Who says the notorious Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass isn’t a magnificent setting for identifying truly significant champions in golf? It has history. Most of it bad. It has visual impact. Most of it scary. It has terrain change. Most of it wet. It even has a scaly monster swimming in a moat at the 17th. But for whatever reason it is not the kind of golf course that causes golf pros to wax poetic. It’s the kind of golf course that causes golf pros to curse, break clubs, break out in a sweat — but not break par. This year marks the beginning of its fourth decade as the course players love to hate and hate to love. It’s never mentioned in lists of any PGA Tour player’s favorites. Never. It’s not in anyone’s top three or top five. It’s not even in their top 150. And yet partially for that
reason, it annually makes the Top 100 by course raters. It gets remembered for the unusual stuff. The unpleasant stuff. The awful stuff. It’s where Jerry Pate won, took a racing dive at 18 and then pulled in then-PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman and course designer Pete Dye. It’s where some goofball took a splash at the 17th and cost Jeff Sluman a chance at victory. It’s where Nease High School’s Len Mattiace found doom instead of a trophy. It’s where Paul Goydos wore a hat that said Dirtbags. It’s where Angelo Spagnolo took a 66 on the 17th in Golf Digest’s Worst Avid Golfer contest. The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is the pockmarked stepchild of golf courses, and yet each year the winner gets the biggest check all season and charity gets the most money. If it were Cinderella, its glass slipper would be cracked and falling apart as the prince offered it to a waiting foot. If it were the moon landing craft, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would still be up there on green THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP GUIDE 2012 29