This week, the strongest field on the PGA Tour vies for its most coveted prize. It’s the 2024 PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, FL. As always, here is your early deep dive and preview of the 2024 PLAYERS Championship.
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2024 PLAYERS Championship Preview
The Field
As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, the PLAYERS Championship boasts the strongest field the PGA Tour has to offer. 144 of the best players on the PGA Tour will compete at TPC Sawgrass for the right to call themselves a PLAYERS Champion.
However, it is somewhat surprising that Tiger Woods has opted not to compete at the 2024 PLAYERS Championship. He’s managing his schedule in hopes of being as fresh as possible for the Masters. However, his withdrawal from the 2024 Genesis Invitational was not injury-related. It was illness-related (or so he says). And TPC Sawgrass isn’t a grueling walk for him. It’s a curious decision for Tiger not to play.
But in his place will be the best names the PGA Tour has to offer: Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, and more. They’ll all vie for the 2024 PLAYERS Championship.
For the full field, click here.
The Golf Course
The late Pete and Alice Dye created some of the most iconic golf courses in the world. The PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass is their crown jewel achievement.
The golf course opened in 1980 after then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Berman sought to find a permanent home for a new illustrious event. Berman hoped the creation of the PLAYERS Championship would someday rival that of the other four majors.
After several Jacksonville clubs rebuked his offer, Berman built his own course for his ideal tournament. He purchased 415 acres of wooded swampland from two prominent landowners in Ponte Vedra for $1. He then hired Pete and Alice Dye to fulfill his dream of creating a challenging and iconic golf course that could deliver drama and provide spectators with a stadium-like atmosphere to enjoy the proceedings.
And with that, the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass was born:
The video above is a fantastic hole-by-hole narrative of how TPC Sawgrass torments players every single year. It is the quintessential target golf course. And there are landmines everywhere. Every bunker, mogul mound, water hazard, tree, and bush were strategically laid out around the golf course for a specific purpose.
What makes TPC Sawgrass so challenging, however, is the absolute necessity to hit small targets by shaping the ball both ways, often on the same hole. Here are a few holes at TPC Sawgrass that demonstrate this:
1st Hole
Players are tasked with hitting a left-to-right tee shot that gets as close to the right fairway bunker as possible. This will then allow a player to hit a right-to-left approach shot to access most pin locations.
10th Hole
This hole is similar in yardage to the 1st, but it asks a completely different question. Can you hit a right-to-left tee shot to as close to the left-side bunker as possible? And then, can you hit a left-to-right approach shot into the green to access most pin locations? If so, birdie is in play. If not, walking away from the 10th with a bogey is very likely.
16th Hole
This Par 5 demonstrates both the command to hit the ball both ways while also showing the fine line between a perfectly executed shot and one that ends in disaster.
The optimal tee shot is a hard right-to-left shot (or a duck hook) and sends the ball as far left as possible while still keeping it in the fairway. However, a tee shot too far left will find itself in jail in the trees.
This nearly sunk Cam Smith’s PLAYERS Championship last year when he hit a duck hook deep into the forest on the left.
Next, players must hit a little peeler left-to-right to access most pin locations on the 16th green. However, players who overcook it a little too much will find themselves in the lake. The benefit of making this mistake from the left side of the fairway means either player will drop closer to the green or on the fringe.
Par is still in play. But anyone who does this from the right side of the fairway will probably have to try and get up and down for par from 125+ yards away.
Here are a few other videos of TPC Sawgrass from No Laying Up, who did a series of videos showcasing what it is like to play the golf course.
In 2023, there were some slight changes to the golf course, primarily in areas off the fairway. A few fairway bunkers have seen their faces made a little steeper. Some mogul mounds have also been made a little more severe. And Hole No. 1 added three small pot bunkers around the green. Per Jeff Plotts, tournament director, the goal was to “put back some of the Pete Dye flair that may have softened over time”.
In addition, the rough was lengthened from 2.5 inches to 3.5 inches in 2023. This had a significant impact on the importance of accuracy off the tee toward gaining or losing total strokes on the field. More on that below.
Betting Strategies
To begin the betting strategies for the 2024 PLAYERS Championship, here is general information about TPC Sawgrass.
Yardage: 7,275 Yards
- The course has been lengthened about 100 yards since the tournament was moved to March.
Par: 72
Fairway Width: ~30 yards on average
- The front nine is a little narrower than the back nine. Most fairways on the front nine are about 25-30 yards wide. Most holes on the back nine are between 30-35 yards wide.
Average Green Size: ~5,500 sq. feet
- The greens are much smaller than the ones the PGA Tour has played on in the last two weeks. Hitting into small targets is a staple of Pete Dye designs. TPC Sawgrass is no different.
Agronomy
- Greens: Poa Trivialis Overseed
- Fairways & Collars: Champion fine rye overseed
- Rough: Champion fine rye overseed – 3.5″
With the date change to March, the agronomy changed from all Bermuda to a ryegrass overseed. It’s too cool in Ponte Vedra to support healthy Bermuda grass growth. In addition, the PGA Tour wants TPC Sawgrass to look as good as possible as part of its strategy of elevating its stature with the golf world. With its greenness, TPC Sawgrass can resemble Augusta National.
Last year, the PGA Tour increased the rough to 3.5 inches in length. This had a profound impact on the tournament, as described below. In a nutshell, it placed a huge premium on driving accuracy at the 2023 PLAYERS Championship. With rough conditions similar to last year, expect more of the same.
Past Champions
- 2023: Scottie Scheffler (-17)
- 2022: Cameron Smith (-13)
- 2021: Justin Thomas (-14)
- 2020: COVID-19 (Death and Economic Destruction)
- 2019: Rory McIlroy (-16)
Average Scoring
- 2023: +0.07
- 2022: +0.35
- 2021: +0.13
- 2020: N/A
- 2019: -0.53
The scoring at TPC Sawgrass isn’t out of control difficult despite it being a difficult golf course to play. Low scores are out there for those who are playing well.
However, TPC Sawgrass is a golf course that will punish those who are sloppy. There is a ton of variance at the golf course because of how much it can reward solid, consistent play while punishing bad play. That’s part of the reason why there tends to be a lot of churn at the top of the leaderboard year after year.
From a strokes gained perspective, however, TPC Sawgrass delivers tough shots from tee to green. Here are their ranks in the difficulty of all golf courses played on the PGA Tour since 2015 (87 courses, including major venues):
- Off-the-Tee: 9th
- Approach: 10th
- Around the Green: 20th
- Putting: 22nd
Everything is pretty difficult around TPC Sawgrass, even if the scoring doesn’t reflect it. But what stands out the most is how difficult of a ball-striking golf course it is.
TPC Sawgrass is a difficult course off the tee. There is a wide variety of tee shots players must perfectly execute to do well. It demands that players work the ball both ways off the tee. There are well-placed hazards everywhere around the golf course, and it’s not the most generous corridor.
The golf course also can give one option off the tee with rewards and consequences for each decision. Players can choose to be aggressive when they want to be and pull driver.
Others might be more conservative on the same hole and lay back. There are obvious tradeoffs with both strategies. Conservative play leads to longer approach shots into smaller targets. Aggressive play brings a shorter approach shot but more risk of severe trouble.
Approach shots are also difficult at TPC Sawgrass. The greens are only ~5,500 square feet in area, which is much smaller than the average on the PGA Tour.
And their contouring makes them play even smaller. TPC Sawgrass is quintessential Pete Dye target golf. Precision with irons is key. And the penalty for missing greens can be high, whether it be in the form of a water hazard or a well-placed hula-hoop-sized pot bunker.
Predictive Skillsets
Here is the relative skillset chart of the characteristics that are most predictive of success at TPC Sawgrass (per DataGolf). This chart previews the types of players one would expect to do well at the 2024 PLAYERS Championship.
The only trait that seems to be highly predictive of success at TPC Sawgrass is through driving accuracy. Players who demonstrate better control off the tee generally do better at TPC Sawgrass than the typical PGA Tour setup.
And given the enhancements to the rough and mogul mounds off the tee to make it more penal, driving accuracy is not only predictive of success before the tournament but now has a much bigger impact on how the tournament plays out.
Otherwise, no other trait is predictive of success at TPC Sawgrass than the typical PGA Tour venue. That’s not to say it’s not important. You have to do pretty much everything well to do well at TPC Sawgrass.
It speaks more that there isn’t a particular type of player who can do well. Bomber Wyndham Clark and short-hitting Brendon Todd could be neck and neck down the stretch at TPC Sawgrass if both of them bring their A-game. The golf course will allow one to have success with whatever they bring to the table as long as they bring it that week.
In Tournament Success
Here is a chart showing how players have separated themselves from the field at TPC Sawgrass when compared to the average PGA Tour golf course over the last three years (per DataGolf).
This shows what skill sets are more rewarded in the tournament in order to fare better or worse than the field. And it’s a preview of what to expect at the 2024 PLAYERS Championship.
2023
2022
2021
Here, we discuss how growing up the rough has changed the dynamic of how TPC Sawgrass has played.
In 2021 and 2022, the rough at TPC Sawgrass was only ~2-2.5″ in length. Overseeded ryegrass rough of that length isn’t all that daunting. And the penalty for missing in the rough wasn’t all that much. And neither distance nor accuracy had much of a correlation with how SG-OTT shook out.
In 2021, there was a premium on in-tournament ball-striking mostly because of the firm and windy conditions. In 2022 (which, honestly, we should throw out because of the extreme wave split), it seemed much more random as far as how total strokes gained were formulated. And
But in 2023, something dramatic happened in 2023. With longer rough, the correlation between how players fared off the tee that week and how well they fared in SG-OTT was massive. It’s way more massive than the typical PGA Tour venue. And how far one hit, it took a clear backseat.
It also clearly had an impact on how one could separate themselves in a tournament, too. The 2023 PLAYERS turned a little bit into a driving contest. Driving had a much heavier influence on how one did at the tournament than it would at the typical PGA Tour setup, so much so that driving was more important than putting!
That almost never happens round to round on the PGA Tour. And how players did off the tee was almost entirely driven by how many fairways they hit during the tournament.
Growing out the rough at TPC Sawgrass put a huge premium on driving accuracy. Not just on driving but everywhere else, tee-to-green, too.
It was the 3rd most penal golf course to miss a fairway in 2023 and the 6th most penal for hitting it into the rough. Players lost about 0.5 shots per hole for a missed fairway at the 2023 PLAYERS Championship, including 0.41 strokes for tee shots that found the rough.
In addition, getting up and down from the rough at TPC Sawgrass in 2023 was brutally tough, too. The 2023 PLAYERS Championship featured the toughest chip shots out of the rough of the 45 golf courses played last year.
In 2024, the rough will once again be up at TPC Sawgrass. As such, expect this to play out like it did last year. This is not a putting contest. It’ll be a tee-to-green contest that demands precision off the tee.
Unfortunately, attempting to handicap a tournament, especially one where players will opt for less than a driver on several holes based solely on how many fairways one hits, is difficult. Like putting, hitting fairways varies greatly from week to week or day to day. But generally speaking, gamblers will want to target players who demonstrate good control off the tee when placing their bets.
Approach Shot Proximity
Here are the approach shot proximity buckets for TPC Sawgrass since 2019 (per DataGolf). This will preview what types of approach shots players are expected to hit at the 2024 PLAYERS Championship.
Sometimes, the proximity buckets change a bit from year to year. This is likely weather-related. However, the table above summarizes an average of proximity buckets since the PLAYERS were moved back to March.
Overall, about half of the shots will come from between 125-200 yards. But there’s still a fair amount of short irons players will have to hit into greens at TPC Sawgrass. And a good amount of long approach shots, too. The golf course is going to test players through the bag this week. There isn’t one dominating area of iron play to focus on for proximity buckets this week.
Follow the tips in this preview, and one should put together a solid betting card or DFS lineup for the 2024 PLAYERS Championship.
