The Players Championship
The Players Championship
Mar 09, 2026The Players Championship
Another week, another case of ‘close but no cigar’ for us at both Bay Hill and Puerto Rico. Heading in to Sunday we had three selections in the frame across the two events, Sepp Straka and Ludvig Aberg at Bay Hill and Matti Schmid in Puerto Rico. Straka who was our best placed at Bay Hill heading in to Sunday unfortunately struggled with a three putt on nine signalling the beginning of his undoing. It was left then for Aberg to fly our flag as he he charged through the field. Unfortunately though he could not quite get the putts to drop down the stretch.
The event then as it had looked like being heading in to Sunday became a dual between Daniel Berger who had lead all the way through the week and Akshay Bhatia and with Bhatia finally getting level on the penultimate hole they went to extra time before Akshay clinched it.
Over in Puerto Rico meanwhile Ricky Castillo bagged a maiden tour win. Our man Schmid was unable to get anything of note going on Sunday and in the end I was grateful for a decent share of the place money.
So, moving on and the Tour now head about 180 miles North East to Ponte Vedre Beach, Jacksonville and to what is arguably my favourite week of the year on the PGA Tour, The Players Championship.
TPC Sawgrass opened in 1980 and the stadium course has been host to the Players Championship since 1982.
As is always the case the field is a stellar one with the market headed up by d Scottie Scheffler of course. Scheffler is then followed in the market by Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood and Xander Schauffele.
COURSE
The course is a Par 72 and measures just under 7200 yards.
TPC Sawgrass is the jewel in the crown of the Pete Dye’s designs used on the PGA Tour. Other Dye designs used regularly on Tour include Hilton Head the home of the RBC Heritage, TPC River Highlands home of the Travelers and the Stadium Course used for two rounds of the Amex event played in the Californian desert.
After the 2016 edition the greens were changed from Miniverde Bermuda to TiffEagle Bermuda.
In 2020 there was a further change to the greens as they were over seeded with Velvet Bent/Poa Trivialis.
After the 2016 edition a course redesign took place, which as well as seeing the greens being re planted saw the 5th, 6th & 12th holes undergo changes.
The most noticeable of these was the changes made on the 12th which saw it become a driveable par 4.
One hole that wasn’t changed though was the Par 3 17th which is one of the most iconic holes in world golf.
Measuring 137 yards this hole really should be no more than a pitch and putt hole for the players and if it wasn’t surrounded by water it surely would be.
However when the players arrive on the tee to the sight of the big blue lake and the huge galleries, their minds start to play all sorts of tricks on them and even on the calmest of days you’ll see balls going in the water.
When the wind does blow it becomes a real monster [as does the whole course] and all sorts of havoc occurs!
The Par 3 17th is part of a fantastic overall finish to the course with eagles being possible on the Par 5 16th, huge numbers being possible on the 17th, and finally the 18th, the toughest hole on the course to finish.
With this finish no lead is too big on Sunday afternoon coming in to this stretch and you can see big comebacks [Rickie of course] and real disasters [remember Sean O’Hair.]
HISTORY
As mentioned above the event has been held at the Stadium Course, TPC Sawgrass since 1982.
For the majority of this time the event was held in mid to late March, however in 2007 the event date was changed to the second weekend in May.
The main reasons behind this at the time were twofold, firstly to give the PGA Tour’s flagship event more of its own identity, rather than it being seen as a warm up to the Masters and secondly to move the event to a statistically dryer time of year so that they could get the course playing firmer and faster as the design had intended.
Moving on ten years though and a decision was made as part of a reshuffle to the PGA Tour Calendar to revert TPC back to its historical slot in March from last year.
So let’s take a look at the last winners since 2011;
2025 Rory McIlroy
2024 Scottie Scheffler
2023 Scottie Scheffler
2022 Cameron Smith
2021 Justin Thomas
2019 Rory McIlroy
2018 Webb Simpson
2017 Si Woo Kim
2016 Jason Day
2015 Rickie Fowler
2014 Martin Kaymer
2013 Tiger Woods
2012 Matt Kuchar
2011 KJ Choi
Over the years of the event it is fair to say that a very clear pattern had emerged of an identikit winner and if I had been writing this preview in the lead up to the 2015 edition I would have been pretty bullish of the credentials of player we should be looking for.
To outline this let’s look at the ten winners from 2005 to 2014. These were as follows;
F Funk, S Ames, P Mickelson, S Garcia, H Stenson, T Clark, KJ Choi, M Kuchar, T Woods & M Kaymer.
So what do these players have in common? Not a lot you’d think on first glance however in relation to Sawgrass form it is quite striking.
Firstly they had all played in the event on multiple occasions building up a bank of course experience.
Secondly they had all notched previous high finishes in the event with KJ Choi’s 16th place being the worst ‘previous high finish’ any of these players had. All bar Kaymer, Kuchar & KJ Choi had a previous top 10.
Thirdly all bar Ames had made the cut the previous year at the event.
However, since 2014 these stats have been diluted slightly in that both the 2015 & 2016 winners Fowler & Day had missed the cut the previous year, however both had made five starts in the event and both had a previous top 10 finish.
2017 winner Si Woo Kim then won the event on only his second start, something unheard of over the previous decade plus. Although it should be noted that he did finish 23rd on his debut the previous year so we can at least say he had taken to the course.
In 2018 however the formula pretty much returned with Webb Simpson’s victory.
Webb had, like many winners before him, made multiple starts in the event and he had posted his best finishes of 15th and 16th in the event over his previous four visits, the latter of, which had come the year before in 2017.
On to 2019, and the trophy was bagged by Rory McIlroy. Rory’s win fitted this profile on two fronts in that he had made numerous previous starts in the event posting three consecutive top tens from 2013 through to 2015. He had however missed the cut here in 2018 on his previous visit to winning .
With the 2020 event cancelled due to the Covid pandemic we move on to 2021 and the winner Justin Thomas ticked all of the ‘formula’ boxes in relation to course form in that he had made five previous starts including a best of third place and had made the cut here the previous year posting a solid 35th place, all of, which as longer term readers will remember, lead to us being onboard!
Next we have the 2022 winner Cameron Smith who was making his fifth start here. Smith had produced his best finish here the previous year when finishing 17th so again we have the same pattern of a bank of course history with one strong finish.
When first winning in 2023 Scottie Scheffler bucked the trend some what. Obviously as one of the worlds best players, Scheffler is more than capable of bucking trends at any time, however with just two starts at Sawgrass with finishes of MC 55 to his name prior to last year he wasn’t on my radar coming in to the week. In 2024 when defending though we of course had the course form at least in the history banks!
Finally to bring us up to date when winning here for the second time last year Rory McIlroy very much fitted the profile with a great bank of course form and he had finished 19th the year before.
One other thing that is of huge significance in identifying the winner over the years is recent form coming in with the winners having a really solid outing in their previous start to their victory here; To expand this further here is a table showing the finishing positions of the winners again going back to 2011 in their start prior to lifting the trophy here.
2025 Rory McIlroy 15
2024 Scottie Scheffler 1
2023 Scottie Scheffler 4
2022 Cameron Smith 33
2021 Justin Thomas 15
2019 Rory McIlroy 3
2018 Webb Simpson 21
2017 Si Woo Kim 22
2016 Jason Day 5
2015 Rickie Fowler 9
2014 Martin Kaymer 18
2013 Tiger Woods 4
2012 Matt Kuchar 13
2011 KJ Choi 3
As you can see all had made the cut and the worst finish of any of the winners noted in their previous start was 33rd by Cameron Smith at the Genesis in 2022. Smith had though already won once in the calendar year at the Sentry just three starts prior so clearly confidence was still on a high.
There is also one other thing that connects some of the historical winners and that’s as follows….
As we know TPC is sometimes referred to as the ‘fifth major’ and it has certainly caught my eye over the years that the winners have often been players who were/are pedigree players on the world stage, had played Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup, and/or were considered potential major winners/had come close in majors on occasions, but at the time of winning TPC they hadn’t quite been able to get over the line [or indeed still haven’t.]
This list going back to 2010 includes Tim Clark, KJ Choi, Garcia, Stenson, Kuchar, Fowler and prior of course to his win at St Andrews in the summer, Smith.
Finally there is also so something about Sawgrass that has helped return some of these names to the winners enclosure after a lean period with regards to victories.
To clarify if we again look at the last ten winners we find the following;
Prior to Scheffler’s first win only five of these winners, Smith, Thomas, Si Woo Kim in 2017, Jason Day in 2016 and Tiger in 2013 had won on tour over the previous twelve months with Scheffler, Smith, Tiger and Day having won earlier that calendar year.
Of the remainder McIlroy was posting his first win in just over 12 months since his 2018 API triumph, 2018 winner Simpson was winless since 2014, 2015 winner Fowler hadn’t won since the 2012 Wells Fargo, Kaymer and Kuchar were winless in approximately eighteen months, KJ Choi in over three years. In addition if we go back a further year 2010 champion Tim Clark was tasting victory for the first time on the PGA Tour and over a year after he bagged the Australian Open.
So in summary what [or who] are we looking for statically is for an experienced player with on average 5 starts at Sawgrass, a previous top 20 finish, [preferably top 10] who is a big time player with Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup experience who is in strong form coming in but who has struggled to post a victory of late.
Finally, over the last ten years the winning score has ranged from -18 [Webb Simpson in 2018] to -10 [Si Woo Kim in 2017] with the average being around -13.
WEATHER FORECAST
We look set for a dry week as a whole with temperatures in the mid to high 70s. Thursday does show the possibility of a storm later in the day as I write though while Sunday shows the potential for a shower.
Wind, which is regularly a factor here looks like it will play its part to a certain extent with gusts of over 20mph in the forecast on Thursday and Friday in particular.
As I always so though this could all change!
PICKS
I have gone with six players this week as follows;
COLLIN MORIKAWA – 18/1 – 2.5pts E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8 - WD Day 1 - Injury
First up this week I will start with Collin Morikawa.
It is often the case that current form is the order of the day at Sawgrass. In simple terms if you are playing well coming in to the week then Sawgrass can look pretty straightforward, basically finding fairways and greens. If you are off however then Pete Dye’s angles will mess with your head and you can soon rack up big numbers.
From that point of view then Morikawa who since returning to the winners closure at Pebble Beach, has stayed hot, makes obvious appeal.
The key to Collin’s return to form has been his trademark iron play, he currently ranks fifth on tour in approach play for the season. In addition if we look at his weeks work at Bay Hill he ranked 13th on the greens, usually his weak link, ninth off the tee and 22nd around the greens so everything was in good working order.
Like many before him it has taken Morikawa time to get to grips with TPC Sawgrass however he produced his best finish here to date last year when tenth. This gives him a perfect profile in line with many who have triumphed here over the years.
All in all then everything points to a big week for the two time Major Champion and I am keen to be on board.
SI WOO KIM – 25/1 – 2pts E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 10 - FINISHED 50th
Next up while the layers aren’t giving anything away it is impossible to overlook the obvious credentials of Si Woo Kim.
A former champion here when producing a shock win in 2017 Si Woo has gone on to be something of a course and indeed a Pete Dye specialist, notching two further top tens here in 2021 and 2024 and bagging the trophy at the American Express, which features Dye’s sister course to here the Stadium Course.
Any year Si Woo returns here then he has to be on the short list however this year he returns in the midst of a really consistent season, which has seen him post three top tens and two further top 15 finishes in seven starts.
The key to the South Korean’s season so far has been his approach play, he ranks second for the year to date in that department. The weak link as always has been on the greens however if he is going to ‘spike’ on that front anywhere this is likely to be the place.
With repeat winners here not uncommon Si Woo looks primed for another big week on his favourite track and I am keen to be onboard.
VIKTOR HOVLAND – 33/1 – 2pts E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8 - FINISHED 13th
Viktor Hovland’s most recent triumph came in Florida at the Valspar and there are signs that a return to the Sunshine State could see him adding another trophy to his cabinet.
Viktor started his 2026 PGA campaign with a solid tenth place finish in Phoenix on another TPC course, which requires strong tee to green play and after a couple of low key efforts he then found some mojo again last week at Bay Hill on his way to 13t place.
A look at Viktor’s week at Bay Hill shows us that he ranked 14th in approach play and with him ranking 13th as a whole for the season on that front his iron play is clearly firing.
Turning to the Norwegian’s record at Sawgrass he is another with the perfect profile to triumph here with a best of third in five previous starts in the event giving us the previous high finish we are looking for.
Viktor’s weak link this season has been with the driver however TPC Sawgrass is a course where you can take plenty of iron’s for position off the tee. Hopefully then this will allow Viktor’s iron play to flourish and if so I can see him having a really big week.
SEPP STRAKA – 40/1 – 1.5pts E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8 - FINISHED T8th
Another player with obvious credentials this week is Sepp Straka.
As you may have picked up by now there is a theme running through our team this week of players known as ‘strong ball strikers’ and Sepp certainly fits that bill.
We were onboard with Sepp at Bay Hill last week and there is no denying that his Sunday closing effort was disappointing as he tumbled down the board from third to 13th.
We shouldn’t let that detract from the fact though that it was another strong week from the Austrian as he posted his third top 20 of the season in to go with his best of second place at Pebble Beach.
As always with Sepp the key to his solid form is his tee to green play. He currently ranks 15th on tour in approach and was sixth in that area at Bay Hill. His putter also warmed up to a certain extent at Bay Hill as he ranked 30th, a big improvement on his seasons ranking of 118th to date.
Like Si Woo Kim, Sepp is a former champion at the American Express while he has three top 16 finishes, with a best of ninth, in five previous outings at Sawgrass.
I’ll take Straka then to be a big threat once more this week on a course we know is a great fit for him.
JORDAN SMITH – 150/1 – 1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 10. - FINISHED MC
Having started our team with four fairly obvious selections I will round things off with a couple more speculative plays starting with Jordan Smith.
Smith has made a solid start to life on the PGA Tour making four of his five cuts with his best effort of 16th coming on a TPC layout in Phoenix.
Known for his strengths from tee to green Smith should really be an ideal fit for Sawgrass and it was encouraging to see him finish 27th at the American Express where he posted two solid rounds on the Dye design.
Arriving off the back of another good week when finishing 23rd at the Cognizant I can see Jordan thriving on his Sawgrass debut.
MATTI SCHMID – 175/1 – 1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 12 - FINISHED 46th
Finally in an event which saw the unheralded at the time JJ Spaun, along with Bud Cauley and Danny Walker make the frame I am happy to roll the dice on a big priced play in Matti Schmid.
We were on Schmid of course last week at much more restrictive odds in the opposite field event and it is fair to say it was slightly disappointing to see him stall on Sunday.
As we know though golf is a funny old game, I remember for example watching Davis Riley miss the cut at Myrtle Beach last year only for him to post a top five the following week at the PGA Championship, and arriving with two top tens there is nothing to say Matti cant thrive again this week.
Arriving In good form then however it is his comparable course form that really peaks my interest. Sixth at the Amex in 2023 and third at TPC Summerlin in 2024 are exactly what we are looking for.
I’ll wrap things up for the week then with chancing Matti to continue his current good run and threaten the places at big each way odds.