Players Championship executive director Lee Smith confident with safeguards for fan behavior

The WM Phoenix Open was overcrowded to the point where attendants stopped trying to scan mobile tickets, gates were later closed and alcohol sales on Saturday were halted at noon.

A fan ran onto the course and did a somersault into a sand trap.

Another fan sustained serious injuries after falling from a viewing stand.

Multiple videos were posted on social media showed fans urinating in public areas and brawling in the mud.

Hecklers pushed fan-friendly players such as Zach Johnson, Billy Horschel and Jordan Spieth to the limits of their endurance.

That was the weekend at the TPC Scottsdale, where the rowdy charm of past tournaments jumped the shark into a desert golf version of a Clockwork Orange.

“This tournament has been inappropriate and crossed the line since I’ve been on Tour,” said Johnson, a St. Simons Island, Ga., resident, to Theo Mackie of the Arizona Republic. “I don’t know what the line is but you have people falling out of the rafters, you have fights in the stands. It’s to the point where now, how do you reel it in? Because it’s taken on a life of its own."

Johnson, ordinarily one of the most mild-mannered Tour players, lashed out at fans after several days of heckling over the U.S. performance in last fall's Ryder Cup. Spieth got on fans for yelling his backswing. Horschel did the same for fans yelling in a playing partner's swing.

It was an ugly scene overall and numerous calls by players and media alike were made for the Thunderbirds, the organization that runs the tournament, to take measures to tone down the overall party scene.

"I think the Thunderbirds probably need to do something about it," Johnson told the Republic. "I’m assuming they’re ashamed. Because at some point, somebody’s either going to really, really get hurt or worse."

Players Championship executive director Lee Smith, who is in his first season running the PGA Tour's marquee event, has been at The Players enough times to know the overall conduct of fans at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course has been exemplary.

While there have been a few incidents of heckling in past years and the amphitheater setting around the 16th green and 17th hole Island Green can get boisterous, Smith said he expects another enthusiastic but mostly respectful gallery again March 12-17 when the tournament is played for the 50th time.

But he said management for other tour events observe what happens elsewhere and he said the pitfalls last week at the TPC Scottsdale will be discussed.

"You're always looking at other tournaments to address your own policy on-site," he said. "Because it is so fresh, we'll be reviewing all of our policies, certainly around alcohol consumption, security ... those types of things."

Among other measures, The Players limits ticket sales to safely manage on-course congestion, the parking lot and traffic on A1A, Solano Road and C.R. 210 and cuts off alcohol sales in late afternoon, depending on the starting time that day. Each person is limited to buying two alcoholic beverages at a time.

Smith said from his observation of attending past Players Championship, galleries at the Stadium Course "are respectful, courteous and knowledgeable."

Chance Cozby, executive director of the Thunderbirds, told Golf Channel that changes would be made at the WM Phoneix Open.

"We've got 365 days to fix this," he said. "I think you will see a complete operational change of the way we manage … the entire week. We're very proud of what we've built but we don't like what happened on Saturday. Nothing is off the table."

Golfers are churning out sub-60 golf scores

A 57?

Followed the next day in the same tournament by a 59?

Welcome to the new normal in professional golf.

Cristobal Del Solar, a native of Chile and an All-ACC player at Florida State, set the 18-hole scoring record for PGA Tour-sanctioned events with a 57 last week in the first round of the Astara Golf Championship, at the Bogota (Col.) Golf Club.

A day later, Aldrich Potgieter of South Africa shot 59. Three weeks after becoming the youngest Korn Ferry Tour winner, he's now the youngest player at 19 years and nearly five months to shoot in the 50s.

Here's the fun part: they're thinking about it.

“I was kind of trying to get to that 57, so I was trying to push myself,” Potgieter told reporters after the round. “But then I kind of realized that we’re still in a golf tournament, we’re not playing a fun round out here. So, I was kind of trying to concentrate when I made those last three birdies, which helped a lot.”

The caveat to their two sub-60 scores is that they played the Pacos course, which measures 6,254 yards and is at an elevation of 8,500 feet. The tournament finished on the 7,238-yard Lagos Course on the weekend.

In addition, neither one of them won the golf tournament. Kevin Velo beat Brian Campbell in a playoff after both finished 22-under 261. Del Solar was solo fifth, following his 57 with rounds of 69-75-63 and Potgieter tied for 20th, with weekend rounds of 73-71 to follow his 59.

There's also been a 59 on the LIV Golf League, by Joaquin Niemann at Mayakoba.

Since Al Geiberger recorded the first 59 in 1977, there have been 12 scores in the 50s on the PGA Tour (topped by Jim Furyk's 58 in 2016), 12 on the Korn Ferry Tour, two in LIV Golf and one each on the DP World Tour, LPGA and PGA Tour Champions.

Scottie Scheffler making similar path to Players

World No. 1-ranked Scottie Scheffler posted five top-10s finishes in the seven events before winning The Players Championship last year.

He's carving out a similar track record of consistency so far this season as the 50th Players looms in four weeks.

Scheffler's tie for third at the WM Phoenix Open last week was his 19th top-three finish since the start of the 2021-22 season and his third top-10 finish in four starts in 2024. The next-nearest player on top-threes over the same span is Rory McIlroy with 11.

Scheffler has 20 top-10s in his last 27 starts, nearly 75 percent.

Ludvig Aberg commits to Players

Ludvig Aberg of Sweden, who had a sensational summer and fall on both sides of the Atlantic, is among the early commitments to The Players.

Aberg earned a Tour exemption by finishing atop the PGA Tour University rankings and won on the DP World Tour, then on the PGA Tour in the final event of the season, the RSM Classic at Sea Island, where he shot 61-61 on the weekend to set a Tour record.

Aberg also played for Europe in the Ryder Cup, going 2-2. So far this season he has two top-10 finishes in four starts, including a solo second behind Wyndham Clark in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Players have until March 8 at 5 p.m. to commit to The Players.

PGA TOUR

Event: Genesis Invitational, Thursday-Sunday, Riviera Country Club, Pacific Palisades, Calif.

At stake: $20 million purse ($4 million and 700 FedEx Cup points to the winner).

2023 champion: Jon Rahm.

TV: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 4-8 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 1-3 p.m.); CBS (Saturday, 3-7 p.m.; Sunday, 3-6:30 p.m.

Area players entered: Brian Harman, Harris English, J.T. Poston, Sam Ryder.

Notable: Rahm, who is not playing because he moved to LIV Golf, defeated Max Homa by two shots. ... Tiger Woods is making his first PGA Tour start since the 2023 Masters after ankle surgery knocked him out the rest of the season. ... Woods has played the tournament 12 times professionally without a victory, the most starts he has made in one event without winning it. ... The PGA Tour’s Florida Swing begins next week in Palm Beach Gardens with the Cognizant Classic, at PGA National.

PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS

Event: Chubb Classic, Friday-Sunday, Tiburon Golf Club, Naples.

At stake: $1.8 million purse ($270,000 to the winner).

Defending champion: Bernhard Langer.

TV: Golf Channel (Friday, 12-3 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, 3-5:30 p.m.).

Area players entered: David Duval, Davis Love III.

Notable: Langer, who is out with an injury, beat Steve Stricker and Padraig Harrington by three shots.

ROAD TO THE PLAYERS

Dates: March 14-17.

Site: Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach.

Purse: $25 million ($4.5 million and 750 FedEx Cup points to the winner.

Defending champion: Scottie Scheffler.

Days until the first round: 28.

Tour events until The Players: Four.

Notable: This will be the 50^th Players Championship.

Players trivia: The first two Players winners at the Sawgrass Country Club, Mark Hayes (1977) and Jack Nicklaus (1978) won at 1-over 289. The highest winning score since then was David Duval in 1999 with a 3-under 285 at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Players Championship has built-in procedures to avoid WM Open atmosphere