Once again, it's anyone's game at TPC Sawgrass
By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- This course in one word.
Players paused. They cocked their heads. They chuckled. They answered.
Exciting, challenging, tricky, surprising and dramatic were a few of the descriptions tossed out earlier this week.
One they forgot? Equalizer.
And, well, there's always vexing and maddening. But we'll save those adjectives for another day.
For today's purposes, we'll call it THE PLAYERS COURSE and ask you to take a peek at the leaderboard here at THE PLAYERS Championship. Or the list of past champions.
You won't find a trend toward big hitters or deadly short games. You won't find a long line of awesome putters or a stream of A-plus iron games.
We dare you to find a specific game that the Stadium Course loves. It rewards all of the above, of course, and the winner has to be accurate off the tee. But after that? Well, it's anyone's game.
Today's reminder? The disparate leaderboard. Middle-of-the-road guys Ben Crane, John Mallinger and Richard S. Johnson. David Toms and Scott Verplank, who rank first and sixth, respectively, in accuracy off the tee. Bubba Watson, Jonathan Byrd, Camilo Villegas and Nick Watney, all in the driving distance top 10.
"This is the type of golf course where you have to plot your way around, it's A, B, C,'' said Mallinger, whose 6-under-par 66 leaves him a shot behind first-round leader Crane. "You see all different types of winners here, Fred Funk. And David Toms has been playing well. Those are the kind of guys I look up to.
"Those are the kind of guys that hit it there, and hit there, and make the putt. They're not flashy or anything else. I kind of just look at their games and see how I can kind of get better at my game.''
Of course, you can always look at some of the other winners and remember how they launched it off the tee -- Fred Couples (twice), Tiger Woods, Greg Norman, Davis Love III (twice) and Adam Scott to name a few -- but you can also point to short-to-medium hitters like Justin Leonard, Funk and Lee Janzen and surprise winners like Craig Perks and Stephen Ames.
So what's the correlation to this week? Anything goes.
The greens are now Bermuda, which means a full day's consistency as opposed to the old greens which changed from morning to afternoon. The rough is down, too, but the key? The second shots and a hot putter.
"I think it's suited for pretty much anyone,'' said Woods, who opened with a 71. "It's fast, it's running so everybody is going to be hitting the ball in the same spots. It's just a matter of hitting the ball well enough and obviously holing putts out here.
"You know, it is getting a little bit tricky with the speed of the fairways, getting the ball in play. That's about the only thing you really have to watch out for because the greens are pretty receptive still.''
The bottom line? You've got the best field of the year playing one of the toughest tests of the year. It's a course where anything can -- and does -- happen. Where there are birdies, eagles and triples. All in the same round. Where a tee shot can bounce into the hole at the 17th, then back out and wind up in the water. Where nothing is certain when the leaders step to the first tee, let alone the 72nd.
And, as Toms pointed out, it's a course that grows on you.
"It's awkward,'' said Toms, whose 67 left him two shots back and in a pack with Verplank and Ian Poulter, among others. "I mean, I think everybody would say that.
"It's almost like you shouldn't even think about where the pin is on the green when you go to hit your tee shot because as soon as you try to put it in a spot with your tee ball or your second shot, then you get into a bad spot there trying to set up your next shot and you start to make bogeys. It's almost like, hey, every one is a battle to try to get it in the fairway and then pick your spots from there.
"If you ever get ahead of yourself, it's a very difficult golf course.''
But if you come in playing well... let's just say it's not a bad thing.
Toms, for one, has been right there four times this year and is playing his way back after falling to 113th in the world following a back injury in 2006 and a tough comeback.
"I wouldn't say that I'm back to the level of play that I was in early 2000 when I felt like every week I was just going to have a great week,'' he said. "But I am getting closer for sure.''
Verplank and Poulter have both played solidly all year and Byrd has four top 14s -- including a tie with Poulter for fifth at last week's Quail Hollow Championship -- in his last five events. And we don't have to go into the litany of recent winners.
Again, what does that mean? Here? That they're off to a good start -- a better one than Woods or Sergio Garcia (71), Geoff Ogilvy (70) or Phil Mickelson, who shot 39 on the back and settled in at 73.
And remember, the first round leader/co-leader has only gone on to win eight times here at the Stadium Course.
Trust us. Over the next three days every one of those adjectives -- and we're sure a few more -- will pop into your head as you watch this 2009 PLAYERS unfold. And, yes, vexing and maddening could come into play, especially when golf balls take unexpected bounces.
But at this point? Count no one out and tag no one a favorite. This, after all, is a course where anything can and will happen.
A PLAYERS course where everyone stands on the first tee equal.
And where 17 -- the greatest equalizer on the course -- doesn't care what you hit or who you are. Only that you're -- in one word -- precise.
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