"Where are the windmills and animals" Fuzzy Zoellar (1982)
This week the tour heads for TP Sawgrass and the most famous island green in golf.
It's the biggest prize pot in the schedule - $20million. The winner will scoop $3.6million of that.
It's an indecent amount of money, making it all the harder to have sympathy for the world's best. But that 17th hole...
Mark Calcavecchia described it thus:
"It is like having a 3 o'clock appointment for a root canal. You're thinking about it all morning and you feel bad all day. You kind of know sooner or later you've got to get to it."
And because Sawgrass is a public course that 17th hole is a challenge us mere mortals can take on too.
Each year about 40 000 rounds are played on the course, and each year about 120 000 balls are retrieved from the water surrounding the 17th.
If my maths are right the chances of staying dry at that hole is 1:4 or 25%.
It's going to be fun to watch as the Pro's take it on again this week and here are my picks of (today's) Day One tee times:
07:51 TEE #10
Viktor Hovland
Patrick Cantlay
Jon Rahm
12:56 PM TEE #1
Rory McIlroy
Collin Morikawa
Justin Thomas
The tournament has an excellent website with which you can keep appraised (THE PLAYERS Championship) and there is extensive coverage on Sky TV on all four days of the tournament.
Good luck all - I hope you've packed enough balls (literally and metaphorically) this week!
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