TPC Sawgrass seventeenth gap, Island Inexperienced, historical past, highlights, stats

An errant tee shot on the seventeenth on Monday morning (AEDT) may subsequently actually price thousands and thousands.

When damaged right down to its most simple attributes, the par-three ought to be one of many best holes on Tour.

The outlet measures at simply 125 metres lengthy — 137 yards within the outdated language — and is not more than a wedge for many professionals.

The inexperienced runs nearly 25 metres lengthy, is almost as broad, whereas a shot of simply 120 metres is sufficient to clear the water to the entrance of the placing floor.

Merely put, the opening is likely one of the least demanding on an expert golfer’s uncooked means.

And but, on the 2023 version of the Gamers Championship, the scoring common on the seventeenth was properly over par at 3.27 strokes, making it the sixth-hardest gap on the course that 12 months.

In 2021 it was the third-hardest on the identical common.

That 12 months, Byeong Hun An washed 4 balls within the water in a row, making an octuple-bogey 11. In 2005, Bob Tway did the identical on his method to a 12.

In 2007 50 balls discovered the water in a single spherical, setting a brand new match file.

They are saying it’s a recreation performed between the ears, in any case.

To know why taking part in the seventeenth is so tough, even for the world’s greatest golfers, we have to return to the sixteenth.

When taking part in the par-five on the opposite aspect of the lake, Rory McIlroy says it’s “human nature” to look to the suitable and begin making notes.

“It’s arduous to not look over there and see what the group forward of you might be doing on the seventeenth tee,” he says.

A quirk of the course is that gamers should then stroll nearly 100 metres from the sixteenth inexperienced to the seventeenth tee field with hundreds of followers watching from an amphitheatre across the lake.

It’s not remarkable for numerous followers — whose leisure for the day derives from the schadenfreude botched tee photographs carry — so as to add to the thoughts video games with their greatest sledges.

“The stroll from the sixteenth inexperienced is large,” Justin Rose’s former caddie Mark Fulcher says. “It’s simply lengthy sufficient to see the tee, the inexperienced and what’s happening.

“If you happen to went straight off the sixteenth inexperienced to the tee, it wouldn’t be so unhealthy, but it surely offers you time to assume. And infrequently as not, there’s a gaggle on the tee, too, so it’s a must to wait.”

By the point golfers take their tee photographs, it’s arduous for them to haven’t already performed it of their head a number of instances.

Former US Open winner Geoff Ogilvy estimates that the majority professionals would hit the inexperienced 99 instances out of 100 with out wind, and never in match circumstances.

“Put a little bit of wind into the combination and make it the 71st gap of the Gamers, and abruptly that quantity goes down lots,” Ogilvy says.

Golf Digest as soon as put this to the check in 2001, asking three golfers to hit 50 photographs every.

1988 winner Mark McCumber landed 49 on the inexperienced and a four-handicapper hit 42. Even a 16-handicapper nonetheless hit the inexperienced 60 per cent of the time.

2016 PGA Championship winner Jimmy Walker says: “If it wasn’t an island inexperienced, we’d by no means miss, in fact. It’s a huge inexperienced.“The outlet is an entire thoughts screw — so it’s gap.”

For each catastrophe, nevertheless, there may be additionally a second of magic.

Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee says the opening “clearly separates the greats on this recreation”.

It ought to subsequently be no shock that certainly one of Tiger Woods’ most memorable moments got here at on the seventeenth at Sawgrass.

In his prime in 2001, Woods got here from six photographs again on the weekend to win the Gamers. It was clear he was going to win when a protracted, downhill, double-breaking putt on 17 snaked its approach in as commentator Gary Koch gave his iconic “higher than most” name.

Extra lately, it’s been the scene of clutch playoff performances by Sergio Garcia (2008) and Rickie Fowler (2015). Each gamers gained the match by sticking their high-pressure tee photographs to tap-in distance, with Fowler doing so on the fourth playoff gap.

Australia has its personal slice of brilliance right here, too, after 2022 winner Cameron Smith caught his strategy on Sunday to about six-feet and trickled within the birdie putt.

It was the shot of his life and marked his true arrival as one of many recreation’s greatest gamers.

It’s additionally price noting that Min Woo Lee despatched the group right into a frenzy along with his personal birdie on the seventeenth in the course of the 2023 occasion, which noticed him launch into widespread recognition inside US golf.

The outlet is arguably probably the most easily-recognisable in world golf, however can be one of the crucial divisive challenges on Tour.

Its detractors argue that good photographs can nonetheless go punished because of the wind, and the contours of the inexperienced that may generally drive balls into the water even after touchdown.“If you wish to think about your self a fifth main, there’s an excessive amount of luck hooked up,” former professional David Toms tells Golf Digest. “How a lot wind you catch, for instance. What in the event you’re between golf equipment all week, and another person is correct on the quantity?

“It’s too random due to the place it’s and what it’s.”

Mark Calcavecchia is of an identical opinion, saying: “I’ve my doubts about somebody hitting a wonderfully good shot and one-hopping over the inexperienced. That’s a reasonably rugged method to finish a match.”

2014 champion Martin Kaymer, nevertheless, believes that the opening is the whole lot golf is supposed to be about.

“It’s 10 out of 10. There shouldn’t be any bailouts. You should be very courageous. That’s how golf ought to be,” he advised the publication.

Two-time Open Championship winner Padraig Harrington provides that the opening — often called The Island Inexperienced regardless of technically being a peninsula — is an exception to the rule in course design.

“Must you ever design a gap just like the seventeenth? In all probability not. Most island holes are horrible,” he says.

“However this one, due to the match and its historical past, is nice.”