How to beat Sawgrass? A TOUR Insider has five ways
By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM Site Producer
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- There is no hole and no golf tournament so inextricably attached to the identity of one another than the par-3 17th at TPC Sawgrass and THE PLAYERS Championship. Many tournaments have been won and lost on that postage stamp of grass surrounded by water, the brainchild of Pete Dye's wife, Alice.
When it comes to winning THE PLAYERS, however, succeeding on this course often has much more to do with what you do the previous 16 holes -- and what you do on the par-4 finishing hole -- than whether or not you splash down at 17. Except maybe if you're Paul Goydos or Len Mattiace.
There are a number of ways to play the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass and no one has perhaps played it as often as former PGA TOUR player and current Sirius/XM analyst Mark Carnevale, who has lived in Ponte Vedra Beach for nearly a decade-and-a-half and registered anywhere between 40 and 50 rounds a year on the course.
We spent an afternoon together a couple of weeks ago, cruising around the course talking about where to go for it, where to lay back and coming up with the five ways to beat the golf course into submission. Or at least not shoot yourself out of the tournament.
No. 5: Keep it in the fairway off the tee. It sounds simple enough, but in a day and age when players would rather have an 8-iron from the rough instead of a 6-iron from the fairway, this is one of the places where that's not necessarily true. That said, the rough will be down about a half-inch from last year, so missing the fairway won't be all that penal in some spots and players will have more green lights than previous years. More than anything, though, keeping it in the short grass will give players the ability to attack pins a lot more.
No. 4: Let each shot dictate when and where you can be aggressive. This starts on the very first hole, where the hole location tells you if you can fire at the flag or not. On the fifth hole, which Carnevale says might be his least favorite hole on the golf course, for example, it's a hole in which you're happy to make 4 on and move on if you can hit it in the middle of the fairway and the middle of the green. Anything better than that is a bonus, which can be said about more than one hole here.
No. 3: Make your birdies on the front nine. TPC Sawgrass might have ranked as the third-toughest non-major venue of the 2008 season on the PGA TOUR, but there are birdies out there and most of them can be had on the front nine. Anything more than birdie on No. 2, for example, will almost feel like a bogey for a hole that will yield its share of eagles. The par-3 third, though much dependent on the wind, will also have players taking dead aim at the flag. Similarly, the sixth hole, which is a total target-golf hole, will allow plenty of red numbers, and the ninth, a truly great par 5, will surrender plenty of birdies.
No. 2: Commit to your shot on the 18th tee. The par-3 17th gets all the headlines here, but the water up the left side of TPC Sawgrass' finishing hole has claimed plenty of victims, too. Hal Sutton off the tee and Adam Scott on his approach immediately come to mind, for one. As Carnevale says, once you get here you must pick your line and fully commit to your shot. It sounds simple, but even hitting 3-wood here is no guarantee of a par. You can be aggressive and hit driver, knowing your bail out area is to the right, or play it safe with a 3-wood. Problems occur, however, if you bail out too far right or leave it too far back with a fairway wood for a second shot that, if missed just a little to the left, will run of the green and into the water.
No. 1: Forget about where the flag is on No. 17. This one all comes down to that space between your ears, not between the one filled with water between you and the green. The toughest thing for a TOUR pro to do, Carnevale says, is to not hit it right at the flag, especially on such a short par 3. As Paul Goydos and several others can attest, however, the hardest thing to do here is to hit it right at the flag. The wind can wreak havoc on this hole, too, but if players can forget about where the pin is and simply look at the green as their target, a shot to the middle of the green will leave them with at worst a 25-foot two putt for par. That's exactly what Carnevale had when we got there. He hit 9-iron to the front middle of the green and casually two-putted to a back right hole location. Sounds simple enough, right?
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