking performance on Thursday. And, for those who did have their A-game, the soft, still conditions proved optimal for vaulting into early contention.

“I had ultimate control over the golf ball today,” said Kramer Hickok, who shot an opening round 67. “Conditions were very favorable for us. It was perfect scoring conditions for what this tournament can yield. Last year was super firm and fast, and this is about as soft and pristine as I think I’ve seen it.”

Without heavy rains curbing the 17th’s usual headlong winds and bouncy landing areas, the hole lost a glut of strategic bite through Thursday and the early portion of Friday.

“Really the only tough shot with soft greens was 17,” Keith Mitchell agreed. Mitchell, like Sloan, narrowly avoided spinning his tee shot off the front of the green.

“Yeah, it just spun pretty hard,” he said. “I hit it where I wanted to, just didn’t go … It’s so hard to keep it on the top shelf without spinning it down.”

But for fans preparing to enter the colossus at the island green this weekend, there is good news. As those who did find the water will tell you (through noon on Friday, the number stands at four), conditions might make a shot play easier, but they can’t make it feel easier.

“Well, I was s—ing my pants when I got up [to the drop zone] because the angle was just so bad,” said Harold Varner III, who was the lone water ball on the 17th Thursday. “I wasn’t sure. I got up there, and it was just a little funky, but I was more scared that it might go in the water again. When it was coming down, I was like, ‘not another one.'”

For those headed to the island green this weekend, might Varner provide a word of advice?

Prepare your pitchforks, the show is about to begin.

“I’ve seen it a thousand times. Just happened to be me this time,” he said. “There will be more balls in there. Might be mine. Might be someone else’s.”

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Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.

Either way, though, this week’s tournament is a big event for gamblers, featuring the strongest field in golf on an iconic course, with 22 hours of coverage on NBC and Golf Channel, and oodles more on the PGA Tour’s live streaming platforms.

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Justin Thomas is the defending champ. Along with Jon Rahm, he’s also a favorite on the betting board, followed by Collin Morikawa, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, and . . .

The roster of A-listers runs deep. Even in the absence of Bryson DeChambeau, who has withdrawn due to injury, 47 of the top 50 players in the world will be on hand, making it a tough contest to handicap. That the forecast calls for volatile weather only adds to the vagaries.

Good thing we’ve got help from Erick Lindgren, GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator. After a narrow miss last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where his wager on Hovland to win fell one stroke short, Lindgren is back at it under the same conditions: we’re giving him a $1,000 gambling budget (just play money), and he’s giving us his top 5 plays for the tournament, which kicks off Thursday at TPC Sawgrass, in Ponte Vedra. 

(Looking to play any of these bets yourself? We teamed with BetMGM and the online sports book is offering a Risk-Free Bet of up to $1,000.)

Hideki Matsuyama to win, +2,800 (wager: $300)

Lindgren has long been high on Hideki, especially since Matsuyama’s win at the Masters. “He just doesn’t seem to have off weeks anymore and his putter looks so much better,” Lindgren says. “He has the history and the ability to deal with the conditions to bring this one home.”

Corey Conners to win, +5,000 (wager: $100)

Despite a slow start last week, Conners still worked his way into the mix at Bay Hill, only to be derailed by a few untimely swings. The Canadian is going to break through before long. “Let’s take a shot on him here,” Lindgren says.

Zach Johnson, top 20, +700 (wager $200)

Wet, windy, and cold conditions should favor grit and gumption, and few players have more of both than Johnson, who — let’s not forget — captured his green jacket in foul weather.  “This is a good time to back the 2023 Ryder Cup captain,” Lindgren says.

Si Woo Kim, top 10, +600 (wager: $200)

In golf, the past is often prologue. A former winner here, Kim, Lindgren says, has a strong history on Dye courses, and he arrives at Sawgrass in fine form.

Alex Noren, top 5, +1,600 (wager: $200)

Lindgren is all in on grinders this week, and Noren fits that bill. “His game is rising at the right time,” Lindgren says. “Let’s take advantage of the long price here.”

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The post The *second* scariest shot in golf? Brooks Koepka had a surprising answer appeared first on Golf.

The post The *second* scariest shot in golf? Brooks Koepka had a surprising answer appeared first on Golf.

But there is at least one thing that makes Koepka swallow hard: the island-green par-3 17th at TPC Sawgrass.

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A short-iron to the largest green on the course would seem like an ask Koepka could pull off in his sleep, but in five career Players Championship starts, Koepka’s results on the 17th have been nothing short of nightmarish. In 19 tournament rounds, he has played the hole in a cumulative 15 over par, a run that has included one triple, two doubles, two quads and seven water balls. Koepka did find a sure-fire way to avoid disaster at last year’s Players: by staying home. (A knee injury kept him out of the field.)

This week, Koepka is playing another hazard-laden course, PGA National, site of the Honda Classic. Ahead of the tournament, he was asked to reflect not on the scariest shot in golf — because “it’s generally accepted that the tee shot on 17 at TPC Sawgrass can be the scariest,” the inquiring reporter said — but the second scariest. The tee shot at 12 at Augusta? The blast from the Road Hole bunker? The approach on Pebble Beach’s par-4 8th, hard against the Cliffs of Doom?    

Koepka didn’t hesitate.

“The drop zone from 17, because I’ve been there a lot,” he said, referring again to Sawgrass. “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve played that hole — if they throw that stat up, who’s played it the worst over the last five years, it’s probably me. Yeah, I haven’t played that hole very well. But the second — the drop zone up there, that’s probably the second.”

Instruction

Koepka’s not alone in his thinking. The shot from the drop zone is a nervy 80-yard pitch that requires players to pick the ball just-so to apply the right spin to get close to the hole, especially when the pin is on the back-left corner of the green, as it was in the first round last year. In fact, getting the ball close to that hole location is so challenging that Golf Channel’s commentators debated on the air last year whether it might make sense for players to re-tee instead of drop.  

“I like this decision,” Paul Azinger said from the booth. “With the pin where it is, the angle from the drop zone is terrible. And you just hit the shot so you know what you did wrong.” (You can read more about the pros and cons of that strategy here from my colleague Luke Kerr-Dineen.)

Ask Bob Tway. At the 2005 Players, he dunked his tee shot on 17 before infamously splashing three more balls from the drop zone. After his fourth pitch finally found terra firma, Tway three-putted for a 12, still the worst score on 17 in Players history. 

“It’s a tough one,” Phil Mickelson said of the drop-zone pitch in 2013. “It’s easy to just knock it on to the middle of the green and accept your 5, but that’s not easy to do when you’ve just knocked one into the water.”

Koepka is healthy again, and showing signs of life with his third-place finish in Phoenix two weeks ago. He missed the cut at Riviera last week, but opened with a two-under 70 at always-dangerous PGA National that left him within chasing distance of the leaders. The Players Championship is in two weeks. It would be no surprise if a certain hole isn’t already occupying real estate in Koepka’s brain.   

Want to overhaul your bag for 2022? Find a fitting location near you at GOLF’s affiliate company True Spec Golf. 

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If you’re looking for the ultimate golf splurge with your partner this year, TPC Sawgrass, host of the upcoming Players Championship, has you covered. The “Links of Love” package includes three nights of luxury accommodations at the Sawgrass Marriott Resort & Spa Villas.

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What can you expect? Once you check in, you’ll be treated to complimentary champagne, chocolate golf balls (!) and TPC-embroidered robes and slippers. You’ll have access to two bikes for the duration of your stay, get rounds of golf for two at the Players Stadium Course and Dye’s Valley course.

For your meals, you’ll enjoy a fresh, continental-cuisine lunch at Nineteen on the restaurant’s expansive patio, where you can take in the view of the Stadium course’s 18th green, and a five-course dinner with wine pairings on the Ponte Vedra balcony.

After your rounds, you can indulge in two 50-minute massages and two 80-minute signature facials at the spa (gratuity included!). To top it all off, you’ll also take a private sailboat ride out of St. Augustine, complete with wine and hors d’oeuvres. Transportation to and from the airport is also available, if needed.

The best part? You can book the package until February 28, and have until December 31 to take your trip.

Ready to book? The experience is yours for just … $9,604! Click here for more information.

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