PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – A relationship with Pete Dye’s handiwork is often strained, the architect leaving behind a legacy of abundant emerald riddles over land and sea that challenge the heart, skill and mind of golfers the world over.
Dye’s creations confront players well before they arrive to the first tee, images of his severe angles, sharp edges, cavernous bunkers and undulating greens uniting for an unsettling portrait of what lies ahead, even for the best players in the world.
Jim Furyk said Dye’s diabolical deeds are visually intimidating. Tiger Woods said you never can take a breather. Rickie Fowler said prayer never hurts.
In short, Dye’s layouts can be an 18-hole migraine that can force even the elite to make a beeline to the 19th hole for proper medicinal libations.
Four-time major champion Rory McIlroy knows this all too well.
His bond with the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course at the PGA Tour’s headquarters – home to the prominent Players Championship and notorious 17th hole, with its threatening island green – has at times left him baffled and questioning his ability at one of the most famous tracts conceived by Dye.
TPC Sawgrass: Ultimate test
While McIlroy uncovered the final piece to the puzzle to win the Players in 2019, the exploration to his craved conquest wasn’t exactly enjoyable. In the end, however, the voyage was well worth the effort, and heading into this year’s 45th edition beginning Thursday, his view of the tournament and course is no longer distressing as he tries to become the tournament’s first back-to-back winner.
“If I hadn’t won the Players by the time I was done playing, I know I would have been missing something very big in my career,” McIlroy said of the PGA Tour’s flagship event, which will dispense a record-breaking $15 million purse. “It would have felt sort of incomplete. This is our championship. The field is as good as there is. There’s great history. And the course is the ultimate test.
“I finally figured out this place last year. And it means a great deal to me and always will. But it wasn’t easy.”
No, it wasn’t. In his first three starts in the Players, McIlroy never broke par en route to three missed cuts. After he shot 76 to miss the cut a third consecutive time in 2012, McIlroy was spent and lost.
“I just need to try and get the hang of this golf course somehow,” he said then. “Something about this place I just can’t quite get to grips with.”
And then he was asked about the 17th hole.
“I just don’t know what to hit there,” he said. “I just don’t feel comfortable on that tee. And I don’t know why. I’ve had 9-iron, maybe an 8-iron at most into the green. It’s just driving me mad.”
But like all players who regularly tangle with Dye’s designs, experience slowly fills one’s tank, nuggets of information are stowed away and game plans, however difficult the adjustment, are altered.
As it was for McIlroy, who finally broke par with an opening-round 66 in 2013 en route to a tie for eighth. Then he tied for sixth in 2014 and tied for eighth in 2015.
Still, McIlroy had yet to reach his comfort level at TPC Sawgrass, and he was never a factor in 2017 with his tie for 35th, followed by a missed cut in 2018.
Dye, the record showed, still had the upper hand on the former Boy Wonder.
“You have to learn how to play this course,” McIlroy said. “You finally realize that you need to play this golf course the way Pete Dye wanted you to play it. So I never felt like I could play my game here.
“That was the immaturity of my game, because I was always wanting to hit driver because that’s what I do best. I wanted to play the course the way I wanted to play it, and try and overpower it, and that was a mistake.
“I learned the hard way.”
A calendar move
It took some time, but McIlroy finally came around. Armed with an improved mental approach and a matured game plan, McIlroy was as confident as he’s ever been at TPC Sawgrass heading into the 2019 Players.
For starters, despite not winning, he had five top-6 finishes in as many starts when he showed up at TPC Sawgrass. Just as importantly, he was confident he finally had a handle on Dye’s layout. The tournament’s move from May, when the course played much firmer, to March, when it plays much softer, boosted McIlroy’s confidence.
“You have to play a bit more strategically,” McIlroy said. “It’s difficult to do that, especially for a stubborn guy like me. It took me a few trips around here and a few failures, for me to rethink this. And then I actually played pretty well. I had a few top-10s but I never gave myself a chance to win, but I learned each trip around the course on how to deal with it.
“I started to play the course better and started to shoot better scores, and I thought, ‘Hey, this is the better way to do it.’ And then when they moved back to March, I was able to put the driver back into my hands a lot more. I could take advantage of my length because the course plays longer because it’s softer.”
With rounds of 67-65-70, the Northern Irishman – on St. Patrick’s Day, no less – stood one shot out of the lead heading into the final round on a day that featured swirling winds, occasional rain and bitter temperatures.
Wearing eye-catching golf slacks and golden-soled golf shoes – which later would pair perfectly with the new gleaming gold trophy – McIlroy weathered early turbulence when he dumped his approach at the par-4 fourth into the water and made double bogey.
But he stuck to his game plan – which was highlighted by his aggressive approach to conservative spots – and rebounded with birdies on the sixth and ninth. And then with a stampede of A-list stars heading to the 72nd hole, McIlroy bested the best and got the best of Dye. Finally.
He made birdie from a fairway bunker on the 11th, added another bird on the 12th, another on the 15th from a fairway bunker, another with two putts on the par-5 16th. The shot he hit on 15 out of the trap – from 180 yards with a 6-iron – was his best of the week.
He left the 17th unscathed after a solid par and wrapped up his one-shot victory and a final-round 70 with a textbook par on 18 after a booming drive.
“I needed to show a lot of character out there,” McIlroy said afterward.
Jason Day, his playing partner, wasn’t surprised watching McIlroy seize control in the final round. The Players victory snapped a winless streak of 364 days for McIlroy, who had faced questions about his ability to close.
“It’s hard to win, it’s very difficult to kind of close. At the start of the season, when I was looking at his setup just on TV, he just looked a lot more relaxed,” said Day, the 2016 Players champion. “And you could tell that he was, just his demeanor was, it was a lot different compared to last year, and it was just a matter of time, it was going to happen.”
Nearly a year later, the luster had not worn off for McIlroy as he sat in the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse for media day in January.
“This is our flagship event. That’s massive,” he said. “It’s the highest prize fund in golf, and it has a great feel to it. It’s definitely not your regular Tour event and I don’t think it needs to be a major, but it’s a big, big event.
“Is it a major? It doesn’t need that distinction. It stands on its own merits, and those are huge. Took me a long time to win it because I had to learn how to deal with Pete Dye, and now I can’t wait to try and win another.”
He’s in a similar position to become the first to go back-to-back in the Players. Last year, McIlroy came to TPC Sawgrass after five consecutive top-6 finishes that didn’t include a win. This week he comes in off of seven consecutive top-5s around the world extending into last year, with one being a victory.
“There’s a lot of similarities between the start of this year and the start of last year. A lot of chances not converting but knowing that the game’s pretty much there,” McIlroy said after a 76 Sunday that left him in a tie for fifth in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “So just keep knocking on the door, get back at it again. It’s aggravating but at the same time I just have to keep telling myself the game’s there.
“I’ve had chances and I wish I had converted one of them over the last few weeks, but I’m still in good form. And hopefully if I just keep putting myself in those positions, it’s only a matter of time.”
He was of similar mind concerning his history with Dye and TPC Sawgrass.
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