TPC Sawgrass: Revolution No. 17

Well, the time is here again for another Players Championship. If you were to listen to those who traditionally complain about watching golf, you would hear how the sport is unwatchable on screen, too little happens, the action much too subtle and incomprehensible for anyone to follow.

But that doesn’t apply to the Players Tournament.

The Players Championship happens at TPC Sawgrass.

TPC Sawgrass is the NASCAR of golf courses. A stadium course designed specifically for viewability and watching the sport. Claimed in its early days by none other than Sam Snead as "90 percent horse manure and 10 percent luck," the course attracts viewers in much the same way a racetrack does.

In NASCAR, everyone watches for the crashes, at Sawgrass, everyone watches for Hole 17.

The 17th hole is the “Floating Green.” Not actually floating, but a peninsula with a narrow connection to the shore, surrounded by water, a million lost balls, and the shattered championship dreams of players from around the word.

This is the flaming car wreck of golf, and this is what makes the Players Championship what it is. It is also what makes the Players Championship, and that hole in specific, so watched by the fans.

It’s almost unfair to try to single out the best (or worst if you were the player) of these moments, But there are a few that truly stand out:

No. 5 – Johnathan Livingston Hazard
In 1986, Brad Fabel hit a hole in one on the Sawgrass 17th, and the hole waited until 1998 to get its revenge.  Fabel got his at the 17th, not from the fast run of the green or the water, but by the wildlife. After a nice shot that left him on the green is good position, Fabel began his walk around to the green, noticing a seagull starting to peck around his ball.

With disbelief in his eyes, and cheers from the crowd, the bird kept pecking and moving the ball around, to the delight of everyone watching. But just as Brad approached, the bird picked the ball up into its mouth, flew off the green, and dropped the ball into the drink.

The ruling placed a ball back in the original location, but Fabel ended up with a three-putt to finish out the hole.
 

No. 4 – That’s just the Tway it goes
Bob Tway got on the books in 2005 for breaking the stroke record during the Players. He was four shots off the lead, and gusty winds took his tee shot long and straight into the water.

That should have been a typical drop in the drop zone, but Tway had two more short shots and a three-putt to finally drive a stake through the 17th, and through any chance at a decent finish at the tournament.

No. 3 – Stroke it, stroke it!
Davis Love III made a $105,000 error at No. 17, and you can’t even really blame the hole. While taking practice swings on the green, he accidentally moved his ball. He them putted out, and assigned himself a one-stroke penalty. The problem here was that he had actually incurred a two-stroke penalty.

Had he moved his ball back to the original location, it would have been a one-stroke penalty. By making this error, and signing his scorecard, Love disqualified himself, to the price of $105,000.

No. 2  - Hole in…three?
In 1999, Fred Couples Pulled off a miraculous save, after a bad opening shot. His first shot fell short and splashed down into the water, and Couples dropped in the same tee box, and proceeded to hit that second shot straight into the hole. A “hole in three” indeed. He saved par, and has been noted for this shot ever since.

1 – Angelo’s Alley
But, it takes a really amazing golfer, and not necessarily in a good way, to do something so noteworthy as to have segment of a course named after them. But Angelo Spagnolo, during a contest for the Worst Avid Golfer, scored a 66 on the hole. That in itself was noteworthy, but with all those shots (seven of them hitting the green and rolling off), having exhausted his collection of balls, and quite a few range balls from the course as well, Spagnolo was given the final indignity. He was forced, by his caddy no less, to stop pitching, and simply putt his ball around the water, and up the walkpath to the green.

That walkpath is now known as Angelo’s Alley.

Perhaps it isn’t appropriate to have such a nasty, gimmicky hole at the end of such a tournament (as Tiger Woods himself has noted), it throws may of the players off, and unbalances the game. Champions get thrown down the rankings, and new ones rise based on a single green. It probably isn’t true to the game.

But then again, it’s hella fun to watch.