PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida (AP) — Justin Thomas entered the TPC Sawgrass locker room exactly as he has done for the past seven years, with one break from his routine.
Memory told him to move to the right. Then he remembered one of the perks of last year’s victory at The Players Championship and went to the left into a small dressing room reserved only for champions.
“Good adjustment that I can make in the future,” he said.
There are other perks this year as well, starting with a direct deposit into player accounts at the end of the week. The main event of the strongest golf tour is now offering the richest purse of $20 million, of which $3.6 million will go to the winner.
The first three places are paid a seven-figure sum. Someone can get out of the top 10 and still earn over $500,000.
What hasn’t changed is the fickle nature of the Players Championship. TPC Sawgrass, whether it is held in March or May, is not known to favor any one particular style of play, be it strength like Thomas, Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy or accuracy like Matt Kuchar or Webb Simpson.
“You look at the winners and it’s crazy,” Thomas said. “It’s really a place that I don’t think favors the one-shot form. … Just someone who decides to go and get the best this week.”
Thomas has to overcome one part of the story. No one has won back-to-back Players Championships, whether it was held at the Atlanta Country Club or the Colonial, at the windswept Sawgrass Country Club across the street, or at the Course Course Stadium, where it has been held for the past 40 years. .
Woods and Sergio Garcia went from second to victory the following year, and it’s almost as close as you can get.
Coming into the week, Thomas took the advice of Alabama coach Nick Saban. He doesn’t defend anything just because he won.
“I’ll just try to win again,” he said.
The difference this week is that players can carry an umbrella with them. In the most unusual start of the year, the PGA Tour did not play a single round in four states in five time zones interrupted by weather.
The story goes on
Storms are predicted later in the week, and a cold front is expected over the weekend.
Variety counts. There were complaints that the West Coast Swing had too few points. And then it was too difficult at Bay Hill, with only 10 players finishing below par.
McIlroy was among those who thought the Arnold Palmer Invitational might have gone a little over the top with its greens so yellow and bare that the putts glided more than they rolled. He said it made him feel like he was playing worse than he really was.
Maybe his comments after the round came from a fever.
Or no.
“It wasn’t misinterpreted,” McIlroy said. “I definitely complained. Look, it was the same for everyone – I understand that, of course. But when I went in there on Sunday afternoon, there were a lot of alcoholic drinks in the dressing room and a lot of the players were drinking, so I wasn’t the only one having a hard time.”
TPC Sawgrass can annoy players in different ways, whether hard or soft, calm or windy. The last eight holes are water, including more water than land on the infamous Par-3 Green Island on the 17th.
McIlroy missed selection one year, won the next, and missed again the next. Maybe that explains why no one has become a champion. Or maybe it’s as simple as Thomas says, that the field is stronger than any other from top to bottom.
Bryson DeChambeau went missing this year with hand and hip injuries that he says are still not complete. Harris English is recovering from hip surgery. Kevin Na’s wife is expecting her third child. Phil Mickelson remains at halftime.
This still leaves 46 of the top 50 in the world. And although it is not considered a major championship, it is becoming no less important for the players.
Collin Morikawa heard it all the time that it was a big deal when he was growing up, but at the time, his idea of golf started with four big games.
“But since I turned pro, I look at it in a very different way and I appreciate everything that is put into this tournament because it is amazing,” said Morikawa. “The scope, the landscape of everything that happens here when we show up, it’s everything for us — it’s everything for the PGA Tour players. And that’s why you want to win this tournament.”
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