The reason I believe these weekly player quotes articles are so important is that they are “primary source” pieces of relevant information from the actual participants experiencing the course. As third-party observers, we can obviously arrive at conclusions on how a course plays and use statistics to back those up. There is nothing better than hearing from the players themselves, though, especially this week. With THE PLAYERS Championship running at marathon pace, research time is short. Let the players’ own words, along with this course and statistical preview, be your guide.
Among the common themes from past interviews regarding the Copperhead course at Innisbrook is the importance of accuracy and clubbing down off the tee, playing strategic positional golf, having the ability to shape shots in both directions, and being tested in every area of one’s game. Ball-striking and hitting mid-to-long irons from 175+ yards were also brought up in numerous instances.
On the Course in General
Paul Casey: It’s a great golf course. I think it’s one of the best we play on Tour. Might be the best one we play on the Florida swing. You know I like it because I’m defending champion. Champions always like the golf courses they win on. But it’s really quality. It’s very tough as well. The difference between hitting the green and landing just short, the dispersion of where the shots finish is high. There’s a premium on ball striking. Scoring’s never that low around here. Bogeys do happen. Very rarely on this Copperhead Course do you face the same direction twice. So you’re always having to make slight adjustments for the wind and then you can’t quite figure it out. It’s a difficult golf course.
Kevin Streelman: Got to put it in the right spots. As we know on this golf course, you’ll make some bogies pretty quickly. A lot of players would say, their favorite course in Florida that we play. They love it because of shot playability. You hit everything from 4-iron to driver off the tees, shape them in both directions. You have par-5s you can go for and some you lay back. You’ve got par-3s. You have to be so exact where you leave it. There’s no let-up out there but it’s very fair at the same time. You got to step up and hit a golf shot. You got to step up on 16 and hit a great drive. There’s little room to bail. You got to man up and hit golf shots out there.
Zach Johnson: The beauty of this golf course is that we have seen individuals that hit it left-to-right, right-to-left, maul it and absolutely kill it and guys that plot their way around. We’ve seen Jim Furyk win. Sean O’Hair hits it long. Paul Casey is not short. So we have seen every style of golf win here and that’s the beauty of a really good golf course. I feel like it separates and rewards quality golf.
Jordan Spieth: This course, it’s a very difficult golf course, it’s definitely tougher than average. If you see guys that come out and play well here, they’re likely to play well on the harder courses and the bigger tournaments just because that kind of course suits their game more. You have to work the ball both ways here. It requires all sorts of shots, punch-shots, launching it in the air, and obviously some discipline on the greens. It’s tough to hit the fairways and the greens. Greens in regulation will be a very important stat.
Justin Thomas: The golf course is right in front of you. It’s not anything that’s tricked up. It’s not anything that’s hidden. It’s all right there. It’s one of those places you can shoot over par so quickly. It’s a great test. I like golf courses like that, but at the same time, you can’t just kind of slap it around. It’s a ball striker’s course. You need to be playing well and have control of your ball.
Keegan Bradley: I think that this golf course requires a lot of good ball-striking a lot of shot shaping off the tee and into the greens and there are some tough shots that sort of help out a guy that might be good at his numbers, hitting quality shots, and normally that’s what I do best. So on paper, this is a great spot for me.
Charl Schwartzel: The more I played it, I felt like it’s a golf course where you need sort of experience to play. You need to learn how to play this golf course. It looks like an easy course, but man, the way you’ve got to shape the shots, the way you’ve got to think, the variety of clubs you use, it’s just a really good golf course. You’ve got to really think your way around it. You’ve got to bring a good game here to compete.
Matt Kuchar: I think Innisbrook is one of my favorite courses we play throughout the year. It requires kind of all facets of the game to be working. It’s such a unique course for Florida. They have got some great undulations and some nice elevation changes.
Adam Hadwin: I think the big key around this place, which I think I do very well, I don’t make a lot of big numbers and just kind of calm, steady golf is what I like to do and I think that fits very well here for the Copperhead Course.
On Being a Positional Course Off the Tee
Justin Thomas: You see the narrow fairway out there and you’ve got to hit it, and if you don’t, you get out of position, you’re really just trying to somehow make a par. You hit it in the fairway to where you can put the ball where you want on the greens. You shoot a couple under each day, you’re going to be doing pretty good.
Ryan Moore: I like that it has angles. It’s not, there’s not a lot of gimmie tee shots on this golf course. There’s always trouble, you have to control the golf ball and curve it the proper direction and I think that kind of suits my game. I’m a little bit more of a control guy, not super long, so playing a golf course where accuracy really, really matters, seems to help me.
Henrik Stenson: It’s a course where you position yourself off the tee quite a lot, you have to lay back unless you really want to try and thread a few of the tee shots out there. So, quite a few 2-irons and 4-woods, 3-woods off the tee.
Jordan Spieth: The course plays longer than the yardage, no doubt about it. But I enjoy the challenge. You really have to be in the fairway out here and so whatever it takes to put it there, whether it’s driver or you got to go back to a hybrid or 2-iron.
John Senden: You need to play pretty solid golf to do well around here because it’s narrow in spots, the greens are smaller. You know, it’s a very strategic golf course. I think you see players that say the veteran players that play win around here because it’s not totally a bomber’s golf course. It’s narrow. It’s different. If you’re smart around here you can actually do really well. Here you see more tree line. Even if you do lay it back a little bit here you can still score well.
On the Approach Game
Bubba Watson: Started messing around with stats and looking at it and Teddy texted me—to play good around here you’re going to have to play boring golf. So you have to pick and choose your battles and around here it wasn’t so much of putting as it was hitting the greens in regulation. So trying to hit fairways or hit wherever you can to get on the green. It’s about greens in regulation here we figured out and so you had to just kind of plot along and that’s kind of what I did.
Paul Casey: This golf course is kind of a 175-to-200-plus golf course, and that’s what I do well. There’s a premium here on sort of medium to long irons into greens. This isn’t the longest golf course. Quite a few guys hit irons and you’re forced to hit irons off some of the tees. Guys hit irons off things like 2 and 3. But the par-3s are long and those approaches into—the second shots into a lot of those par-4s are requiring 175-to-200-plus shots in.
Daniel Berger: You got to hit your long irons well because you’re going to have a few of them coming into par-4s and par-5s. I’m used to South Florida, born and raised. It gets windy out there.
Henrik Stenson: It’s a little bit longer irons into the greens which are pretty small and kind of sits at an angle towards you quite a lot so you want to try to keep it underneath the hole because I can only imagine the kind of quick putts you can get if you end up in the wrong place or chipping from the wrong place.
On the Greens, Putting and Short Game
Paul Casey: I like slopey greens, these are very, very difficult greens, but that’s the way I kind of like them. It’s why I play well at places like Augusta as well. The greens are so firm, you can’t get a tee in the ground to repair a ball mark. You need one of those metal pitch mark repairers.
Jim Furyk: I’d say the one thing here, you do get a lot of greens that have quite a bit of pitch and slope to them, especially back to front, and so you have to hit some putts here that feed to the hole. You get a lot of six-footers here that are more than a cup of break and you don’t see a lot of that in Florida as well. You get a lot of right edge and left edge, ball out, inside right. Here you have to fit a lot of putts that really feed into the hole and that helps a little bit for getting ready for Augusta.
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