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[upbeat piano music]
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[Narrator] In 1978, PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman
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hired Pete Dye to design a home course for the PGA Tour.
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Beman gave Dye 400 acres of swamp
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just south of Jacksonville and a deadline.
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Dye embraced the challenge
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by building target golf to the hilt.
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When the Players Stadium Course opened in 1980,
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it was a southern version of Pine Valley
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with ribbons of grass edged by vast expanses
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of sugar sand and coquina shell,
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all framed by high mounds for galleries.
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Today the course is more akin to Augusta National
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with lush, uniform rough, fluffy white sand,
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and beds of pine straw beneath trees.
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But Dye’s distinctive features remain.
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His dogleg bunkers with precise, beveled edges,
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his rollicking green contours,
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his vertical wooden bulkheads where fate
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is determined by the single rotation of a ball.
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TPC Sawgrass, among Golf Digest’s 100 greatest golf courses,
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has hosted The Players Championship since 1982
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and annually produces the strongest field in golf.
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This is every hole at TPC Sawgrass,
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Players Stadium Course.
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[upbeat orchestral music]
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Many architects want their opening hole
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to be an gentle introduction,
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but not Pete Dye, who filled half the quarter
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of his first hole with sand and water
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and turned a straight par four
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into something that twists and turns.
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The farther left you aim off the tee,
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the more the green side bunker
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will come into play on the second shot.
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Therein lies a fundamental principle
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for playing Pete Dye golf courses,
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play toward the trouble off the tee if you want
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the least obstructive approach shot into the green.
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Some call that strategic.
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Others call it foolhardy.
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Dye designed his par fives to demand shot shaping
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in one direction off the tee and the opposite
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direction into the green.
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Good players play point to point these days,
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so most don’t fear the tree lines
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in the par five second anymore
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or the pond in the strip bunker on the right
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the last 175 yards to the green.
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But those who miss the green in any direction often
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end up in awkward situations where they’re forced
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to invent a recovery shot.
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That’s another Dye principle.
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Expect the unexpected if you miss one of his greens.
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Number three is the most ordinary looking hole
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at TPS Sawgrass, with water and a cross bunker
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so far removed from play as to be harmless.
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The real trouble is on the green, which is two levels.
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Higher in the back, separated by a long
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diagonal transition slope.
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Three putts are common here,
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even in The Players Championship.
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The short fourth is generous off the tee,
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but demanding on the second shot.
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The only forced carry over water
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on any par four on the course.
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Dye later said he regretting digging the canal
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in front of the green, but he never filled it in.
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The back of the green is higher than the rest
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with downward sloped running toward the water
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in front and on the left.
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In 2001, a year after winning The Players Championship,
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Hal Sutton eagled the fourth hole twice in four rounds,
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both times spinning a ball off a back slope
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and into the cup.
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[upbeat orchestral music]
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It’s uphill off the tee to a plateau fairway,
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then downhill to the green on the slight dogleg right fifth.
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There’s lots of gingerbread around the green
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in the form of potholes, palm trees,
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and one elaborately shaped bunker well short.
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But honestly, this is a benign green
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that’s wide open in front
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because Dye knew most would be hitting approach shots
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with long irons or even fairway woods.
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For the careless, around the perimeter of the green,
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Dye put in a few dips that slope off in various directions.
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Drives from the tip of the six once played
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through a narrow gap between leaning pine trees
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just in front of the tee box, but they fell down years ago.
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The lake on the left is relatively new.
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It had previously just been a moat.
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To add visual spice, Pete planted palm trees
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helter-skelter in front of both sides
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of this egg shaped green and approach shots not played
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from the center of the fairway must contend with it.
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Dye called the looks of the mounds in scattered bunkers
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around this green to be his grenade attack.
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For the first 34 years, the area between the parallel
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sixth and seventh holes was a high, long spectator mound,
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ringed by a moat that stifled gallery circulation.
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In a 2016 remodeling of the course,
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the mound was trucked off to be used elsewhere and the moat
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expanded into a full lake.
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Although there’s a buffer bunker on the left,
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the water’s still uncomfortably close
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off the tee on number seven,
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especially for those who wanna play left to avoid
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tangling with a small lagoon and boomerang bunker
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right at the green.
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The long eighth is the toughest par three on the course
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during each player’s championship,
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producing the fewest greens in regulation.
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Trees tight around the tees block the intensity
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of crosswinds and the green rolls off in four directions
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toward nearly a dozen tiny traps,
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as well as knobs and hollows of sticky rough.
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[upbeat orchestral music]
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Nine is widely acknowledged as one of the best par fives
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Pete Dye ever designed.
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A diagonal canal crosses the fairway within range
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of tee shots, so some hit less than driver
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and others aim up the left side.
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Even from the center of this broad fairway,
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the green is half hidden behind clusters of oaks
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and low hillocks on the left.
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The green is narrow and not particularly deep
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with prominent slopes front and back that repel shots.
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Beman wanted the 10th to be the equivalent
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of the first hole, so tournament players
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starting on either nine would not be disadvantaged
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and one paper the 10th seems like the mirror image
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of the first, but 10 has a sharp dogleg left
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and its gooseneck fairway ends abruptly in a deep
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cross bunker, so many players hit iron off the tee.
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The approach is often into the wind,
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but knobs and sand in front
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don’t accommodate low bouncing shots.
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The green has ridges throughout and is a shallow target
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when approached from the right side of the fairway.
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The zig zag 11th again tempts us to play
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toward trouble to be rewarded.
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Toward the massive fairway bunker left of the landing zone.
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It is mild compared to the original waste bunker
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that Dye had built on that spot
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that had been filled with clumps of lovegrass
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and was the scene of many lost balls.
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Playing away from that bunker off the tee
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brings into play overhanging limbs of a massive
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oak on the second shot.
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If you’re attempting to reach the green in two, that is.
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There’s always the bailout fairway on the far left.
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In the 2016 remodeling, PGA Tour designer Steve Wenzloff
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extended Dye’s pond around the back
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of this putting surface.
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This is not Pete Dye’s original 12th hole,
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which was a sharper dogleg left around
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a series of high knobs.
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To bring more excitement to this corner of the course,
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Wenzloff made 12 a corner cutting drivable par four
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with a pond at the base of a shaved bank
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to the left of a perched green and a hollow
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to the right that leaves a semi-blind
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pitch over a pot bunker.
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Wenzloff insists Pete signed off of this hole,
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although some of the Dye family say Pete
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never believed in drivable par fours.
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They say he considered them just really long par threes.
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[upbeat dramatic music]
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In truth, this corner of the course has never
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lacked excitement because the tee shot of the par three
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13th has always been a demanding carry over hazards
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to a putting surface with three distinct sections.
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A high plateau on the right, a back left shelf,
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and a valley in the front left.
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Putts down the slope from back to front
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can be nerve-racking with a nagging fear
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that a runaway putt could end up in the pond.
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14, the longest par four on the course
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is yet another variation of a Pete Dye zig-zag hole.
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Any tee shot left of center puts the overhanging oaks
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short of the green into play on approach shots.
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The secret here is to play down the right side,
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away from the obvious trouble.
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Counterintuitive on a dye design.
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But mounds in the right hand rough can produce
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a hanging lie in gnarly, deep Bermuda grass.
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Even from the center of the fairway,
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the long undulated green sits at an angle
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and thus is a fairly shallow target.
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15 is the tightest tee shot on the course,
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partly because there’s little airspace between trees left
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and right off the tee and partly because the fairway
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swings to the right rather quickly,
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demanding a controlled fade.
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Dye anticipated many would lay back off the tee with less
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than driver, so 15 green is deep to accept long second shots
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and mostly open in front.
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The right center of this green contains a prominent dip,
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what designers often call a thumbprint.
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The dogleg left 16th is another hole that is changed.
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When TPC Sawgrass opened in 1980,
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this hole had a tiny perch green
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beyond a cluster of prominent oaks,
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with water well to the right and behind.
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Tour players complained the small size of the green
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made it impossible to hit and hold in two.
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So in 1986, Dye reconfigured the putting surface,
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making it lower, wider and deeper,
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but extending it right the lake’s edge.
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Still, 16 is statistically the easiest hole in the course
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to birdie, which is fitting given what comes next.
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[upbeat orchestral music]
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This is it.
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The gladiator Colosseum of golf,
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where thousands cheer and jeer the world’s best
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as they take on the beast, Pete Dye’s original island green.
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One actually suggested by his wife Alice.
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Take away the screaming masses
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and the tee shot is still intimidating.
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Each year the club pulls about
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120,000 golf balls from this pond.
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An average of three per customer.
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By the way, that’s not a new backstop behind the green,
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it’s simply the railing of a temporary footbridge,
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used while the narrow turf walkway was being regrassed.
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Anything less than a boomerang par four
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curving along the edge of oblivion
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would be anticlimactic after the previous hole.
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Play safe to the right off the tee
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and you could be beneath oaks Pete planted 20 years ago.
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From there, the angling to the green brings into play
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a jumble of humps and hollows short
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right of the putting surface.
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Dye’s design rewards the courageous.
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Hug the lake’s edge and your approach is wide open
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into a slope that’s candid like a catcher’s mitt.
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TPC’s 17th and 18th epitomize Pete Dye’s stark options,
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sink or survive, GOAT or glory.
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Go bold or go home.