THE PLAYERS: While its informal status as golf’s Fifth Major has taken a bit of a hit over the past couple of years with so many defections to LIV, there’s no denying that The Players Championship is still one of the premier events in the sport, with an elite field and a $25 million purse that is the largest on the PGA Tour.
And, of course, there’s the venue, the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, one of the most iconic tracks in the world and one that features what is surely the most famous shot in golf: the approach to the island green par-3 17th. Over the decades that little 140-yard pitch over the pond has been the sight of much drama, dealing out both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat to the delight of the spectators who surround the tee and crowd the bank. Most people watch golf on 17 for the same reason they watch auto racing: to see the wrecks. And rest assured, there will be plenty.
If you survive the 17th, an even more daunting challenge awaits at No. 18, a brutal 462-yard par-4 that doglegs around a lake on the left and features a narrow, tiered green. The fairway looks like a sliver from the tee box and many players simply bail out to the right, where balls are dry but bogeys are plentiful. Taken together, 17 and 18 make for a dramatic, white-knuckle finish to a round, and they epitomize what Pete Dye was attempting to create when he built this course some 45 years ago for the express purpose of hosting this tournament: a visually intimidating but eminently fair test of golf that is designed with spectators in mind. Every hole is surrounded by raised viewing areas with clear sight lines, giving it a natural “stadium” effect in many places and making it an ideal place to watch golf. The galleries will be huge this week, as they always are, and with mild weather expected after the course was softened up with steady rains on Monday, we can expect some low numbers.
TPC Sawgrass is a tight, demanding ball-striker’s layout that will test a player’s entire bag. It favors neither a draw nor a fade, an intentional architectural feature on Dye’s part, and prodigious length off the tee is not required to succeed, though it’s worth noting that bombers have fared quite well here in recent years, with Webb Simpson’s victory six years ago standing out as the last time a shorter than average player was crowned champion. Last year it was World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler becoming the first player in tournament history to pull off back-to-back victories, which speaks to both the difficult, demanding nature of the golf course and Scheffler’s generational tee-to-green brilliance. He’s going for the three-peat this week and is unsurprisingly a heavy favorite on the BETDAQ Exchange, where he’s currently trading at 6.5 while the next-closest competitor, Collin Morikawa, can be had at 14.5. We’ve seen some unexpected names break through here in the past, from Craig Perks to Stephen Ames to Tim Clark, but in recent years it’s been top-of-the-market types who have dominated. With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking this week:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Ludvig Aberg (18.0)- Aberg took a couple of weeks off after his victory at the Genesis and it took him a little time to shake off the rust at Bay Hill last week, but he had found his game again by Sunday, when he fired a 68, one of the lowest rounds of the day, to rocket up the leaderboard and finish T22. His tee-to-green consistency and brilliant iron play would seem to make him a natural fit at TPC Sawgrass, and indeed he fared quite well on debut here last year, firing 67s on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday and going on to post 14-under for the week, good enough for T8. He’s ready to challenge for the biggest victory of his young career, and by Saturday afternoon this price won’t seem so short.
Shane Lowry (45.0)- TPC Sawgrass has always suited Lowry’s game quite nicely and the Irishman has piled up some big paychecks here in recent years, finding the top-20 in 3 of his past 4 appearances, including a T19 last year. He’s off to a great start this season, finishing runner-up at Pebble, T11 at the Cognizant, and 7th at the API last week, where a third-round 76 was all that prevented him from hoisting the trophy. The secret to his success has been his superb iron play, as he currently ranks third on Tour in proximity on approach, a talent which should serve him well at the Stadium Course, with its smallish, segmented greens. If the putter cooperates Lowry has as good of a chance as anyone this week, making him a great value at better than 40/1.
Maverick McNealy (92.0)- It’s been an excellent start to the season for McNealy, who has racked up three top-10 finishes in six starts, including a runner-up at the Genesis last time out. He’s been doing it with a combination of tremendous iron play and some great work with the flat stick, ranking in the top-20 on Tour in both strokes gained on approach and strokes gained putting, and TPC Sawgrass is certainly a course that demands excellence in those two areas. This will be McNealy fifth appearance here and he seems to be getting the hang of it, missing the cut on debut, following that up with a couple of middling performances, and then breaking through with a top-10 finish last year. He’s convinced me that his best is good enough to compete with anyone anywhere, and he’s been close to his best for the past couple of months, so I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he were to break through with a statement victory this week. He’s a must-bet at the current price.
