In the past 20 years, the Players Championship has yielded an array of champions all over professional golf’s skill spectrum.
There have been winners who averaged 270 yards off the tee that season (Fred Funk in 2005) and winners who averaged 314 yards (Rory McIlroy in 2019). There have been playoffs between superstars and journeymen (think Sergio Garcia versus Paul Goydos in 2008). In the past 15 years, there have been four winners who led the field that week in driving accuracy. There also have been four winners who ranked outside the top 40 in fairways hit.
Incredibly, there never has been a player to win at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in back-to-back years. The only course on the PGA Tour with a longer active streak without a consecutive winner is Colonial Country Club.
It’s a testament to Pete Dye’s brilliant design that not one specific type of player repeatedly finds success at Sawgrass. Even golf’s elite can have a mixed bag in Ponte Vedra – Phil Mickelson doesn’t have a top-15 finish in this tournament since winning in 2007.
That’s not to say there are no trends to pinpoint at the Players. Limiting mistakes is critical – the last 15 winners of this event have had an average field rank of 2.9 in bogey avoidance. That number is more than twice as high at a typical PGA Tour event.
Excellent approach play is rewarded at TPC Sawgrass, too. While the field hits on average about 63 percent of the greens in regulation, tournament winners in that span have hit about 73 percent. That same trend is reflected in the strokes gained analytics: While the past 15 winners have ranked on average 18th that week in putting, they have ranked about sixth in tee-to-green performance.
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Justin Thomas
Thomas is the only player to average five or more birdies per round at the Players over the last decade. And with maturity has come fewer mistakes: Thomas ranked 134th on the PGA Tour in bogey avoidance in 2016, and he was 16th last season.
Strokes gained tee to green: Thomas has ranked in the top five each of the previous three seasons on the Tour in this statistic and is in that neighborhood again in 2020.
Consistency: He is one of just five players to make the cut each of the past five years at TPC Sawgrass.
Birdies or better: Since making his debut at TPC Sawgrass in 2015, Thomas has made more birdies than anyone with 98. Only Sergio Garcia (96) and Adam Scott (91) are within 10 birdies of Thomas in that stretch.
Tommy Fleetwood
There are 388 players with a dozen or more rounds at TPC Sawgrass over the last 30 years. The man with the best scoring average in that group? Tommy Fleetwood at 70.17 in his three appearances at Sawgrass.
Iron play: Fleetwood’s approach game travels everywhere: He ranked in the top 15 in strokes gained approach the green on both the PGA Tour and European Tour each of the previous two seasons.
TPC trending: Not only did he finish in the top 10 the past two years at the Players, his combined score of 25 under par is tied for second best in that span.
Big-game hunter: Fleetwood plays his best in the biggest events. In the past 12 months he has won a Rolex Series event, finished second at the British Open and has a top-5 at a World Golf Championship.
Rory McIlroy
Nobody has won the Players back-to-back, but a full-flight McIlroy has as great a chance as anybody to become the first.
Greens in regulation: McIlroy was outstanding tee-to-green in his 2019 Players win, hitting more than 80 percent of his greens – nearly a 20 percent jump from the previous year.
Best he’s ever been: Rory averaged 2.55 strokes gained total per round last season on the PGA Tour, the best single-season average ever by anyone not named Tiger Woods.
Putting positivity: A quantum leap in putting metrics pushed McIlroy to 2019 Player of the Year. In two years he went from 159th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting to 24th last season.
