| Signature 17th hole | |
| Club information | |
|---|---|
| Location | Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, United States |
| Established | 1980 |
| Type | Resort |
| Operated by | PGA Tour TPC Network |
| Total holes | 36 |
| Tournaments hosted | The Players Championship |
| Website | www.tpc.com/sawgrass |
| The Players Stadium Course | |
| Designed by | Pete Dye, Alice Dye |
| Par | 72 |
| Length | 7,215 yards |
| Course rating | 76.8 |
| Slope rating | 155 |
| Dye's Valley Course | |
| Designed by | Pete Dye, Bobby Weed |
| Par | 72 |
| Length | 6,864 yards |
The Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass, colloquially known as TPC at Sawgrass, is a well-known golf course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a suburb of Jacksonville. Opened in 1980, it was the first of several Tournament Players Clubs to be built. It is home to the PGA Tour headquarters and annually hosts The Players Championship, the PGA Tour's flagship event.
The TPC at Sawgrass is situated in Ponte Vedra Beach's Sawgrass development. It has two individual courses, the Stadium Course and the Valley Course. The Stadium Course was designed in 1980 by noted golf course architects Pete and Alice Dye, and is known as one of the most difficult golf courses in the world. Constructed specifically to host The Players Championship, it employs a distinctive "stadium" concept: like in other sports, fans at the TPC sit in "stands" made of raised mounds of grass. It is known for its signature hole, the par-3, 132-yard 17th, known simply as the "Island Green", one of golf's most recognizable and difficult holes. The course has been featured for many years on the best-selling Tiger Woods PGA Tour golf game series.
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Over 415 acres (1.68 km2) in the Florida swampland, Dye's masterpiece defined the term "eating golf": narrow fairways lined with hazards like marshes and "waste bunkers" (long strips of sand that groundskeepers never maintain); dozens of deep "pot bunkers," strategically placed to catch even a slightly misplaced shot; thick rough that features craters and mounds; tall, shot-obstructing palm trees; and rock-hard, lightning-fast greens. When the first Tournament Players Championship was staged at the Stadium Course in 1982, the story was not eventual winner Jerry Pate but the complaints the players had about the course, a track supposedly built in their honor. "It's Star Wars golf, designed by Darth Vader," Ben Crenshaw pronounced. When asked if the TPC suited his playing style, Jack Nicklaus replied, "No, I've never been very good at stopping a 5-iron on the hood of a car." J. C. Snead called the course "90 percent horse manure and 10 percent luck." Over the following year, Dye tweaked the course, making the greens less severe and replacing several bunkers. After the changes, the course became far more playable and the players look forward to taking it on. "Now it's a darn good golf course," Crenshaw said of the improvements.
TPC Sawgrass' signature hole is the Stadium Course's 17th, known simply as the "Island Green", although it is technically a peninsula. While some may consider it gorgeous to view, the hole has been known to scare even the top professional golfers. It measures only 132 yards (121 m) from tee to green (requiring only a pitching wedge for most pros), but it consists of nothing but an undulating, 78-foot (24 m)-long green with a tiny bunker in front of it. Save a small path to the green, the green is completely surrounded by water, and its location amidst a canyon of trees causes the wind to swirl over the it. Club selection in the weather conditions at 17 is a huge consideration, as there is nowhere to land the ball but on the green – or in the water. It is estimated that over 100,000 balls are retrieved from the surrounding water every year, courtesy of professionals and tourists alike trying their luck.
According to the TPC Sawgrass website, the design came by accident. The original design for the 17th was to be a simple par-3 green only partially surrounded by a lake. However, the soil surrounding the 17th consisted of sand – necessary to build a good golf course, but rare on the otherwise swampy property – and by the time the course was near completion all the sand had been dug from the area, leaving a large crater. Alice Dye suggested the Island Green concept, remembering another course with a similar green; Pete was not thrilled at the idea but went ahead with it, in the process creating one of golf's most recognizable holes.
Because of its enduring popularity among fans, NBC devotes 11 cameras to it during the tournament.[1]
Probably the most famous incident that has occurred on the Island Green involved Steve Lowery in the 1998 Players Championship. His tee shot successfully landed on the green, a feat in itself. Then a seagull swooped onto the green and picked up his ball several times. The gull found it difficult to hold the ball in its bill, but finally managed to carry it into the air and over the water, where it dropped it. All of this was filmed and can be seen on Youtube, among other sites. One of the TV commentators quipped that the 17th now had yet another hazard.[2] Under Rule 18-1 of the Rules of Golf, as a bird is considered an "outside agency" and as Lowery's shot was from off the green, he was permitted to replace the ball at the spot where the ball initially came to rest on the green.[3]
In May 2007, a record 50 balls landed in the water at the 17th hole in one round, which broke the single-round tournament record of 45 set in 2000.[4]
During Super Bowl XXXIX in the area, Fox Sports organized a "closest to pin" contest with MLB, NFL, and NASCAR players (all sports properties of the network) on the 17th green; Dale Jarrett defeated Trent Green and John Smoltz in the final by being the only player to make it on the green.
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