Situated off historic A1A in Ponte Vedra Seaside, Florida lies each the headquarters to the PGA Tour in addition to the crown jewel within the TPC community of golf programs, TPC Sawgrass. TPC Sawgrass can be the host of what’s been dubbed the fifth main, the Gamers Championship. The course is an incredible check of golf that was revolutionary in its design when it opened again in 1980.
The stadium course was designed by legendary golf course architect Pete Dye. It’s a design that leaves first time guests and gamers in both shock or awe. To start with PGA Tour gamers had been utterly turned off by the design with one participant famously saying “Pete Dye had ruined a wonderfully good swamp.” The participant was proper in a technique in that the 400+ acre property was a swamp that was transformed right into a golf course. Quite a lot of earth was moved on this design creating closely contoured fairways, huge waste areas, elevated mounds for spectator viewing and bulkheads, a lot of bulkheads in all places. In a 2009 interview with Forbes, Pete Dye briefly mentioned the design together with how he got here up with the thought for the well-known seventeenth gap island inexperienced.
Over time following its opening, Dye made some tweaks to the inexperienced contours and some different parts of the course to make a extra honest check of golf. Moreover, conditioning is now all the time at a premium. The course could also be greatest described now as a diabolical backyard. For the world’s greatest professionals, the general course stays a begin to end nice check of golf. Nevertheless, the end stays probably the most stringent check the gamers may even see all yr and arguably probably the most thrilling and electrifying for followers.
For myself, having an opportunity to play the course and stroll the property throughout Gamers Championship week, I discover my thoughts wandering forward to holes 16, 17, and 18. Sure, they’re iconic and also you need to see them your self in individual. But, as a participant, you marvel should you might fare higher or worse than among the world’s greatest. As a spectator, it’s simply nice leisure to spend time at these three holes. Whether or not you’re watching the ultimate group come via with the match on the road, or you might be tenting out and watching a lot of teams come via, the drama is electrical on a regular basis.
The sixteenth gap is a brief Par 5 of about 530 yards. With any drive within the fairway, it’s choice time. One should layup or go for the small slim inexperienced in two. What makes this gap nice is that the layup can be an issue with a waste bunker and a cluster of oak timber blocking the way in which on the left. It will make a participant layup again into the 150 yard vary which leaves no straightforward shot in. This design forces the layup into a really slim sliver of fairway in entrance of the inexperienced. For the professionals, many bail out to the left of the inexperienced hoping to get an honest lie and have an opportunity of getting up and down for birdie. A bravely and completely executed 2nd shot into this inexperienced provides the participant a shot at making eagle and makes 16 a serious swing gap with a historical past of two plus shot swings among the many leaders.
In the case of the island inexperienced seventeenth at TPC Sawgrass, no phrases can do justice and aptly describe the drama. For the participant, there is no such thing as a bailout. It’s a must to stand and ship. For the spectators, it’s time to sit down and get out your popcorn and benefit from the present. The seventeenth is a gap that may intimidate and fluster the world’s greatest. Main champion Bob Tway has the unlucky notoriety of creating the best rating on the outlet again in 2005 when he scored a 12. Hey, a minimum of he completed the outlet as a result of many an newbie golfer has emptied their total bag of golf balls on this gap by no means safely reaching the inexperienced.
One soiled little secret about TPC Sawgrass is that the hardest of the three ending holes for gamers is definitely the Par 4 18th that performs 472 yards from the professional tees. Anybody who has stood on the 18th tee is aware of about it as the green seems to be like a skinny inexperienced slim ribbon of grass that’s merely a border between a large lake on the left and excessive tough and timber on the correct. Some gamers will bail out to the correct tough basically surrendering par in an opportunity to make a bogey and transfer on. Gamers who do hit the green, should tackle a slim inexperienced with water on the left. There may be basically no good bailout with mounds and excessive tough defending the inexperienced quick and to the correct.
There can be just one champion on the 2023 Gamers Championship. That participant may have definitely navigated the three nice ending holes at TPC Sawgrass considerably unscathed. Nevertheless, the true winners would be the followers who can be handled to the good golf theater by the gamers who tackle the problem on the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 18th holes.
