In the past 20 years, the Players Championship has yielded an array of champions all over professional golf’s skill spectrum.
There have been winners who averaged 270 yards off the tee that season (Fred Funk in 2005) and winners who averaged 314 yards (Rory McIlroy in 2019). There have been playoffs between superstars and journeymen (think Sergio Garcia versus Paul Goydos in 2008). In the past 15 years, there have been four winners who led the field that week in driving accuracy. There also have been four winners who ranked outside the top 40 in fairways hit.
Incredibly, there never has been a player to win at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in back-to-back years. The only course on the PGA Tour with a longer active streak without a consecutive winner is Colonial Country Club.
It’s a testament to Pete Dye’s brilliant design that not one specific type of player repeatedly finds success at Sawgrass. Even golf’s elite can have a mixed bag in Ponte Vedra – Phil Mickelson doesn’t have a top-15 finish in this tournament since winning in 2007.
That’s not to say there are no trends to pinpoint at the Players. Limiting mistakes is critical – the last 15 winners of this event have had an average field rank of 2.9 in bogey avoidance. That number is more than twice as high at a typical PGA Tour event.
Excellent approach play is rewarded at TPC Sawgrass, too. While the field hits on average about 63 percent of the greens in regulation, tournament winners in that span have hit about 73 percent. That same trend is reflected in the strokes gained analytics: While the past 15 winners have ranked on average 18th that week in putting, they have ranked about sixth in tee-to-green performance.
– Golfweek partnered on this story with 15th Club, a firm that works with players, media entities, manufacturers and tours around the world in telling the true story of golf performance.