Physical Address
Suite 5, 181 High Street,
Willoughby North NSW 2068
Best moments of the 17th at The Players | 01:01
At the 17th hole of TPC Sawgrass sits a little 363-square-metre slice of golfing bliss.
All around it is nothing but murky Floridian waters where golf dreams go to die.
The symbolism won’t be lost on anyone who has swung a golf club.
Thoughts of where you don’t want the ball to go can exert as much mental energy as thoughts of where you do want it to go.
This is a mental dance played at any hole — but only at Sawgrass’ 17th are the stakes this high.
Watch every round of the PGA Tour LIVE & Exclusive on Fox Sports, available on Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer.
This weekend’s Players Championship will see players vie for the PGA Tour’s biggest purse for an individual tournament; A$39.75m. The winner will take home A$7.2m, while 10th place will pocket A$1.1m.
An errant tee shot on the 17th on Monday morning (AEDT) could therefore literally cost millions.
When broken down to its most basic attributes, the par-three should be one of the easiest holes on Tour.
The hole measures at just 125 metres long — 137 yards in the old language — and is no more than a wedge for most professionals.
The green runs almost 25 metres long, is nearly as wide, while a shot of just 120 metres is enough to clear the water to the front of the putting surface.
Simply put, the hole is one of the least demanding on a professional golfer’s raw ability.
TEE TIMES: Super group confirmed as Aussie greats thrown into The Players spotlight
‘GIVES YOU BAD DREAMS’: Inside golf’s forgotten beast… and why it will wreak utter havoc
AUSSIE VERDICT: 2023 meltdown can be making of gun as J-Day thrives after big change
And yet, last year it was the hardest hole on the course in the final round, producing just four birdies, while 18 shots found the water. Nine players walked off the island with a double bogey or worse, while Martin Laird made a quadruple bogey after washing two balls.
The scoring average was 3.342 — even higher than 2023’s average of 3.27 strokes when it was the sixth-hardest hole on the course for the entire tournament.
Further telling of the pressure players face on the 17th tee on Sunday is that the average was no higher than 3.1 strokes on any of the three previous days.
In 2021, the 17th played as the third-hardest hole.
That year, Byeong Hun An washed four balls in the water in a row, making an octuple-bogey 11. In 2005, Bob Tway did the same on his way to a 12.
In 2007 50 balls found the water in one round, setting a new tournament record.
They say it’s a game played between the ears, after all.
To understand why playing the 17th is so difficult, even for the world’s best golfers, we need to go back to the 16th.
When playing the par-five on the other side of the lake, Rory McIlroy says it’s “human nature” to look to the right and start making notes.
“It’s hard not to look over there and see what the group ahead of you are doing on the 17th tee,” he says.
A quirk of the course is that players must then walk almost 100 metres from the 16th green to the 17th tee box with thousands of fans watching from an amphitheatre around the lake.
It’s not unheard of for a number of fans — whose entertainment for the day derives from the schadenfreude botched tee shots bring — to add to the mind games with their best sledges.
“The walk from the 16th green is huge,” Justin Rose’s former caddie Mark Fulcher says. “It’s just long enough to see the tee, the green and what’s going on.
“If you went straight off the 16th green to the tee, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it gives you time to think. And often as not, there’s a group on the tee, too, so you have to wait.”
By the time golfers take their tee shots, it’s hard for them to have not already played it in their head several times.
Former US Open winner Geoff Ogilvy estimates that most professionals would hit the green 99 times out of 100 without wind, and not in tournament conditions.
“Put a bit of wind into the mix and make it the 71st hole of the Players, and all of a sudden that number goes down a lot,” Ogilvy says.
Golf Digest once put this to the test in 2001, asking three golfers to hit 50 shots each.
1988 winner Mark McCumber landed 49 on the green and a four-handicapper hit 42. Even a 16-handicapper still hit the green 60 per cent of the time.
This was tested again more recently by the PGA Tour who gave 95 hackers a chance to play the hole, and recorded the results.
In total, 102 balls found the water, an average of 1.07 per player. While a high number, more than 30 of those balls were hit by just 10 players, and nearly 40 players still at least made a respectable bogey.
2016 PGA Championship winner Jimmy Walker says: “If it wasn’t an island green, we’d never miss, of course. It’s a gigantic green.“The hole is a complete mindscrew — so it’s a good hole.”
For every disaster, however, there is also a moment of magic.
Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee says the hole “clearly separates the greats in this game”.
It should therefore be no surprise that one of Tiger Woods’ most memorable moments came at on the 17th at Sawgrass.
In his prime in 2001, Woods came from six shots back on the weekend to win the Players. It was clear he was going to win when a long, downhill, double-breaking putt on 17 snaked its way in as commentator Gary Koch gave his iconic “better than most” call.
More recently, it’s been the scene of clutch playoff performances by Sergio Garcia (2008) and Rickie Fowler (2015). Both players won the tournament by sticking their high-pressure tee shots to tap-in distance, with Fowler doing so on the fourth playoff hole.
Australia has its own slice of brilliance here, too, after 2022 winner Cameron Smith stuck his approach on Sunday to about six-feet and trickled in the birdie putt.
It was the shot of his life and marked his true arrival as one of the game’s best players.
It’s also worth noting that Min Woo Lee sent the crowd into a frenzy with his own birdie on the 17th during the 2023 event, which saw him launch into widespread popularity within US golf.
The hole is arguably the most easily-recognisable in world golf, but is also one of the most divisive challenges on Tour.
Its detractors argue that good shots can still go punished due to the wind, and the contours of the green that can sometimes force balls into the water even after landing.
“If you want to consider yourself a fifth major, there’s too much luck attached,” former pro David Toms tells Golf Digest. “How much wind you catch, for example. What if you’re between clubs all week, and someone else is right on the number?
“It’s too random because of where it is and what it is.”
Mark Calcavecchia is of a similar opinion, saying: “I have my doubts about someone hitting a perfectly good shot and one-hopping over the green. That’s a pretty rugged way to end a tournament.”
2014 champion Martin Kaymer, however, believes that the hole is everything golf is meant to be about.
“It’s 10 out of 10. There should not be any bailouts. You need to be very brave. That’s how golf should be,” he told the publication.
Two-time Open Championship winner Padraig Harrington adds that the hole — known as The Island Green despite technically being a peninsula — is an exception to the rule in course design.
“Should you ever design a hole like the 17th? Probably not. Most island holes are terrible,” he says.
“But this one, because of the tournament and its history, is great.”
