Here’s what you need to know for a soggy Friday at TPC Sawgrass.
Mother Nature shook up the schedule at the 2022 Players Championship, dumping rain on the PGA Tour’s parade leading up to and during Thursday’s opening round.
According to the Tour, 1.3 inches of rain fell overnight at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, which put preferred lies into play and moved tee times back an hour due to “overnight rain and area thunderstorms.”
Another .45 inches fell during a 4 hour, 14 minute suspension of play due to more dangerous weather in the area. Play was then suspended due to darkness at 6:36 p.m. ET with the majority of the field yet to finish.
So what does that mean for Friday and the rest of the weekend? Here’s what you need to know.
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When does play resume?
The first round is scheduled to resume at 7:15 a.m. ET on Friday, with the first wave of second-round tee times scheduled to start sometime between 11 a.m.-1 p.m. ET.
Sixty-nine of the 72 players in the morning wave finished their first round. The group of Hank Lebioda, Henrik Norlander and Taylor Pendrith was the lone trio to not finish. On the flip side, 60 of 72 players in the afternoon wave began their first round.
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What does the weather look like?
On the positive side, Thursday night should be pretty clear. On the negative side, Friday doesn’t look great.
Sourcing PGA Tour Meteorologist Wayne Stettner, Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis said they’re expecting “anywhere from three quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter of rain on Friday,” with thunderstorms and potentially damaging winds expected Saturday (plus an additional half-inch to an inch of rain).
A clean-shaven Tommy Fleetwood shares the lead with Tom Hoge after each fired 6-under 66s on Thursday. Kramer Hickok, Joaquin Niemann, Keith Mitchell and Anirban Lahiri are all T-3 at 5 under. Harold Varner III shot a 69 despite a triple-bogey 6 on the famed par-3 17th hole. He’s in a group that’s T-11 after the first day.
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Tommy Fleetwood was tied with Tom Hoge at the Players Championship when play was suspended due to darkness.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – With his trademark long flowing locks and thick beard, Tommy Fleetwood looks as if he were performing off-Broadway in “Jesus Christ Superstar.” But the beard is missing – mostly anyway – making the 31-year-old Englishman look like a folk hero of a different sort as he walked the fairways of the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. What exactly happened to his beard?
“I was in a really bad mood,” Fleetwood said. “It was like break some golf clubs or shave my beard.”
Despite the fact his wife, Clare, prefers the hirsute look, he chose the beard. His mood, however, is on the upswing after shooting 6-under 66, tied with Tom Hoge during the first round of the Players Championship when play was suspended due to darkness.
“I’m chuffed to be in at that score,” said Fleetwood of a round that was delayed for more than four hours due to rain and dangerous weather conditions.
It’s been far too long since Fleetwood has been contending for one of golf’s big trophies. The Englishman, who once was ranked ninth in the Official World Golf Ranking, failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup last year and has slipped to No. 49. He barely squeaked into the field at the Players, which exempts the world top 50. (He was No. 50 at the time of the cut off.)
“If you’re not playing very well, especially out here, the standard is so, so high and it keeps getting higher,” Fleetwood said. “When you’re off the pace and you’re lacking confidence, the game becomes very, very difficult.”
Starting on the back nine at TPC Sawgrass, Fleetwood took advantage of soft conditions, no wind and preferred lies in the fairways. He wedged inside 10 feet for birdies at the two par-5s on his opening nine – Nos. 11 and 16 – and chipped in with his 60-degree wedge at 18 for birdie from 49 feet right of the green.
It was the first of three consecutive birdies for Fleetwood, who canned a 13-foot birdie putt at 1 and wedged to nine feet to set up birdie at the second. Fleetwood added another birdie at the fifth before making his only bogey of the day after a wayward drive to the right at the sixth. He holed more than 100 feet of putts on the day, the longest of which was a 24-foot birdie at the par-3 eighth, which was his seventh and final birdie of the day.
Fleetwood has always been a fan of course architect Pete Dye’s house of horrors. He was the 54-hole leader in 2019, but shot 73 in the final round to finish T-5.
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“I love this golf course. I really, really do,” Fleetwood said. “If you play well, you get rewarded, and if you play poorly, you’re going to struggle to make a score. I think it’s major-like in that sense.”
TPC Sawgrass can give but it also can take it away. Harold Varner III was cruising along at 7 under with birdies on all four of the par 5s, when he spun his tee shot off the green at the infamous par-3 17th island green. It was the first water ball of the day at 17. He nearly did it again with his third shot from the drop zone, needing to stand on the bulkhead to play his fourth shot and made triple-bogey six. A bogey at the last and he signed for 3-under 69 that could’ve been so much better.
Kramer Hickock was among the early finishers, carding a bogey-free 67 in between the rain drops and the suspension of play.
“It was perfect scoring conditions for what this tournament can yield,” said Hickock. “Last year was super firm and fast, and this is about as soft and pristine as I think I’ve seen it.”
The PGA Tour’s first suspension of play in 2022 meant the opening round wouldn’t be completed on Thursday. Play is scheduled to resume at 7:15 a.m. on Friday, but the forecast calls for more rain. By the time Fleetwood plays again, he may have grown a full beard.
“When I shaved it off, I think it took about 15 years off me. Everyone kind of noticed that I look a lot younger without the beard,” he said. “I’ll definitely grow it back. As long as I can keep my temper and keep smiling, then I won’t have to shave it off again.”
“When is winning a bad thing,” Varner said Thursday after his first round in the Players Championship.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Harold Varner III knocked in a 92-foot eagle putt on the 72nd hole to win the Saudi International in February and his instant crazy celebration became an instant classic.
But when he returned to the United States, something weird started to happen. He started seeing it on social media, sensing it elsewhere. Suddenly, Varner was going to go and play in the Super Golf League, the proposed circuit that would rival the PGA Tour and be funded the repressive regime of Saudi Arabia.
After all, Varner received a hefty appearance fee to play in the Saudi International, then took home a haul of cash for winning. That’s what some believed. Criticism was directed his way.
But Varner said all he did was win a tournament.
“When is winning a bad thing,” Varner said Thursday after his first round in the Players Championship. “My name went right to the top of the list.
“If I wouldn’t have won, no one would have talked about it.”
Varner was shaken a bit and said he felt “terrible” as the jet lag got to him and he missed the cut in the WM Phoenix Open. Things didn’t improve much as he also missed the cut the following week in the Genesis Invitational.
After a two-week break, Varner returned to this week’s Players Championship. On Wednesday, he sought out PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who has made it clear that any player joining the league would face banishment from the PGA Tour. Varner said he would not reveal what was said between the two.
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“I do have to commend Jay for sitting down and talking to me and being totally open about,” Varner said. “I look at Jay as a friend, but it’s pretty odd how my name just went straight to the top of the list.
“You do your job, that’s what you do, and I thought that was pretty odd. I’ve always supported the PGA Tour when they needed me, and I want to be there.”
Varner, still seeking his first PGA Tour title, was doing his job quite well through the storm-delayed first round on Thursday.
Play started an hour later than scheduled on the soggy Stadium Course and then was suspended at 11 a.m. for 4 hours, 14 minutes. Before and after the delay, Varner was building up a lead in the Tour’s flagship event.
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He got a fortunate break on the first hole when Will Zalatoris’ caddie, Ryan Goble, stepped on his plugged ball just five seconds before Varner would have needed to return to hit another tee shot because of a lost ball.
From there, Varner lit up the scoreboard as was leading the tournament at 7 under when he stepped to the 17th tee. And then he became the first player to rinse his tee shot, his ball hitting deep into the green but spinning back more than 35 feet into the water surrounding the island green. Then his heart nearly stopped when his shot from the drop zone spun back toward the water but stopped on the fringe.
Varner needed three more shots from there and made triple-bogey 6. He bogeyed the last for a 3-under-par 69, three shots behind the lead.
“It’s a game. That’s why we play it. No one is going to die out there,” Varner said. “Just was in between clubs and didn’t execute the shot, and that’s what you get a lot out here. Either you get it done or you don’t.”
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Varner has three weeks to get to Augusta National for the Masters. Varner’s win in the Saudi International put him inside the top 50 in the official world ranking; the top 50 at the end of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in three weeks. Varner is No. 48 in the world.
He is playing this week, in next week’s Valspar Championship and the Match Play.
“I want to get to Augusta,” Varner said. “I’ve always wanted to be there. I think I’ll have a great opportunity to get to Augusta.”
Here’s one man’s take on why the PGA Tour should reserve a spot in the Players field for an amateur.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – A dozen years before Justin Thomas won the Players Championship last March, he won the AJGA’s 2009 Wyndham Invitational and earned a berth into the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship. All the 15-year-old whipper snapper did that week was shoot an opening-round 65 to make the cut in his debut on golf’s biggest stage.
“I remember leaving there very hungry and wanting to get back,” Thomas recalled. “Looking back, it was a great learning experience for me. I drew back on that the next couple of years.”
Thomas, 28, became the first Players champion who also had played in the Junior Players, which was first contested in 2007. It won’t be long before a Junior Players champ wins the big-boy version. That’s why the time has come for the PGA Tour to recognize its new blood waiting in the wings and offer a spot to the winner of the AJGA’s Junior Players.
Before they haul me off to Crazy Town, hear me out.
Since 2007, it has been tradition for the winner of the Players to tee it up during the first two rounds with the winner of the Senior Players. That isn’t happening this year because Senior Players winner Steve Stricker has been sidelined since being the winning captain of the Ryder Cup. (He’s recovering from pericarditis, a heart inflammation illness that nearly took his life in January.)
Imagine the thrill to be the third member of that threesome if you’re the winner of the Junior Players. In September, moments after he won the title, I asked winner Benjamin James, who just added winning the Dustin Johnson World Junior Golf Championship to his resume last weekend, how cool that would be if he had earned a spot in the field at golf’s fifth major. His eyes grew as big as saucers.
“Wow,” James said. “That would be the coolest. Every kid on the planet would want to play in this event.”
Benjamin James accepts the trophy after winning the 2021 Junior Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. (Photo: Garry Smits/Florida Times-Union)
Indeed, they would. Here’s the funny thing: I asked several AJGA players, including James, U.S. Junior champ Nick Dunlap and Junior PGA champ Caleb Surratt, where the Junior Players ranks among the top junior golf events. The consensus answer? Fifth.
Then I asked them what if the Junior Players winner got to play in the Players?
No. 1, or at worst No. 2, they all said.
Make it 1B.
The U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, which dates to 1948 and includes Tiger Woods winning three times in a row and Jordan Spieth claiming the title twice, always has been the premier event in the world of junior golf. Beginning in 2020, the winner of the Junior has earned an exemption into the U.S. Open. That’s a pretty big deal. If the PGA Tour wants the Junior Players to be considered best of class, it really needs to keep up with the Jones’s.
Part of what makes the Masters special is how it celebrates amateur champions. The first time most golf fans saw Tiger, Phil and Bryson on the big stage was playing Augusta National as the U.S. Amateur winner. Our first exposure to Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, the reigning Masters champ, was playing at Augusta as the two-time winner of the Asian Amateur. In short, one junior isn’t going to weaken the Players from boasting to be “golf’s strongest field.”
This week, 32 players in the field of 144 had played in the Junior Players. In all, 45 pros have played in both the Junior Players and Players. Bud Cauley was the first to do so. Then, Jordan and Justin and all the other young studs who have been cleaning up in the big leagues, including four of the top 5 and nine of the top 20 in the world.
Course set up is the same at the Junior Players – same tees, same hole locations. The average winning score with the pro setup is 6 under (for 54 holes). Sure, it will be a different pressure in March and they might miss the cut, but last I checked the Senior Players champ hasn’t exactly been channeling Phil Mickelson at Kiawah vibes at the Players: Loren Roberts in 2008 and Fred Couples in 2012 skipped it altogether and Mark O’Meara in 2011, who finished 74th, is the only one to make the cut.
Personally, I like the symmetry of the Senior, Junior and Players champ teeing it up, but given how precious every spot in the field is I’d settle for subbing out the Senior Players winner with the Junior Players champ. What a cool introduction for a young golfer to dream about.
I called up Billy Dettlaff, the visionary behind the Junior Players, who loved my idea but delivered a dose of reality.
“It would be a real longshot,” said Dettlaff, TPC network’s national director of golf who was based at TPC Sawgrass until he retired in 2009. “How does the Tour explain that it’s taking a spot away from a pro who feels he deserves it?”
“Never in a million years” another former Tour executive told me. Best case scenario: a spot in a Tour opposite-field event.
I asked Thomas, who hosts his own AJGA event in his native Louisville, Kentucky, and he said he was neither for it or against it and explained why it may be a tough sell.
“You can’t win,” he said. “On the one hand, it would be huge. To have the opportunity would be nuts. But that first alternate wouldn’t be very happy. It’s the type of event that could change a life. We have a lot of members who aren’t in the tournament, which is tough if you are going to let a junior in. But at the same time, it’s one person.”
I bumped into Players tournament director Jared Rice at a pro-am and asked for the official on-the-record word.
“It’s an interesting idea. I’m always open to suggestions,” he began. Then came the but.
“But based on what we are and what we are building to be, what makes the Players so special and why it stands on its own is how hard it is to get in. It’s about having 144 of the best players in the world and I see the eligibility staying the same for now.”
Not surprisingly, the AJGA happens to share my vision that having one amateur in the field wouldn’t diminish the tournament. Rather, the next evolution for the Junior Players and the Players should be to recognize a star of tomorrow. When I asked AJGA executive director Stephen Hamblin whether he may petition for such an exemption, he said, “I’m not afraid of a no. I get no a million times.”
Hamblin thinks he might even have an ace in the hole in PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, who signed off on the creation of the Junior Presidents Cup.
“It fell on deaf ears before,” Hamblin said.
It all comes down to whether the PGA Tour wants the Junior Players to be considered one of the major championships for junior golf or if fifth-major status is as good as it gets. I vote for making it so every kid on the planet wants to play here.
Adam Scott was reminded of that Thursday morning when he pumped not one, but two tee shots into the drink on what was his ninth hole of the day.
Scott, who has won here before and has had a lot of other good finishes in this tournament, was 1-under when he teed up his first shot on the par-4 18th. He later walked off the green +3 on the day after tapping in for a quadruple bogey 8. All of us amateurs are way to familiar with the snowman on a scorecard.
Here’s how it went. I love the announcer saying before the second one that “You can guarantee this is going to be right.” It didn’t go right. It went well left, again.
Adam Scott put his driver in time-out last Thursday at Bay Hill and played the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational without a driver. The club was back for the second round and remained in Scott’s bag throughout the weekend, but clearly it was on a short leash. Thursday morning at TPC Sawgrass, the 2013 Masters champion had a new driver in his bag, a TaylorMade Strealth Plus+ fitted with the same Graphite Design Tour AD DI-7 X shaft.
Scott also started Thursday’s round with a new TaylorMade Stealth Plus+ 3-wood and used it off the tee for his first shot of the day at the Players Championship.
As can be seen in the chart below, the Australian led the PGA Tour in strokes gained off the tee in 2006 with an average of 0.955, which means he gained nearly a full shot over the average competitor solely on the quality of his driving. He ranked third in that category in 2011, second in 2013 and was in the top 20 from 2014-2016. However, in the past two seasons, Scott performed worse than the average Tour player and finished the year ranked outside the top 100 in strokes gained off the tee. His average is up this season, but clearly he has been frustrated with his driving.
Scott won the 2004 Players championship at age 23 and has won more than $58 million in career prize money on the Tour.
A lot of people had a lot of nice things to say about Tiger.
Twenty-six years after putting to bed a world-class amateur career and embarking on a journey through professional golf that has featured 82 PGA Tour wins and 15 major championships, Tiger Woods is adding yet another line to his resume.
Wednesday night Woods was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame by his daughter, Sam, alongside former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and three-time U.S. Women’s Open champion Susie Maxwell Berning. Trailblazer Marion Hollins was also inducted posthumously.
From the Masters to the PGA Tour, his alma mater to Nick Faldo and other fellow competitors, check out how the sports world reacted to Tiger’s Hall of Fame induction.
Congratulations on your Hall of Fame induction, @TigerWoods
You've been the most prominent professional in the history of our game. In fact, what you've done and achieved possibly makes you the most prominent global sportsman since Ali.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Some 44 years after shuffling on to the stage of “The Mike Douglas Show” as a 2-year-old and entertaining Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart and the host by hitting golf balls into a net and rolling a few putts, Tiger Woods was at PGA Tour headquarters Wednesday night for his rightful induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
“He is the rare athlete who not only exceeded the hype,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said of Woods, “he transcended it and continues to this day to have a massive influence on the game and the PGA Tour.”
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After winning three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur titles and three consecutive U.S. Amateur championships, Woods, 46, turned pro in 1996. He promptly won three times on the PGA Tour in his first 10 starts.
Then he won the 1997 Masters by 12 shots, a historic victory as Woods became the first man of color to win at Augusta National Golf Club. He also, at 21, became the youngest winner of the green jacket.
Woods became the needle that moved the sport. Purses began to significantly rise, TV ratings surged upward. His presence spurred more athletic, stronger players to pick up the game. His peers followed him into the gym and the game became one featuring more power.
His influence on advertising and fashion for the sport was striking. Minorities became attracted to golf. And a generation of youngsters wanted to be like Tiger.
The list of his feats stretches out as long as one of his drives from his heyday. The record-tying 82 PGA Tour titles, the 15 major championships. A record 142 consecutive cuts made, a record 683 weeks – 13 years – atop the Official World Golf Ranking. A record 11 PGA Tour Player of the Year Awards.
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He’s the youngest player to complete the career Grand Slam, doing so at age 24 when he won the 2000 British Open at the Home of Golf, the Old Course at St. Andrews. En route to becoming the only player to win four consecutive professional major championships – known as the Tiger Slam – he won the 2000 U.S. Open by 15, the 2000 Open by 8, the 2000 PGA in a playoff, and the 2001 Masters by two. And he won on a broken leg at the 2008 U.S. Open and captured his fifth Masters in 2019 following spinal fusion surgery (his fifth back surgery, to go along with five surgeries on his left knee).
The list goes on and on and on.
“What can I say about Tiger that we haven’t said already?” world No. 1 Jon Rahm said. “Besides entertaining all of us for 20 years and doing unbelievable things, he inspired the generation of players that you’re seeing today.
“You have at the top of the world a lot of 20-some-year-olds and early 30-year-olds that grew up watching him and trying to copy him, and I think that’s why the level of the game is as high as it is right now.
“Aside from everything that he did, I think it’s a testament to what he was able to accomplish and how many people he was able to inspire.”
“Any time you have something that’s not what you’re doing it’s going to distract you.”
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Go figure.
Dustin Johnson has won all around the world – more than 25 victories, 24 coming on the PGA Tour – is a former world No. 1, a two-time major champion.
Among the sites he’s won are the rugged Oakmont Country Club, Augusta National Golf Club, Riviera Country Club, Pebble Beach Golf Links, the Plantation in Maui, and TPC Southwind in Memphis.
But there’s one course that has his number – the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, home to the PGA Tour’s flagship event. In 12 appearances on Pete Dye’s masterful, troublesome gem, Johnson has but one top 10.
Makes no sense, right? Even Johnson doesn’t know why he hasn’t had more success, either.
“Honestly I don’t know because I like the golf course and I feel like it sets up well for me,” Johnson said Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s start of the Players. “I would say if anything that’s held me back, it’s probably just putting around here.
“But I feel like moving to March, I feel like I can read the greens a little bit better.
“The last few days I feel like I’m rolling the ball really well on the greens, but I would say that would probably be the number one thing. Just playing in May, I don’t know why I always struggled on the greens.
“I feel really comfortable out here, and I’ve had a little more success the last few years since we moved it and hopefully can continue that.”
As far as the Stadium Course, Johnson, 37, has his only top 10 in the Players – a tie for fifth in 2019 – since the tournament moved from May to March.
“I feel like the course is in better condition, obviously, with the overseed,” Johnson said. “But plays a little bit longer. Obviously, in May it’s really warm. The course plays really fast. I feel like this time of year the course definitely suits my game a little bit better.”
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Not much has suited his game of late. Johnson has dropped to No. 9 in the world, his lowest rank since March of 2016. And after winning 15 times from the start of 2016 through the end of 2020, he’s won just once – the 2021 Saudi International.
He missed the cut in the Genesis Invitational in his last start three weeks ago.
“There’s not a very simple answer, but just haven’t played well,” Johnson replied when asked why he’s gone more than a year without winning.
“I don’t know if we have enough time,” he said when asked for the more complicated answer.
When pressed a bit, however, Johnson continued.
“Last year I felt like I was doing a lot of driver testing, and kind of took away a little bit from what I needed to be working on,” he said. “Was testing all year really. I must have tested 100 drivers probably.
“So then obviously testing drivers all year that kind of leaks into the iron game, and it just felt like I never could really match it up where if I was driving it well, I wasn’t hitting my irons very good, if I was hitting my irons really well, I wasn’t driving it good. So it was just kind of a frustrating year.”
He hinted at another reason. Johnson was rumored to be one of the players who would join the potential Saudi Arabia-backed Super Golf League that would siphon off players from the PGA Tour and be a direct rival.
PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan hasn’t sat still and has said the PGA Tour is moving on with tremendous momentum and any player who would join up with the Saudis could face banishment from the PGA Tour.
Some of the game’s top players – Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, and Bryson DeChambeau – have been vocal in recent weeks in their support of the PGA Tour.
“Any time you have something that’s not what you’re doing it’s going to distract you,” he said. “But for me, I don’t think it was too much of a distraction. Maybe it was, I don’t know. I can’t really answer that.
“But just wanted to have my complete focus on golf and playing on the PGA Tour. That was the main reason for the statement.”
And this week on the PGA Tour, his focus is the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.
“I had a lot of good work last week. I’ve had some good work this week,” he said. “The game has been pretty good this year, just have struggled with the putting a little bit. But put in a lot of work last week, this week, and feel like I’m rolling it a lot better.”
There are five key areas to dissect at The Players Championship. Our Steve Scott got out his scalpel.
At some of the crown jewels of our sport, the outcomes seem limited to a select few given the massive length of the course or density of the rough. However, for the PGA Tour’s showcase event that has never had a back-to-back winner in its 48 previous editions, the genetic makeup of the conqueror at the TPC Sawgrass can be as varied as the number of parts in the human body.
Just like there are five vital organs for human survival (heart, brain, lungs, liver and kidneys), there are five key areas to dissect this week at The Players Championship:
(Average category rank of winner in parentheses from Shotlink statistics.)
