PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Scottie Scheffler had the unenviable honor of hitting the first full swing to the par-3 island green when play resumed on Saturday at noon.
With the wind howling from left to right and hurting, Scheffler, winner of two of his last three starts and cruising along at 5 under for the tournament, tried to flight a 7-iron that bounced once on land but had too much steam and ended with a splash.
Next up: Olympic gold medalist Xander Schauffele came up short as did four-time major champion Brooks Koepka. Three shots, three water balls. All three had to make the walk of shame to the drop zone and they wouldn’t be the last. When Schauffele found the putting surface from 90 yards, the fans cheered as if he’d knocked his first shot stiff.
One group later, reigning British Open champion Collin Morikawa, who is arguably the best iron player in the game at this time, tried to chip a 7-iron, but said he hit it “whiffy.” Nothing causes more indecision in golf than wind.
“It’s not that hard,” Morikawa said of the hole. “You’ve just got to commit to your shot. I just didn’t.”
Four world-class players were embarrassed by a mere 146-yard shot over water. Only four of the first 122 players to play the hole had found the water at 17 during calm conditions on Thursday and in the rain on Friday, but the first four to do so in gusting winds that were measured as high as 43 miles per hour during the day claimed victim after victim.
Somewhere in the heavens, TPC Sawgrass architect Pete Dye was smiling. “I never thought you could intimidate these great players with a 132-yard hole,” Dye said.
Dye, who long called Indianapolis home before his death in 2020, compared the drama at 17 to the blood sport of watching a 10-car pile-up at the Indy 500. “He likes to see good racing, but secretly he’s looking for a crash, too. And the guy at 17 is waiting for that crash, waiting for some star to dump his tee shot into the water.”
Saturday was a 29-ball pile-up, the total number of balls that suffered a watery grave. There were 10 balls hit in the water at No. 17 on Saturday – nine tee shots and Emiliano Grillo hit two in the water en route to making quadruple-bogey 7 – and that was just during the completion of the first round.
Michael Thompson’s tee shot was so far wide right that PGA Tour Live’s John Swantek said it was “closer to the flower island than the island green.” He made double.
Even though they shortened the hole to 136 yards, another 19 souvenirs were left at the bottom of the lake during the second round, playing to a scoring average of 3.695 before play was suspended due to darkness.
As the mayhem at 17 mounted, Koepka, Morikawa and Scheffler, headed straight back out after completing their first rounds and started on the back nine. Just over three hours later, all three rinsed their tee shots on their second go-round, including a shank by Scheffler, as the wind was its most unpredictable.
“It’s luck,” said Koepka, who has been particularly unlucky then as he has dunked 10 balls in the water since 2015, and has played the hole in 20-over par. “There’s nothing you can do. We hit a gust. I don’t think it was going harder for anybody else out here than when me, Scottie, and Xander played it. When we first teed off, that was my first shot of the day, and I thought it was blowing the hardest. Then it picked up again when we were on 16. I hit 8-iron, flew 205 yards on 16. On 17 hit it 105.”
Defending champion Justin Thomas said on Tuesday that Tiger Woods and Fred Couples had told him horror stories of hitting 5- or 6-iron into 17 on cold March days in the past. He was overjoyed to walk off with a pair of pars.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken about it earlier in the week. They were both giving me a hard time last night about how hard it was going to be today,” Thomas said after shooting bogey-free 69. “It’s a lot more fun when someone tells you a story of them doing it versus you have to it.”
There may be no better mixture of terror, excitement and pressure than TPC’s 17th, a hole with nowhere to bail out. Chesson Hadley celebrated back-to-back birdies at Nos. 15 and 16 until he realized that meant he had the honor at the next tee. He joined one of the players to dunk his tee shot at 17, was asked the most nerve-wracking shot of the day?
“Really? I mean, it’s blowing 100 on 17 in my face. 17, yeah,” he said, noting his shot ballooned in the air and came up short of the green. “I bet it was going backwards at the end.”
No one took it on the chin at 17 worse than Sepp Straka, who was 5 under and tied for third when he rinsed two in the water and made quadruple-bogey 7.
Amid all the tales of woe, it should be pointed out that not every player in the field experienced heartache. Daniel Berger stuck his tee shot to 16 feet and rolled in the putt for the first of just two birdies on the day at 17.
“You’re not even looking at the flag,” Berger said. “You’re just trying to put it on dry land and make a par and get out of there.”
After Hudson Swafford deposited his tee shot in the water, his next from the drop zone nearly spun off the green.
“I don’t know what else I can do?” he said in frustration.
Just wait, tomorrow there may be another 10-car pileup to see.
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