seventeenth gap at TPC Sawgrass, distance, video, best moments

On the seventeenth gap of TPC Sawgrass sits slightly 363-square-metre slice of {golfing} bliss.

Throughout it’s nothing however murky Floridian waters the place golf goals go to die.

The symbolism gained’t be misplaced on anybody who has swung a golf membership.

Ideas of the place you don’t need the ball to go can exert as a lot psychological power as ideas of the place you do need it to go.

It is a psychological dance performed at any gap — however solely at Sawgrass’ seventeenth are the stakes this excessive.

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This weekend’s Gamers Championship will see gamers vie for the PGA Tour’s greatest purse for a person event; A$39.75m. The winner will take house A$7.2m, whereas tenth place will pocket A$1.1m.

An errant tee shot on the seventeenth on Monday morning (AEDT) may due to this fact 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 previous language — and is not more than a wedge for many professionals.

The inexperienced runs nearly 25 metres lengthy, is sort of 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 without doubt one of the least demanding on an expert golfer’s uncooked skill.

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And but, final 12 months it was the toughest gap on the course within the remaining spherical, producing simply 4 birdies, whereas 18 pictures discovered the water. 9 gamers walked off the island with a double bogey or worse, whereas Martin Laird made a quadruple bogey after washing two balls.

The scoring common was 3.342 — even larger than 2023’s common of three.27 strokes when it was the sixth-hardest gap on the course for your complete event.

Additional telling of the strain gamers face on the seventeenth tee on Sunday is that the typical was no larger than 3.1 strokes on any of the three earlier days.

In 2021, the seventeenth performed because the third-hardest gap.

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 solution to a 12.

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

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

To grasp why enjoying the seventeenth is so troublesome, even for the world’s finest golfers, we have to return to the sixteenth.

When enjoying the par-five on the opposite facet 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 1000’s of followers watching from an amphitheatre across the lake.

It’s not unparalleled for various followers — whose leisure for the day derives from the schadenfreude botched tee pictures carry — so as to add to the thoughts video games with their finest 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 occurring.

“In case you went straight off the sixteenth inexperienced to the tee, it wouldn’t be so dangerous, but it surely offers you time to suppose. And sometimes as not, there’s a bunch on the tee, too, so it’s important to wait.”

By the point golfers take their tee pictures, 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 event circumstances.

“Put a little bit of wind into the combo and make it the 71st gap of the Gamers, and swiftly that quantity goes down rather a lot,” Ogilvy says.

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

This was examined once more extra lately by the PGA Tour who gave 95 hackers an opportunity to play the opening, and recorded the outcomes.

In complete, 102 balls discovered the water, a median of 1.07 per participant. Whereas a excessive quantity, greater than 30 of these balls have been hit by simply 10 gamers, and practically 40 gamers nonetheless not less than made a good bogey.

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 a whole mindscrew — so it’s a superb gap.”

For each catastrophe, nonetheless, there’s additionally a second of magic.

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

It ought to due to this fact be no shock that one in all Tiger Woods’ most memorable moments got here at on the seventeenth at Sawgrass.

In his prime in 2001, Woods got here from six pictures 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 method 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 event by sticking their high-pressure tee pictures 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 finest gamers.

It’s additionally value noting that Min Woo Lee despatched the gang right into a frenzy together with his personal birdie on the seventeenth through the 2023 occasion, which noticed him launch into widespread reputation inside US golf.

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

Its detractors argue that good pictures can nonetheless go punished because of the wind, and the contours of the inexperienced that may typically power 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 connected,” former professional David Toms tells Golf Digest. “How a lot wind you catch, for instance. What when 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 the same opinion, saying: “I’ve my doubts about somebody hitting a superbly good shot and one-hopping over the inexperienced. That’s a fairly rugged solution to finish a event.”

2014 champion Martin Kaymer, nonetheless, believes that the opening is all the things golf is supposed to be about.

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

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

“Do you have to ever design a gap just like the seventeenth? Most likely not. Most island holes are horrible,” he says.

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