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Nifty at 50: Scottie Scheffler's hot streak and four more stories to watch for The Players

garry smits, jacksonville florida times-union
·8 min read
The Island Green at the par-3 17th hole of The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is one of the most recognizable in golf and has been the site of successes and disasters at The Players Championship. The 50th Players begins on Thursday.
The Island Green at the par-3 17th hole of The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is one of the most recognizable in golf and has been the site of successes and disasters at The Players Championship. The 50th Players begins on Thursday.

Davis Love III’s first introduction to The Players Championship was as a businessman.

When the tournament debuted in 1974 at the Atlanta Country Club, Love was 8 years old and his father was the head professional at the host club. He and his brother Mark took advantage of the situation to open a lemonade stand near the second green and since the tournament was in the deep south in August heat, they raked in the cash.

“I saw the first one first-hand,” Love said. “It was exciting because they had a great field. Jack Nicklaus won and it was a great start.”

Nearly 28 years later, Love won The Players Championship at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in 1992. He became one of six multiple winners of the tournament 11 years later when he won the 2003 tournament.

By that time, it was huge — too big, in fact, for a couple of kids to get away with opening a lemonade stand.

PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP GROUPS TEE TIMES

The 50th Players Championship begins Thursday at the Stadium Course, with defending champion Scottie Scheffler leading a field of 144 players who are after the $4.5 million winner’s share of a $25 million purse, 700 FedEx Cup points, the Gold Man Trophy and the knowledge that for one week, they beat the best.

“It’s an iconic tournament that everyone wants to win,” Love said. “The golf course has grown into an iconic stage for world golf. It’s incredible how much it’s grown.”

The modern-day players seem to have developed the same appreciation for the tournament and Pete Dye’s devilish design.

“It's special to us as being members of the PGA Tour because it's our tournament,” Scheffler said. “It's our premier event. This is the home of the PGA Tour, and so for us, I think it's a special place to come back year after year and get to play this golf course and compete with the best players in the world and the best players on our Tour. It's always a fun week to come here and compete.”

Especially when you’re coming off a five-shot victory, like Scheffler is after rolling at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week.

Here are five storylines entering the 50th Players:

Can Scottie Scheffler break the streak?

No one has won The Players in successive years. Not Nicklaus. Not Tiger Woods. Not Phil Mickelson.

But Scheffler seems to be geared toward breaking that streak. He won the 2023 Players in dominating fashion after making five birdies in a row in the final round, and he won last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in dominating fashion, winning by the aforementioned five shots.

Scottie Scheffler gives his take on the current hot streak he's on during a news conference at The Players Championship Media Center.
Scottie Scheffler gives his take on the current hot streak he's on during a news conference at The Players Championship Media Center.

Scheffler has won more tournaments (seven), had more top-three finishes (24), more top fives (35) and more top 10s (48) of any player on the PGA Tour since the 2019-20 season. He leads the Tour this season in Strokes Gained Overall, is second in Strokes Gained Approaching the Green, and seventh in Strokes Gained off the tee. And after struggling for years with his medium-to-short putts, Scheffler switched to a Taylor Made Spider putter last week and led the field in SG Putting.

He said there have been no shortcuts and no sudden transformation from the University of Texas to the No. 1-ranked player in the world.

“I think golf's a pretty challenging game,” he said, all evidence to the contrary regarding his three-year display of extraordinary ball striking. “I'm constantly putting in the work to maintain where I'm at. Always working on my grip, always working on the fundamentals.”

His peers are astounded at this point.

“Some of the wins that he's had, the margin of victory, like last week, on a very, very difficult golf course, it's extremely impressive,” Patrick Cantlay said.

Where are the rest of the top players in the world?

Scheffler became only the third top-20 player in 11 Tour events this season to win, joining Wyndham Clark and Hideki Matsuyama. Looking for their first victory are the likes of No. 2 Rory McIlroy, No. 4 Viktor Hovland (the defending FedEx Cup champion), No. 6 Xander Schauffele, No. 7 Cantlay, No. 8 Max Homa, No. 9 Brian Harman and No. 10 Ludvig Aberg — although Aberg won the last event of the 2022-23 season at Sea Island.

For that matter, where are other stars such as Jordan Spieth, 2021 Players champion Justin Thomas and 2015 Players champion Rickie Fowler?

Kids cheer as Jordan Spieth walks their way to sign autographs after the first round of the 2023 tournament.
Kids cheer as Jordan Spieth walks their way to sign autographs after the first round of the 2023 tournament.

There have been three first-time winners, Matthieu Pavon, Jake Knapp and Austin Eckroat, and two who won for the second time, Brice Garnett and Grayson Murray. Four winners have come from outside the top 100 in the world and the average ranking for winners is 67th.

Last year, no player outside the top 100 had won entering The Players, and the average ranking for winners was 16th.

Some have decried the lack of the top stars winning so far this season — forgetting for the moment that the top stars are free to make birdies any time they want. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said it speaks more to the young up-and-coming talent on the PGA Tour.

“The positive to that is new players and new stars are emerging,” he said.

Who’s not here from LIV Golf?

There are six players ranked inside the top 100 in the world who would have been eligible for The Players, had they not bolted to the LIV Golf League and incurred a suspension from the PGA Tour: Jon Rahm (3), Tyrrell Hatton (16), Brooks Koepka (31), Adam Meronk (52), 2022 Players champion Cameron Smith (54) and Joaquin Niemann (80).

In addition, LIV players such as Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed, Mickelson, Talor Gooch, Bubba Watson and Louis Oosthuizen likely would have been eligible had they remained on the Tour.

As a result, the Tour has had to go deeper than normal in the past two years down the current FedEx Cup points list to fill a field of 144 players. The final player to qualify off the exemption for the 2024 points list was No. 96 Jimmy Stanger. There have been years in which The Players didn’t need to go lower than the mid-50s to fill the field.

How tough will the Stadium Course play?

It’s a lovely shade of emerald. In March, when the course is grassed with overseed Rye, it requires more watering but it’s also been a wet winter and superintendent Jeff Plotts said the high number of cloudy days has enabled the greens to retain more moisture.

"The greens are a bit soft right now,” Scheffler said. “But they're also still really fast, which is kind of weird coming from last week [at Bay Hill] where they were really firm and quite fast.”

Rickie Fowler putts on the 12th green of the Players Stadium Course during a practice round on March 12.
Rickie Fowler putts on the 12th green of the Players Stadium Course during a practice round on March 12.

The conventional thinking was that the move from May to March in 2019 would result in more difficult course conditions, with wind more out of the North and Northeast but the difference has been negligible. The four-year scoring average since the return to March is 72.242 and the average for the last four years in May was 72.176.

The winners have actually scored better so far in March, averaging 15 under par. They averaged 13.75 under the last four years in May.

What’s The Players Champion weather forecast?

It’s going to get warmer and the chance of thundershowers for the weekend keeps fluctuating.

Here’s the forecast, according to Weather Underground:

  • Thursday: High 76, low 62, partly cloudy. Peak rain chance is 5 percent at 9 a.m.

  • Friday: High 80, low 66, partly cloudy. Peak rain chance is 20 percent at 5 p.m.

  • Saturday: High 81, low 68, partly cloudy. Peak rain chance is 63 percent at 5 p.m.

  • Sunday: High 82, low 67, partly cloudy. Peak rain chance is 38 percent at 3 p.m.

THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP FACTS AND FIGURES

50th Players Championship, Thursday-Sunday, Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach

At stake: $25 million purse ($4.5 million and 700 FedEx Cup points to the winner).

Defending champion: Scottie Scheffler.

TV: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 1-7 p.m.). NBC (Saturday, 1-7 p.m.; Sunday, 2-6 p.m.).

Area players entered: Tyson Alexander, Harris English, Brian Harman, Billy Horschel, Keith Mitchell, Andrew Novak, J.T. Poston, Sam Ryder, Davis Thompson, Carl Yuan.

Notable: The PGA Tour’s marquee event has 85 of the top-100 players on the World Golf Ranking and will offer the most FedEx Cup points in its history. ... Also in the field among the world’s top-10, in addition to No. 1 Scheffler, are Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Wyndham Clark, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay and Max Homa. ... Scheffler birdied five holes in a row during the final round and shot 69 in the final round to win the 2023 Players by five shots. ... No one has ever won The Players twice in a row. ... Scheffler won the Arnold Palmer Invitational by five shots last week. The last player to win at Bay Hill and The Players in successive weeks was Tiger Woods in 2001. ... The Tour plays its final Florida Swing event next week in Palm Harbor at the Valspar Championship.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Scottie Scheffler's streak among storylines for 2024 Players Championship