The Players Championship is underway over in Ponte Vedra, Florida near Jacksonville on the renovated Tournament Players Course at Sawgrass. Each year, The Players has the strongest field of any golf tournament — 48 of the top 50 players in the World Rankings are playing this week. For some reason, the PGA Tour continues to believe that it must attempt to persuade everyone that the tournament should be considered a the fifth “major” tournament along with The Masters, the U.S. and British Opens and the PGA Tournament, and the Tour has moved the tournament to May this year in an effort to facilitate that goal. But regardless of whether it’s characterized as a major, The Players is a terrific tournament with the best golfers competing on a great golf course. From a pure golfing standpoint, what more can you ask for?
Sal Johnson provides this excellent Golf Observer overview of the tournament, and the Golf Challenge is providing extensive coverage of the tournament today and during the morning hours on the weekend, while NBC takes over coverage during the afternoons on the weekend. Golf Digest provides this handy interactive overview of the TPC at Sawgrass, while The Players website includes about halfway down the page The 17th hole “Pipeline”, which provides a really slick telecast of the famous island green par 3. When the wind blows as it did on Thursday (and probably will through the tournament given that a tropical storm is swirling off the northeastern Florida coast), watching the players play the 17th is a real blast. Check it out.