PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | Ask a casual golf fan – the person who knows who Dustin Johnson is but may not know Billy Horschel – to name their favorite hole in the game and the answer is easy.
They’re going to pick the par-3 17th hole at the TPC Stadium Course with the so-called island green, even if it isn’t actually an island. It’s as recognizable as it is fun, maybe the shortest thrill ride in golf.
It has come to symbolize the Players Championship, similar to how a green jacket defines the Masters and bourbon defines an Old Fashioned.
The 17th hole is just part of what makes this place unique. All you had to do was look at Thursday at this Players Championship.
How could you not? It was hard to look away.
There is a broken-glass quality to the Stadium Course, where one misstep can bloody a scorecard. It’s a golf course built with sharp edges and sharper penalties.
“It seemed like the same old Sawgrass to me, but at the same time the scores are a lot higher, so clearly it isn’t.” – Justin Thomas
Want to argue that distance is ruining the game? The Stadium Course won’t help you because it’s not about how far a player hits it (though power is always an advantage), it’s about where he hits it.
Ask Rory McIlroy, who has contracted a case of the lefts and it led to a first-round 79 Thursday that looked even worse when compared to the 65 his playing partner Sergio García shot.
“This course, you don’t have to be far off to get penalized a lot,” said García, who happens to love Pete Dye’s most famous design and found himself perched comfortably atop the Players Championship leaderboard after one entertaining day.
With the sun just peeking over the trees Thursday morning, McIlroy started his tournament by yanking his opening tee shot left on the 10th hole, into a grove of double bogeys where he collected one for himself.
His opening 6 was better than the 8 he made on the watery 18th, where he hit two balls in the water, just like the tourists do.
“Hard hole,” an acquaintance said to McIlroy’s father, Gerry, as they watched.
“Not that hard,” McIlroy said.
That’s what can happen at the Stadium Course, especially when the wind blows out of the east, an uncommon twist, and the rough is just thick enough to be dangerous.
Henrik Stenson shot 85. Xander Schauffele shot 76. Tony Finau shot 78. Rickie Fowler posted 77. Kevin Na shot 81 then withdrew with a bad back, just a few minutes after making an 8 on the par-3 17th, a hole he had played 31 consecutive times without hitting a ball in the water.
Then there was Byeong Hun An, who made an 11 on the 17th, rinsing four balls in the process. The good news is he followed his octuple bogey with a more routine double bogey to kill his appetite for lunch while sending the writers among us to Google what you call an 8-over-par score on one hole.
That’s the way the Players Championship should be, filled with big moments good and bad. Its appeal is based on the potential calamity that lurks around this reimagined piece of Florida flatland.
“It seemed like the same old Sawgrass to me, but at the same time the scores are a lot higher, so clearly it isn’t,” Justin Thomas said.
Particularly on days like Thursday when there’s a bit of bite in the wind and some flagsticks are placed near no-man’s land, the Players Championship and Stadium Course can feel like walking in a dark room, knowing there’s a coffee table waiting for your shin to hit.
If that was all it was, the fun of watching would dissipate quickly. If it’s double bogeys you like to watch, there are thousands of courses where everyone makes them in bunches.
The genius of the Stadium Course is how rewarding it can be when a player gets on its good side. It doesn’t have to be dead calm to be vulnerable as García and others showed Thursday.
“I just love it. I’ve always said it, Valderrama and this course are some of my top favorite ones and for some reason they just, it just kind of fits my eye,” García said.
“I see what I want to do pretty much every hole and then it’s a matter of doing it, but I feel more comfortable and I’ve done well.”
Others had a Thursday similar to García’s. Shane Lowry and Brian Harman made it look easy. So did 54-year old U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker, who wasn’t even in the field Thursday morning. When Justin Rose was a last-minute withdrawal due to ongoing back issues, Stricker hopped a plane from south Florida, made his tee time and promptly birdied five of his first eight holes.
For an imperfect game, it was a nearly perfect start to the Players Championship.