How long is the famed No. 17 at TPC Sawgrass? See that and all the rest of the holes for the Players Championship.
The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, site of this week’s Players Championship on the PGA Tour, was designed by Pete Dye – with help from his wife, Alice, most noticeably on the famed island-green, par-3 17th. It opened in 1980 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, and has been home to the Tour’s flagship tournament since 1982.
The course will play to 7,256 yards with a par of 72 for the Players Championship.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
“If you were to stand on the 18th tee and your only job was to hit it in the fairway, that’s still not an easy thing to do.”
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Every year when the Players Championship arrives, the signature hole, the par-3 17th known as the island green, gets star treatment heading into the PGA Tour’s flagship event that lures nearly all of the game’s headliners.
In promos over the years, the hole’s chilling history of calamity is highlighted with one replay after another of players dunking their fortunes in the water. Yes, classic triumphs including Tiger Woods’ better-than-most putt have been in the spots, but mostly, the misery of the balls that didn’t find land and the terrifying nature of the short hole are featured.
“You see more water than grass,” Tony Finau says in the latest ad promoting the 2022 Players. “It messes with your head.”
That’s Pete Dye’s MO. With his collection of razor-sharp edges, severe angles, troublesome undulations on the greens and an assortment of bunkers and hazards, the respected architect demanded the players’ attention on every shot.
And so it is on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, most notably on the 17th. But the 137-yard hole isn’t the only hole that offers up a tee shot that gets the heart racing, the hands tingling and the head racing. In fact, despite the perpetual klieg-light spotlight shone on the terror of the 17th, another tee shot is just as, if not more, horrifying.
“I would argue 18 is scarier than 17,” said 2019 Players champion Rory McIlroy.
The 18th hole of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course.
He can make a good argument about the 462-yard, par-4 finisher that is framed by a lake on the entire left side of the hole and a cluster of menacing rough, trees, bunkers, and moguls and bumps and humps down the right side. And the farther you go with your tee shot, the more narrow the fairway gets.
Since 2003, when ShotLink started documenting every shot on the PGA Tour, 815 balls have met an H2O grave on the 18th, the majority from off the tee. The 17th is the only hole that has seen more balls (868) disappear into the aqua.
But the hardest hole on the course is the 18th, which ranks No. 1 in difficulty at a field average of 4.336 strokes per since 2003 while the 17th ranks No. 9 at 3.113.
“You have got to commit,” McIlroy said. “It’s not a bail-out to the right. But I think, if you do hit it down that right side and avoid the water, you can still get it up around the green and try to make a 4, but it’s an intimidating tee shot.
“It’s what Pete Dye does with his golf courses. He makes it very visually intimidating. I’ve always played that hole aggressively because I’d rather have to hit one very difficult shot to make the hole play easier than have to hit two difficult shots. Like guys hit a 2-iron off that tee and they’re still left with a 5-iron into that green. I’d rather hit driver and a wedge, but it just means you have to hit a really good drive.”
And do so right after dealing with the 17th.
“You feel like once you get done with 17 there’s a little bit of relief, and then you get to 18 and it’s just as hard of a tee shot,” Daniel Berger said. “I cut the ball and it’s a dogleg left. You’re re-teeing if you don’t hit the cut that you want to hit.
“I start it over the water. I’ve played it differently in year’s past. I used to hit 3-wood off the tee, then I went to hitting driver, then I hit 3-iron. It really depends on the wind. I remember one year it was so firm and fast, I hit 3-iron, 9-iron into the green. If you hit it into the water, that’s at least a bogey. But if you miss it to the right it’s almost an automatic bogey, as well. You really have to step up there and hit a good tee shot if you’re looking to win the golf tournament coming down the 18th hole. It’s an amazing finishing hole, it really is.”
Rickie Fowler birdied the 17th three times in the final round – twice in a playoff – to win the 2015 Players Championship. When asked what the second scariest tee shot on the course was, he said the 17th because 18 is the most frightening.
“Well, OK, it’s a toss-up,” Fowler said. “The 18th is a harder tee shot. The 17th may be more scary because it’s fairly easy. I mean, as far as when you look at it, the hole is not very far, and you start trying to get a little cute towards the pin and there’s water very close. If you sat there with no pin on the green and your only job was to hit a ball on the green, Tour players are going to do that pretty much every time unless there’s serious conditions.
“If you were to stand on the 18th tee and your only job was to hit it in the fairway, that’s still not an easy thing to do. It’s obviously a great design around this golf course, and to have kind of the two shots that can make or break your round be right there at the end, it’s just a great place.”
Stewart Cink said any hole on the Stadium Course can be scary. But 18 gets the hair on your arms and the back of your neck to stand up a bit more often.
“The length of the hole makes it where you really can’t drop back to a short club just to make sure you get the ball in play unless you’re straight downwind,” Cink said. “So if there’s anything other than straight downwind you pretty much gonna have to suck it up and hit a nice shot there or you’re gonna pay a pretty severe price because right is really no good and left obviously is no good. It’s not the narrowest fairway but if you miss a fairway there, you pay a heavy price.”
Viktor Hovland said the tee shot on 18 is “way harder.”
“It’s just so narrow, and obviously you know how penal the left side is,” said Hovland, adding that you only need a 9-iron at most for the tee shot on 17. “If you pull it, one thing is kind of hitting a decent shot and it rolls in the water, at least you kind of get to drop up there. If you pull it straight off the tee, it’s a re-hit. And obviously the right side is no good either.
“You just kind of have to step up and hit a good shot. The 17th, you have a wedge in, and you can always just aim at the middle of the green. So I’ll take a ball on the fairway on 18 every day.”
Justin Thomas walks on the 18th hole the final round of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass – Stadium Course. (Photo: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports)
Justin Thomas found the fairway on the 72nd hole to cement his victory in last year’s Players, but it didn’t come without a few anxious moments.
After making a clutch 8-footer for par on the 17th, Thomas took a 1-shot lead to the 18th tee. He selected a 5-wood and unleashed a high-octane swing. And then his heart nearly stopped as his right-to-left shot headed for water.
“I can’t lie. I thought it was 50/50 if it was going to be dry or in the water. The only thing I knew is that I just absolutely smoked it,” Thomas said. “Obviously the farther up you get the better chance you have, and I knew that if you’re able to kind of get that little like downslope that I did or that I kind of hit on, it can kind of get rolling.”
Instead of screaming into the lake, the ball took a favorable bounce straight off the crown of the first cut and bounded down the fairway.
“That’s the kind of stuff that happens when you win tournaments. You get lucky breaks like that,” he said. “But yeah, it was too close for comfort, to say the least.”
Thomas provided proof a few weeks later when he revealed the findings of Whoop, the fitness strap he was wearing that monitors, among other things, heart rate and stress. As Thomas said, his heart rate alarmingly surged immediately after the tee shot. Thomas exhaled when the ball stayed dry and dropped his head onto the shoulder of his caddie in a display of relief.
He gathered himself and went on to make a par, signed for a 68 a day after shooting 64, and won by one.
Since then, Woods, a two-time Players champion and good friend, has given Thomas some grief about the tee shot.
“He told me that I toed my tee shot on 18, which I didn’t,” Thomas said. “I hit it right in the middle (of the face). I just overturned it a little bit, but he’s adamant that I toed it. I made sure to remind him that I didn’t.
The former Jaguars kicker had a round to remember at TPC Sawgrass.
A two on a par-5 hole — an “albatross,” in golf parlance — is the rarest of shots.
Former Jaguars kicker Josh Scobee pulled it off on Monday during a charity tournament at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course, doing so on a hole where the best professionals in the world over the last 39 years have tried and failed in the Players Championship.
Scobee was playing in a tournament benefitting the Ronald McDonald House, which provides lodging, meals, transportation and other care to critically ill children and their families who need to be near a hospital for treatment.
At the 520-yard par-5 ninth hole of the Stadium Course, Scobee pounded a drive of about 275 yards down the fairway. The tournament was being played under a “Shamble” format, which means the group selects one drive, and each competitor plays their own ball for the rest of the hole.
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Scobee’s was the best drive of the group, which included another former Jaguar who now splits time between Jacksonville and a real estate business in Seattle, Bryan Walters, Black Knight executive Brad Basto and Herb Shemer.
Those three hit second shots over the water splitting the ninth fairway, landing in various spots short of the green. But using a 5-wood from 244 yards out, Scobee hit the green, with the ball landing only three feet from the hole and going in on one hop.
“From where we could see, the ball took one hop and disappeared,” Scobee said. “I thought it had gone over the green but our caddie [Chris Mullen] had gone ahead and he started screaming, ‘It’s in the hole!’ That was a pretty special moment.”
Scobee used a TaylorMade Sim2 driver and 5-wood, and TaylorMade’s TP5X ball.
As it turned out, Scobee’s team needed that albatross. They eagled No. 11 when Walters pounded a 350-yard drive (winning the long-drive contest, by the way) and Scobee made a 30-foot putt and went on to shoot 16-under 56 to win by one shot.
“It’s crazy that with a two at No. 9 and an eagle at No. 11, we still only won by one,” Scobee said.
For a dose of perspective, the ninth hole is the only one of the four par-5s on the course in which an albatross has not been made during a Players Championship. There has been one at No. 2 (by Peter Lonard in 2007), two at No. 11 (by Hunter Mahan in 2007 and Harris English in 2019) and two at No. 16, by Rafael Cabrera Bello in 2017 and Brooks Kopeka in 2018.
And how rare is a 2 on a par-5? In the history of The Players Championship, there have been 31 holes-in-one at the par-3 holes but only five 2s on the par-5 holes.
The albatross has been another big shot for Scobee as he enjoys his retirement by playing as much golf as possible. He has made two holes-in-one this year, for five total, including the first hole of the Augusta National Par-3 Course, two weeks before the Masters.
Without warming up, Scobee used a pitching wedge to ace that hole.
He also had a hole-in-one in June at a charity tournament he sponsors for the Guardian Catholic School. Under that event’s set-up, there are nine par-3 holes on the course, with five par-4s converted to par-3s. Scobee used a 9-iron from 152 yards at No. 4 for the ace.
The Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour will play the inaugural Billy Horschel Invitational July 29-31 at TPC Sawgrass.
Six-time PGA Tour winner Billy Horschel of Ponte Vedra Beach already hosts an American Junior Golf tournament in the fall.
He’s now hosting a professional event at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course.
The Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour will play the inaugural Billy Horschel Invitational July 29-31 at the Stadium Course, with 18 players competing in 36 holes, after a pro-am. Cisco is a presenting sponsor.
The tournament week also will include a roundtable, seminars and other development opportunities for the players with golf industry leaders. The APGA was established in 2008 to bring more diversity to professional golf through a series of tournaments for minority players.
The PGA Tour began assisting the APGA last year and it currently offers 13 tournaments this year for more than $350,000 in purses.
The field will include nine players from the APGA Player Development Program, led by Kamaiu Johnson and Willie Mack III, who have played in multiple PGA Tour events this season, plus Jarred Garcia of Jacksonville, Ryan Alford, Marcus Byrd, Michael Herrera, Joey Stills, Davin White and Rovonta Young.
Mack has won 65 pro events, including six on the APGA, and won 11 college tournaments at Bethune-Cookman.
Also playing will be the five graduates of the APGA Collegiate Rankings, including Prince Cunningham of Jacksonville. There will be three sponsor invitations and the next-highest ranked APGA Collegiate player.
Horschel said his modest background could have prevented him from having more professional opportunities, had he not been an All-American at the University of Florida.
“Growing up in a blue-collar family, I did not always have the same opportunities in golf as some of my fellow competitors,” he said in a statement. “Without some of the success that I had in college, I would have struggled to find the financial backing, resources and industry connections to continue my dream of making it on the PGA Tour.
“Through the APGA Tour and the Player Development Program, I want to help support each players’ journey, provide them with some resources, and gain an experience that I hope will benefit each player as they chase their dreams in professional golf,” he added.
Cisco senior vice-president Mark Patterson, whose company already sponsors Johnson, said being involved with the tournament fits into its goal of “powering a more inclusive future.”
“We are proud to step up and provide support for promising golfers, just as we did earlier this year when we welcomed Kamaiu Johnson to Team Cisco,” Patterson said. “We’re thrilled to be part of this event and look forward to helping more aspiring golfers reach their full potential.”
Bryson DeChambeau’s road show came up flat in the final round of Players Championship on Sunday at TPC Sawgrass.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – A large portion of the limited numbers of fans allowed to attend the Players Championship flocked all week to watch the biggest show on turf these days.
After all, he had owned the weekend in winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week, electrifying the galleries with his power – he drove over a lake twice – precision and putting in winning his eighth PGA Tour title.
He had become must-watch TV since adding 40-50 pounds to his frame and plenty of mph to his ball speed. He loved to play to the crowds. He was anything but vanilla and he was winning.
And the reigning U.S. Open champion kept delivering with his firepower and soft touch here at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, the home to the PGA Tour’s flagship event. Heading into the final round, he was but two shots out of the lead set by Lee Westwood, who DeChambeau kept at bay in winning at Arnie’s place.
And then the final round started and DeChambeau looked like a magician who couldn’t pull the rabbit out of a hat, a thespian forgetting lines, a musician missing the beat.
He didn’t devour the first three par-5s. He wasn’t making any putts. And then he topped one – he said he thinned it – with a hybrid off the fourth tee. The man who can dial up 350 yards had just hit one 143 yards into a water hazard.
His next shot wasn’t much better. After taking a drop, he nearly hit his shot off the course, the ball flying deep into trees. Turns out, he cracked his 4-iron with the mighty blow.
“Golf,” the big man said about what was going on out there. “I was hitting it pretty good for the most part. I don’t know what happened on 4. That’s the game.
“I’m OK with it. Still smiling after. I fought really hard. It just seemed like something wasn’t going my way today for some reason. I could feel it. It was weird. Just numerous putts that I hit, it was like, OK, that’s a really good putt, and it didn’t go in.”
After taking double on the fourth, he was four shots out of the lead but somehow put what happened on the hole in the rearview even though he said he had never done that before in his career in competition.
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“I was trying to hit more of a low bullet and just kind of caught the heel, a little high on the thing. It wasn’t really a top, it was more like a thin ball that just had no spin on it and just knuckled,” he said. “But it’s one of those things that I just didn’t have it all today. I was proud of the way I fought, proud of the way I persevered, and there’s still more tournaments to be had.”
Then the 4-iron cracked.
“I couldn’t use it all day,” he said. “It sounded really weird and just came off horrifically, and I’m like, oh, and there’s a line in the bottom of the club. Things just didn’t pan out the way that I thought they should have, and I set myself behind the 8-ball quick, and I wasn’t able to recover fast enough.”
But he did recover.
He made three birdies and an eagle on the 16th to finish with a 1-under-par 71 and in a tie for third at 12 under, two shots back of Players champion Justin Thomas. And he left TPC Sawgrass with his head held high and looking to the future.
“I can play on golf courses that don’t really suit me,” he said about his biggest takeaway of the week. “That’s a big lesson. I’d also say, no matter what happens, no matter if I pop a shot, no matter if I thin a shot, whatever it was, and make a really good double or could have been triple or quad, I’m still never out of it for the most part. I know my game is good enough in most facets to get it back and compete with the best of them.
“I’m going to go back and work really hard on my golf swing and figure out how to, again, be less sensitive. I was more sensitive last week and pulled out the victory. I got a little lucky. Just putts didn’t fall today.”
FAIRWAY WOODS:Titleist TS3 (15 degrees), with Mitsubishi Tensei AV Blue 85 TX shaft; 915Fd (18 degrees), with Fujikura Motore Speeder VC 9.2 Tour Spec X shaft
IRONS:Titleist T100 (4), 620 MB (5-9), with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts
WEDGES:Titleist Vokey Design SM7 (46 degrees bent to 47.5, 52 degrees bent to 52.5), SM8 (56 degrees bent to 57, 60 degrees bent to 60.5), with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shafts
Justin Thomas is in contention after a third-round 64 at the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Justin Thomas finally had a good day.
For two months, since January 9 to be precise, Thomas has been caught up in a vortex of emotion and turmoil away from the golf course. It’s been a rough ride that has cost him a sponsor and taken its toll on his play inside the gallery ropes while challenging him during his time way from the golf course.
On Saturday, however, in the third round of The Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s flagship event on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, Thomas complemented an assortment of outstanding shots with plenty of smiles and fist pumps and exchanged numerous hand slaps with his caddie, Jimmy Johnson.
“Yes. It is,” was his direct response when asked if that was the best he’s felt on a golf course in a while, seeing as he shot 8-under-par 64 – the best score of the tournament – to storm up the leaderboard and into contention to win his first Players. His rounds of 71-71-64 have him at 10 under and on the first page of the leaderboard.
Clearly, Thomas would rather not rehash once again the fateful day in January in Maui when the golf telecast caught him muttering a homophobic slur after missing a short putt in the third round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions.
Thomas immediately manned up and apologized after the round and has repeatedly done so ever since when asked about the incident and its aftermath. Ralph Lauren dropped him as a sponsor; Citi publicly scolded him.
But Thomas has said he will learn from his mistake and be a better person.
Then, on Feb. 6, one of his best friends, his grandfather, Paul, passed at 89.
That’s a 1-2 punch to the head and heart that effected his play. In four starts heading into The Players, the world No. 3 who’s won 11 times since the start of 2017, become No. 1 in the world and captured the FedEx Cup, missed two cuts and posted ties for 13th and 15th.
Justin Thomas during the third round of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass – Stadium Course. (Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports)
“I have definitely been better,” he said earlier in the week. “But at the same time it’s a good opportunity for me to try to grow and learn and get stronger because of it. I think it’s kind of put a lot of things in perspective, and unfortunately for my golf, it’s taken a toll on that a little bit.”
And then he began the third round with four consecutive birdies on a bright day. Heading to the fifth hole, he just wanted to keep the hammer down. But after a perfect drive on the fifth, he double-crossed with his approach and made bogey. He got back on the birdie train at the seventh, then went back-to-back red on the 10th and 11th. His best shot, however, came on the par-5 16th when he ripped 5-iron from 204 yards to seven inches and a tap-in eagle.
“I wish all rounds were that easy. I hit the ball beautifully, I drove it well, I hit a couple squirrelly shots there at the end of the front nine, but the good part is that I knew why they were happening,” he said. “I knew what the swing flaw was, so I felt like I kind of bounced back from that pretty well.”
He’s bounced back slowly since the first month of the year and will continue to do so. A round of 64 can go a long way on the scoreboard and off the course, too.
“I’ve had definitely my fair share of lows this season and a lot of stuff going on mentally that I felt like I’ve never had to deal with and maybe taking things for granted or just not enjoying the game,” he said. “Being irritable, being frustrated, emotional on the golf course is not good for me. It’s definitely not good for Jimmy.
“Good golf and fun, unfortunately and fortunately, works together for the most part. I wish my mood and emotions weren’t so dependent on my golf, but golf is my life and it is my job, and I care a lot about it and I care a lot about how I play.
“But I’m trying to get better. I’m growing up a little bit, but at the same time it means a lot to me and playing well and winning tournaments means a lot as well.”
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Bryson DeChambeau owned the weekend at Arnie’s place in Orlando.
He’s in position for an encore of The DeChambeau Show at the place owned by PGA Tour.
The Big Man from Big D shot his second consecutive 3-under-par 69 in Friday’s sunlit second round at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass to prominently place his name on the marquee at The Players Championship, the Tour’s signature event.
In front of the largest galleries, DeChambeau thrilled his onlookers with his eye-popping power, precise iron play and gentle touch around the greens and looks every bit the player who could win a second Tour title in as many weeks.
“There’s a lot of support, which is great,” said DeChambeau, who was one shot out of the lead when he finished his round. “They always ask how many protein shakes I’ve had, which is funny, and I always reply back with however many I’ve had that day for the most part.”
So, how many have you had?
“I’ve had probably four,” he answered at 1 p.m. local time.
DeChambeau has been the Tour’s biggest hit this week since the curtain was drawn on Tuesday. While the limited number of fans flocked to watch him hit balls on the practice ground and then play a practice round, the Players Championship Rules Committee announced the creation of internal out of bounds left of the lake guarding the par-4, 462-yard 18th hole.
DeChambeau said he was considering driving across the lake to create a better angle back across the H2O to the green. The Tour cancelled that part of the show.
“Darn it,” he said.
But the Tour couldn’t keep DeChambeau from going all Arnold Schwarzenegger last week when he took an aggressive line to bash two drives over a lake at the par-5 6th at Bay Hill – each launch exceeding 375 yards – en route to making birdie each time. He went on to win his eighth PGA Tour title.
The reigning U.S. Open champ, in the absence of the injured Tiger Woods, has become golf’s biggest draw. And he soaks up the attention.
The fans didn’t flee when DeChambeau botched his opening act Friday when he made a double-bogey six on the 10th, his first hole.
Bryson DeChambeau during the second round of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. (Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports)
“You don’t expect to do that the first hole out. Especially since I was hitting it pretty good this morning, and then you go out there, you hit one and you squeeze one right and it goes pretty far right. You don’t hit your second shot where you need it to be and mess up. So you just aren’t feeling comfortable,” he said. “I wasn’t feeling as comfortable as I should have been feeling, and unfortunately, that’s the way my day started.”
The day got better. His swing, however, is still giving him fits. He has spent the past two nights working on the range late into the darkness and likely will do so again Friday night and Saturday night. He ranks in the 70s in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and said he’s “too sensitive through the impact zone.”
“I’m a perfectionist, and I’ll continue to be so until the day I die and until the day I stop playing this game,” he said. “That’s just the way I am. I love it about me, that’s what makes me work hard and fight for every shot out there, but at the same time it makes me worry about stuff a lot.”
Thus, despite not have his “A” game so far this week, he’s on the first page of the leaderboard.
“I’m happy with the fact that I’ve still been able to keep myself in it and score well,” he said. “I’ve been pretty lucky, for the most part. I don’t think that’ll happen this weekend. I’ve got to make sure that my game is good off the tee, so I don’t have those issues occurring and I don’t have to rely on luck for the most part.”
Steve Stricker woke up 300 miles away and will go to sleep tied for 12th at the Players Championship.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Steve Stricker was laying in bed in his home in Naples in southwest Florida at 6:45 a.m. Thursday when the phone rang.
He woke up in a hurry.
Stricker got word he had moved up to first alternate for the Players Championship when Harris English withdrew with a bad back.
“I’m coming,” Stricker told the other end of the phone.
And with that, the U.S. Ryder Cup captain shifted into overdrive. The day before when he moved up to second alternate he talked to a local guy who would allow Stricker to use his plane to fly to the northeast of the Sunshine State.
He was already packed. And then called and asked English’s caddie, Eric Larson, who had carried Stricker’s bag in the past, if he wanted to pick up his bag. The answer was yes.
“They scrambled the pilots together and I actually got in the air at about 8:30, quarter to 9,” said Stricker, who then got word in the air during the 50-minute flight that he was in the tournament after Justin Rose withdrew with a bad back.
Stricker landed in St. Augustine, with a car waiting for him at the airport. A half hour later he was in the PGA Tour’s testing facility for COVID-19. In less than four hours after waking up, he was on the back range at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass waiting for results of his test.
Negative.
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And then, with a new caddie on his bag, he shot 2-under-par 70 on a day full of carnage on Pete Dye’s diabolical track to finish in a tie for 12th.
And then he had to figure out his accommodations.
“I actually didn’t even play or hit a ball Monday or Tuesday at home or back in Naples. I played Bay Hill last week (in the Arnold Palmer Invitational) and that kind of beat me up a little bit, especially on Sunday,” Stricker said. “I just got some rest, played about 14 holes yesterday, didn’t even hit any balls. I played with my wife and so I came here with not a lot of expectations.
“But excited to be here and I know my game is in decent form, so I was excited to come here to a place that I have played a bunch before. The hard part was just trying to get the speed of the greens, the chip shots, how they’re going to roll out, all that kind of stuff. How you play those shots out of the rough.
“That was the hard and challenging part.”
He figured it out quickly. He birdied four consecutive holes on his first nine to get on the first page of the leaderboard. But he made two bogeys in his last 10 holes and didn’t add to his birdie column but all things considered, he was one happy guy when the round ended.
“I made four birdies in a row and I wasn’t trying to get ahead of myself or anything like that,” Stricker said. “I think I just kind of was running out of gas on the other side, just trying to make pars at that point and get it to the house.”
