The Players Championship Preview

It is that time of the year again when the marketing men and women of the PGA Tour attempt to lure us into thinking it is a Major Championship week, but I won't be falling for such hyperbole around a tournament the PGA Tour has ruined in its vain attempts to make better.

They got so wound up with the fifth major hype that they forgot to sit back and put into perspective what they actually already had. They had a championship which attracted every single one of the world's best golfers every year, something which virtually no other PGA Tour event could do at that time outside of the Majors. They had a golf course which given the conditions could be brutal and punishing, resulting in a winning score of -3 in 1999 and given calm conditions a course where a player such as Greg Norman could shoot a record-low of -24. The Players Championship also had the richest purse in golf, and the most recognizable single hole in the entire world. The Players Championship had absolutely everything and the PGA Tour didn't realize it and made the biggest mistake they have ever made, they ruined golf's greatest championship.

Another reason the PGA Tour moved the event to May was the weather, because of two consecutive Monday finishes in 2000 and 2001, but rather confusingly they went ahead with major surgery and installed supposedly world-class drainage. But why do that if you are moving the tournament to May to avoid the traditional March storms (which by the way have led to only 3 Monday finishes in 26 Florida Swing tournaments since 2007)? The course was supposedly designed to be firm and fast, but I have never read or seen the designer Pete Dye say that and he once remarked that it was a modern Pine Valley. The course, especially over the last three holes, has now become somewhat of a lottery, it is so firm and fast and there is so much water in play that there is as much luck required as skill. The Stadium course at TPC Sawgrass was once known as the ultimate in target golf and it was at its best like that, to trick it up and make the fairways and greens rock hard is detrimental to the course and tournament.

Somewhat ironically this part of Florida has experienced a deluge of rain in the last few days with 5 inches falling on the course in the 36 hours between Thursday and Friday, this caused Monday's schedule to be wiped out with the public locked out and the course allowed time to drain. The island green at 17 became a true island on Friday as the level of the lake around the hole rose so significantly that it covered the walkway to the green.

The European Tour schedule in May used to feature (2000) the Spanish Open, Open de France, Benson and Hedges International Open, the Deutsche Bank SAP Open TPC of Europe and the Volvo PGA Championship, followed by the English Open in the first week of June. Fast forward to 2013 and the European Tour now has the Volvo China Open, Tournament to be Confirmed, Volvo World Match Play Championship, Madeira Islands Open and BMW PGA Championship. Many will say “this isn't the PGA Tour's problem”, but it is. If golf is weaker around the world it means the PGA Tour has no competition and interest in the sport from sponsors around the world dies, eventually impacting upon the PGA Tour in the USA.

The Players Championship position on the schedule in May has also led to a few leading players questioning whether they want to play in the championship with the World Match Play and Wentworth coming up in quick succession after Sawgrass and before The Memorial Tournament in the build-up to the US Open. Prior to 2007 all of the world's best players were in Florida anyway as they prepared to play in The Masters a couple of weeks later.

The championship now stands alone, or sticks out like a sore thumb in between the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina and the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas. It has also had a detrimental impact upon the European Tour's schedule, as have the other changes to the PGA Tour schedule in September, all to achieve something which had already been achieved by Pete Dye and Deane Beaman – creating the World's best golf tournament.

Despite my deep misgivings at the way the PGA Tour run The Players Championship there is no doubt that the championship assembles the best field in golf outside the Majors and this week will see all of golf's great players contend for the richest first prize in golf. Two of Tiger Woods' most iconic moments of his career have come on the 17^th green of the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, first in 1994 in the US Amateur Championship Final at the age of 18 and then in 2001 at the Players Championship on Saturday during the third round. Two different putts, both resulting in birdie in two very different styles, provoked similar, typical Tiger Woods fist pumps in celebration of an incredible moment which proved pivotal in him claiming victory.

Despite having two of his most significant and memorable moments at Sawgrass Woods has struggled to make an impact in the Players Championship, with only one top ten finish in the championship since his win in 2001, and he is not a secret that the world number one finds all Pete Dye courses tricky to perform on. Wins at Torrey Pines, Doral and Bay Hill saw Tiger ascend back to world number one in March making him the overwhelming favourite going into the first Major Championship of the year, The Masters, but Woods' major drought continued with a tie for fourth place four shots off Scott and Cabrera. Tiger begins his bid for a second Players Championship with the defending champion Matt Kuchar and early season form player and 54-hole leader at The Masters, Brandt Snedeker.

The trio begin their rounds at 1.49pm ET / 6.49pm BST and will feature in the bulk of the live television coverage on Golf Channel / Sky Sports which begins at 1pm ET / 6pm BST on Thursday.

Not since Sandy Lyle in 1987 has a Brit triumphed over the fearsome Tournament Players Club's Stadium Course. Rory McIlroy leads the UK Challenge in Ponte Vedra Beach but after a poor weekend at Quail Hollow and baring in mind his quite awful record at Sawgrass I think personally it is unreasonable to expect him to mount any sort of challenge for a first Players Championship title this week. Lee Westwood had another solid week in Charlotte and has come oh-so-close to a win here before, and with an improved short game I believe he can compete for the championship this week but as ever it is almost impossible to determine who will be victorious over the fickle layout in Northern Florida. Graeme McDowell has a penchant for performing well over tough courses in championship scenarios and it would be no surprise to anyone if he was to be a prominent figure on Sunday afternoon.

This week marks the return of The Masters champion, Adam Scott. The 2004 Players Champion is competing on tour for the first time since his dramatic victory at Augusta and his win seems to have galvanized Australian golf, with Brett Rumford becoming the first Australian to win back-to-back titles on the European Tour since the first season in 1972 (Jack Newton).

The young Americans continued their surge up the ladder of worldwide golf last week with Derek Ernst's win at Quail Hollow, following Billy Horschel, Kevin Streelman, Scott Brown, Michael Thompson, John Merrick and Russell Henley in claiming a first PGA Tour win in a season almost utterly dominated by American-born golfers so far.

Whoever does emerge victorious this week will have to negotiate the infamous 17^th hole. It is an icon, you could actually blow up the remaining holes on the property and hold a championship on that one hole with the best players in the world, and nobody could predict the outcome. I first saw this hole on a video game when I was a youngster nearly 20 years ago, that is how renowned the 17^th became in such a quick period after being built in the early 1980's. The hole can now claim the same fame as the 12^th at Augusta and the 17^th at St Andrews as being among the most famous golf holes in the world, and another chapter in its history will be written this week in The Players Championship.