The PLAYERS Championship is often referred to as the PGA Tour’s fifth major, and rightfully so. The designated events have changed the landscape a bit, but the world’s best make their way to the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Verda Beach, Florida, for a tremendous test of their all-around game. This event purse is a bit bigger than the designated events we’ve seen this season, and the Golden Boy trophy is still one that the world’s best want on their mantle when it’s all said and done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This traditional par 72 layout forces the field to be dialed in up and down the bag in order to have a chance to win come Sunday afternoon. Play your best for four days, and you’ll have a shot. There’s not one particular type of player or skill set that wins at TPC Sawgrass more than others, so for handicapping purposes, we’re taking a highly variant sport and adding another level of unpredictability to it. Fun!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This Pete Dye-designed layout brings water into play on 17 of the 18 holes and features numerous doglegs that limit a bomber’s advantage off the tee. Avoiding the water, and the crooked numbers that come with it, are keys to success this week. Driving accuracy is a common denominator when looking at past leaderboards for this event, as it is at other Pete Dye tracks like Harbour Town, TPC River Highlands, and Stadium West, but this event moved from May to March (which happened in 2019) throws a wet blanket on that narrative a bit, in my opinion. Not only are the greens softer at this time of year, but the grabby nature of bermudagrass rough is mitigated a skosh in March due to the overseeding necessary at this time of year. Missing the fairway or green is never ideal, but it’s less penial than it used to be because the unpredictable nature of the lie caused by the bermudagrass has decreased with the overseeding that March brings to a Florida golf course. Knowing when and where to be aggressive for scoring opportunities goes a long way. You also have to be comfortable eating your vegetables on this course, accepting that par is a good score on most holes, and moving along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For more course details, check out Ron’s<\/a> course preview<\/a>. It’s the best in the business, bar none. Here’s an important tidbit about TPC Sawgrass:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Visually, TPC Sawgrass is one of the most perfectly manicured courses in the world. From the lush rough to the elaborately designed white sand bunkers to the 16 holes framed with water to the lightning-fast tiered greens, players will face challenges on every hole. There are few other courses that can match its risk\/reward brilliance. Tee shots on the angled fairways are well-designed and encourage golfers to hit toward the trouble for the least obstructed approach shots into the demanding greens. It’s a course where any type of player can win. Pretenders are quickly weeded out. Errors get compounded in a hurry. Players that are strong mentally, who have an all-around game, and who enter with sharp form typically have the best chance of surviving the torture chamber. It sounds cliche, but here at Sawgrass, the best overall player for the week raises the trophy on Sunday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the biggest themes on PLAYERS leaderboards is driving accuracy. Keeping the ball in play and avoiding the bunkers, tree lines, and water hazards is crucial. TPC Sawgrass had the fourth-most penalty strokes on Tour off the tee last year. Wayward misses that find one of these trouble areas cost players more than 0.25 strokes. Dye devilishly positioned many of the hazards in conformity with the angle of the green to encourage players to hit toward the trouble areas. This requires players to have an actual game plan on each hole where they must choose a side of the fairway to either attack or play conservatively. Even with so many golfers clubbing down off the tee, driving accuracy is still below the Tour average at only 60%. We will have to wait and see how much the 3.5-inch rough penalizes players this year compared to the 2.5-inch in years past.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n My goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting this week. There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game, so I’ll share my opinion on the best way to bet on each golfer in my player pool at this week’s event. When pricing out finishing position bets (T5, T10, T20s, etc.), I’ll often lean towards BetMGM<\/a> even if there’s a better number elsewhere because of MGM’s advantageous dead-heat rules. So know the rules of the books that you’re betting on! <\/p>\n\n\n\n