Could Scheffler be first to repeat as Players champion?
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLA.>> Tiger Woods never did it. Neither did Jack Nicklaus, even before The Players Championship found its home in a former swamp now known as the TPC Sawgrass.
This is the 50th edition of the PGA Tour’s premier championship, and no one has ever defended his title. Next up is Scottie Scheffler, and the odds are as much in his favor as any of the previous winners.
That includes Woods, who only got one crack at it in 2002, didn’t break 70 and tied for 14th.
“I just think it’s a golf course where you don’t see a lot of repeat winners in general,” Scheffler said. “There’s not a guy that you have seen win on this golf course a bunch.”
Only five players have won twice on the Stadium Course at the TPC Sawgrass. Nicklaus won The Players three times, but that was before it moved permanently to this Pete Dye arena of endless thrills and that one (mostly) island green on the par-3 17th.
Scheffler is the No. 1 player in the world, the first time the defending champion of The Players has been atop the world ranking since Jason Day in 2016. The difference is Scheffler arrived at Sawgrass straight from a dominant performance to win at Bay Hill by five shots.
Already the best from tee-togreen, his putter finally came to life and the rest of golf’s best had every reason to be nervous.
“I’ve personally had some really, really nice ball-striking weeks,” Fedex Cup champion Viktor Hovland said. “But for him to have done that for so long and won so many tournaments that he’s done the last couple years is very, very impressive. Because you get into periods of times where you feel like you can’t miss and you’re hitting it on a string, but then next month it might feel a little bit difficult. He just seems to keep doing what he’s doing.”
Scheffler has been No. 1 for the last 10 months, and it’s not difficult to do the math. Along with three victories in the last year — that includes the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas — he has finished out of the top 10 only three times in 22 tournaments.
How that translates to Sawgrass is yet to be seen, even on a course where a year ago it looked as though he was playing alone. He led by six shots at one point and won by five shots, just as he did at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
History, however, is not on his side. The Stadium Course has a reputation of never favoring a single style of golf, and there is trouble just about everywhere.
“That’s why I think it’s one of the best places we play on tour, just because it really doesn’t suit one type of player,” Scheffler said. “Bomb-and-gouge doesn’t really work out here. But then you even have the shorter hitters that plot it around that can struggle here, because you got to hit it exactly where you’re looking or you’re going to be punished pretty severely.”