To say that the TPC Sawgrass has been Tiger Woods Waterloo might be a bit of an understatement. However, clearly it has been the most demanding course year in and year out on the world’s number 1 player.
What has become known as the 5th Major, Players Championship being played in May and not March the course won’t be any easier. Add to that the course has been re done and Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and 48 of the world’s top 50 players are no doubt having nightmares about the TPC.So coverage starts today and Friday on the Golf Channel 1pm till 7pm with a primetime replay, then NBC has the weekend coverage Saturday and Sunday from 2-7 p.m. ET. fans can count on over 22 hours of golf from one of the best and most entertaining courses in all of golf.
XM has the radio chsnnel 146.
The weather could be a wild with winds and some light rain at least over the next 48 hours making things a bit interesting .
Here is what the guys from NBC think you will happen this weekend.
MILLER ON THE 17TH HOLE, ISLAND GREEN- “A phenomenal hole”:
“I think every championship ought to have a 17th hole like this. I really believe it’s a final gut check. I think it is a phenomenal hole.”
” I don’t think there is a player in the field that says, ‘Wow, I can’t wait to get to 17.'”
MALTBIE ON 17: “It’s got a high gag factor.”
ROY ON 10 CAMERAS AT THE 17th HOLE- “Great television, great drama”:
“Depending on where they put the hole location we need different angles to cover it. The bigger part of what we’re showing there is the emotion from the players, both before they hit it, as the ball is in the air, and then after the result.
“I’ve never seen players of this caliber go through the emotional ringer like they do when they hit a shot there. It’s great television, great drama.”
MALTBIE ON TIGER AT SAWGRASS:
“I do believe he is the greatest golfer on any golf course in the world but this particular golf course doesn’t reward power a great deal. It is a precision player’s golf course, a great iron player’s golf course. It’s not that Tiger isn’t any one of those things because in fact he is all of those things but I think this is a place where a player that is accurate has a better chance competing with Tiger.”
MILLER ON TIGER AT SAWGRASS- “a difficult course for Tiger”:
“The one thing that Tiger Woods has always had the ability to do on almostevery course, he’ll figure out a way to get it done. This is one of the few courses that will make him pay the price if he doesn’t hit it where he’s supposed to. Now most of the time with his strength and his creativity, and his ability to cut the ball, knock it down and get it over anything, including the Empire State Building, he can not do that too well here and that’s why it is a difficult course for Tiger Woods.”
“Tiger himself has talked about his ‘A’ game, his ‘B’ game and this and that, I don’t care who you are you’ve got to have your ‘A’ game to get around this place.”
HICKS ON TIGER:
“Normally with a guy that’s won nine out of his last 12 PGA Tour tournaments we’d be giving the trophy to Tiger, but he’s going to have to play the shots here that you have to play. The feeling is Tiger might be on top of his game but you just don’t have the feeling he’s going to walk in and win this thing like what he did at Wachovia last week where he sprayed it around the end. It’s just not going to happen on this golf course.”
MILLER ON THE PLAYERS AS “THE FIFTH MAJOR”- “Jack would probably be the first guy to vote on that one”:
“If they added this to the major list, it wouldn’t break my heart. I don’t think it would be a bad move and I don’t think the players would complain. I think Jack Nicklaus would love it, he’s won three of them, Tiger’s only won one. That would spread the difference a little bit more so Jack would probably be the first guy to vote on that one.”
MALTBIE ON THE PLAYERS AS “THE FIFTH MAJOR”:
“I think clearly its one of the preeminent championships in golf. There isn’t a player alive that wouldn’t dearly love to win it. I think that’s all that really matters.”
HICKS ON THE PLAYERS AS “THE FIFTH MAJOR”:
“I think this championship is simply a great championship. Let’s keep the four majors and just have this tournament, this championship, stand on its own. I really feel that it makes it what it is, not being a major makes it even better in a weird kind of way.”
HICKS ON VIJAY SINGH AND JIM FURYK:
“I can’t help but think outside of major championships this is the one that Vijay [a resident of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.] wants to get and this is the one that Furyk wants to get.”
UBS GOLF CHALLENGE:
·To further promote golf’s fifth major, NBC Sports is supporting the “UBS Golf Challenge,” an interactive exhibit at Rockefeller Center, the centerpiece of which is a scaled replica of the famous 17 th hole at THE PLAYERS Stadium Course. The exhibit will run through the conclusion of the tournament and allow fans to replicate the daunting experience the pros face hitting to the “Island Green.”
EXTENSIVE COVERAGE OF NO. 17:
·NBC Sports will utilize 42 cameras in total, including 10 at the 17th hole (see below), “super slo-mo” to analyze players’ golf swings and, for the first time at THE PLAYERS, its “Green Grid” animation to illustrate the direction balls will roll when hit to certain parts of the green.
17TH HOLE FACTS AND FIGURES
NBC’S COVERAGE OF THE 17TH
·NBC utilizes 10 cameras on the hole during its telecast, including a microscopic lens embedded in the lip of the tiny front bunker.
·NBC will use two manned cameras placed on the 17th hole. A camera operator is lifted by a crane 120 feet into the air above the trees from right of the 16 th fairway where his camera has a clear view of 16, 17 and 18. Another camera operator is ferried to the island right of the 17th green where he is marooned for approximately eight hours to get reactions from the 17 th tee and operate the super-slow-motion camera.
WATER TORTURE
·Approximately 120,000 balls are hit in the water during the course of a year, an average of more than three balls per player based on the average of 40,000 rounds played per year.
·Divers enter the water four times a year to retrieve balls.
HOLES IN ONE
·Six holes-in-one have been made in 25 years of THE PLAYERS: Brad Fabel, 1986, first round; Brian Claar, 1991, third round; Fred Couples, 1997, fourth round; Joey Sindelar, 1999, first round; Paul Azinger, 2000, third round; and Miguel Angel Jimenez, 2002, first round.
17TH HOLE LORE
·Of the 25 winners of THE PLAYERS, only two winners have made a bogey on the 17th hole on Sunday, Steve Elkington in 1991 and Fred Funk in 2005. Of these winners, 13 have made par, nine have made birdie and two made bogey.
·Bob Tway posted a 12 in the third round of the 2005 PLAYERS, with winds blowing 25-30 mph. Tway’s tee shot flew the green, as did his second shot. His third and fourth shots hit on the front of the green and spun back in the water. His fifth attempt found the green, he three-putted and totaled a 12. He went from four strokes out of the lead at 7-under par to 13 behind.
·Angelo Spagnolo, a 31-year-old grocery store manager from Fayette City, Pa., posted a 66on June 19, 1985, in “America’s Worst Avid Golfer” contest. Spagnolo hit 27 balls in the water from the tee box and drop area. Rules officials finally directed him to putt around the hazard and down the narrow path that leads to the green.
DID YOU KNOW?
·50,000 cubic yards of dirt was removed to create the island green during construction of the course in the early 1980s.
·It is 75 yards to the center of the green from the drop area.
·It is 121 yards from the middle of the championship tee to the front of green and 146 yards to the back of the green.
– COURTESY PGA TOUR ·The famed “island green” was designed to ensure dramatic finishes by not allowing the leaders to play defensively to protect a lead. It generally requires players to hit between a 7-iron and a pitching wedge.
