In the Golf Paper
Betting: Sergio has the form to claim this ‘mini’ Major for second time
by Mitchell Platts
Sergio Garcia might not regard it as a compliment to be nominated the best player in the world today not to have won a Major Championship, but he could this week capture for a second time what many observers rate as the fifth Major when The Players Championship unfolds at the TPC Sawgrass (Stadium) course.
The 35-year-old Spaniard, winner of 26 tournaments worldwide, has a remarkable record on the course in Ponte Vedra, Florida, where the PGA Tour is based. He won the title in 2008, finished runner-up in 2007, third last year, tied fourth in 2002 and has not missed a halfway cut for 11 straight years.
Garcia actually made an inauspicious start to his 15-year relationship with TPC Sawgrass as he racked-up an opening 82 in 2000. He put that behind him two years later with four rounds of par or better and tied fourth behind surprise winner Craig Perks.
Then, in 2007, he closed with a 66 to secure second spot behind Phil Mickelson before the next year opening with a 66 on the way to a play-off against Paul Goydos, which he won. Garcia’s scores of 67-71-69-70 for third place 12 months ago again highlight his fondness of the course, although he missed out on a clear chance to win the previous year when he visited the water three times in a quadruple bogey-double bogey finish when tied for the lead with Tiger Woods, who eventually won.
That finish emphasises that supporting Garcia does come with something of a health warning as his six highest scores, apart from that 82, have all come in the last rounds with a 76, a 77, three 78s and a 79.
Garcia, however, can be a model of consistency as he showed last year, although he was always fighting a losing battle after Germany’s Martin Kaymer laid the foundation to a thrilling victory with a record-equalling 63, including the tournament’s first 29 for nine holes, and led from start to finish for a one-shot win ahead of Jim Furyk.
Not that Kaymer made it easy for himself because, after flirting with the water at the 17th, he made a par-saving putt from 28 feet – the longest holed on that green for the last 11 years – and then another from five feet at the last. Incidentally, Kaymer’s 13-under-par score of 275 was the fourth year in succession that this had been the winning total.
Kaymer’s triumph maintained a tradition of Major champions performing well in an event started in 1974 as the Tournament Players Championship, with Jack Nicklaus winning three times in five years. Ray Floyd, Lee Trevino, Lanny Wadkins and Al Geiberger were also champions prior to the event arriving in 1982 at TPC Sawgrass where Jerry Pate, Hal Sutton, Fred Couples, John Mahaffey, Sandy Lyle, Tom Kite, Steve Elkington, Davis Love III, Nick Price, Greg Norman, Lee Janzen and David Duval have all won.
That tradition was continued by Woods and Mickelson, but what no player has achieved is back-to-back wins, so with all of the top 50 in the current Official World Golf Ranking teeing-up, it will require an historic performance from Kaymer, despite his proud record of not missing the cut in six visits, to erase that statistic from the record books.
What we know for certain is that the 7,215 yards (par 72) course, fashioned by Pete Dye out of 415 acres of wooded wetlands purchased in the late 1970s by then US PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman for one dollar, is made for thrills and spills. Dye designed the course so that no two consecutive holes play in the same direction, with holes that also have contrasting doglegs in both directions, and not only do the water hazards provide protection for the strategic layout, but the undulating greens demand that approach shots are struck with authority and precision.
The par threes are a constant menace through to the famed 137-yards-over-water 17th – a green connected to land only by a narrow pathway – where an average of 45.9 balls each year have found a watery grave. In 2007, The Players Championship moved from its original date two weeks prior to the Masters to a May slot to coincide with the arrival of the FedEx Cup.
Woods, who missed last year because of injury, benefited from Garcia’s two visits to the water at the 17th on the last day in 2013 and, following his first event since February when tied 17th in the Masters Tournament where he sustained a wrist injury, he makes another comeback. Victory is never beyond Woods, but it would be deemed a minor miracle if he won this title for a third time on Sunday.
Rory McIlroy can never be discounted – he demonstrated that again with one comeback after another in winning the WGC-Cadillac Match Play – and he vowed in 2012 after missing the halfway cut for the third time in three visits that he would keep returning to Sawgrass to complete all four rounds if it took 20 years. He opened with a 66 in 2013 and finished eighth; and last year, despite shooting 42 for the front nine in the second round, he recovered to make the cut, then closed 69-66 for sixth place.
Yet if 2015 is to become the eternal tale it follows that one week after McIlroy wins so Jordan Spieth, the new Masters champion, will reclaim the headlines and to add further spice to their engaging rivalry the two have been drawn together.
On his debut last year, Spieth showed a clean pair of spikes to his rivals with a 67-66 start and eventually finished fourth. Woods (2001) is the only player to have captured the Masters Tournament and The Players Championship in the same year, and Spieth might just be in his class.
Mickelson, paired with Garcia, won the title in 2007 when it moved to that May slot, and he cannot be ignored. But the 44-year-old Californian has missed the cut in each of the last two years and with a best finish of tied 17th since that victory he has probably done his winning on this course.
Justin Rose, despite finishing fourth last year, has not embraced Sawgrass in the way that he has other courses, whereas Luke Donald, tied second in 2005 when he led by one entering the last day only to go out in 40 as Fred Funk came through to win, has in general been a model of consistency by making eight halfway cuts in a row with a fourth-place finish in 2011 and a sixth place in 2012. The Buckinghamshire boy is too good not to resurrect his career soon with a big win.
Nevertheless if an Englishman is to win then Lee Westwood must be that man. Not only is he in winning form this year but he has, since finishing tied fifth in 1998, produced a number of excellent performances at Sawgrass – tied sixth in 1999; tied fourth in 2010 when he led after opening rounds of 67 and 65 only to double bogey the infamous 17th in the last round; tied eighth in 2013 when he began 69-66; and sixth last year.
Westwood can be counted upon to ease into contention, but his challenge will be to reverse the history of his last two rounds at Sawgrass when he has managed to break 70 only three times – two of those were in 1998 – since teeing-up in the event. He has not exactly been handed a marque tee-time at 7.25 alongside Carl Pettersson and Shawn Stefani, but he will relish the chance to make another fast start, so at 50-1 with Coral rates a fair choice to be first-round leader.
Henrik Stenson, who won in 2009 after finishing third in 2006, continued his love affair with the course by finishing tied fifth in 2013, and he is one to keep on your side, as is Matt Kuchar, the 2012 champion who has made six straight cuts. Nevertheless, Zach Johnson and Jimmy Walker are the other two to include in the staking plan.
Johnson, tied second in 2012, has made the halfway cut in nine of his last ten appearances in the event, possesses the course-knowledge to be a contender and his recent tied ninth in The Masters boosted his confidence. Walker is flying high, backing up three wins last year on the PGA Tour with another two this year, and he now has the experience of the course to make a significant challenge given his tie for sixth last year when he closed with a 65.
*This article was originally published in The Golf Paper on 6 May
