Just when it seemed that the narrative around men's professional golf could return to the field with the arrival of the 50th Players Championship (the “fifth major”), the PGA Tour's possible agreement with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and the future of the commissioner Jay Monahan became hot topics. again on Tuesday.
Much of the discussion leading up to the PGA Tour's flagship event has focused on the golfers who aren't here: reigning Masters champion Jon Rahm and other stars competing in the rival LIV Golf League and two-time Players winner Championship, Tiger Woods. who will skip this week's tournament for undisclosed reasons.
But there are some big potential storylines heading into the Players Championship, which begins Thursday at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
What groups are you most looking forward to seeing this week?
Mark Schlabach: Obviously, there are the high-profile featured groups: reigning FedEx Cup champions Viktor Hovland/Rory McIlroy/Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler/Rickie Fowler/Justin Thomas are probably the best.
I'm curious to see how Swede Ludvig Åberg performs in his first Players Championship. He will play Patrick Cantlay and Adam Scott in the first two rounds. There's a reason there has only been one golfer to win the Players in his debut since the tournament moved to TPC Sawgrass in 1982 (New Zealand's Craig Perks in 2002).
Åberg, 24, is exceptionally talented and handled the pressure well while competing for the European team at last year's Ryder Cup in Italy. The former Texas Tech star already has four top-25 finishes and two top-10 finishes this season. She just broke into the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time in her career.
Paolo Uggetti: I'm going to go a little off the board here. Since the season so far has largely been defined by tournaments won by the underdogs, I'm curious to see how the group of Jake Knapp, Nick Dunlap, and Matthieu Pavon fares. All three have already won tournaments this season, but are still considered long shots.
There won't be many eyes on this trio, but since we've never seen Dunlap or Knapp go around TPC Sawgrass, I'm curious to see how they'll approach a course that demands some serious shooting.
This event has never seen a repeat victory. Will Scottie Scheffler be the first to achieve this?
Schlabach: If Scheffler makes a putt like he did last week while winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill for the second time in three years, it will be very difficult to beat him every week.
Last year, he took a 5-stroke victory at the Players Championship, so he will come to TPC Sawgrass with plenty of confidence.
In 2023, Scheffler was fifth in strokes gained: off the tee (4,637), fourth in approach (7,529) and 48th in putting (.107) at the Players. He led the field in driving distance (305.9 yards) and by hitting 75% of the greens in regulation.
Scheffler will attempt to become the first player to defend his title at The Players Championship. There hasn't been a player to win one week and then defend a title the next since Tiger Woods in 2007: He won the PGA Championship and then defended it at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
With how well Scheffler has played over the past year (and as well as he pitched last week), it wouldn't surprise me at all.
uggetti: It's crazy what a mallet putter can do for you. Just a few weeks ago, we were talking about Scheffler potentially throwing away another season of all-time hitting because of one bad putt. Now we wonder if he will make history by winning this tournament two years in a row.
That's how good and talented Scheffler is. Mark has the stats to prove it, but what was even more telling about Bay Hill was how much confidence Scheffler exuded on Sunday. The improved putting seemed to only improve his ball striking and his short game. We even got some animated fisticuffs.
Maybe this sudden improvement with the putter is an aberration, or maybe it's just a hot streak from Scheffler. Whatever the case, it's safe to say that the world's No. 1 player is more confident this week than he was two or three weeks ago. Repeating in this venue is, clearly, impossible but if anyone can do it, it is Scheffler.
How important is it that Tiger Woods doesn't play this week?
Schlabach: Woods' absence is important because it is the flagship event of the PGA Tour. He now serves on the tour's board of directors as director of players and was recently named vice president of PGA Tour Enterprises. The 15-time Major champion has been intimately involved in the reshaping of the tour, along with other player managers.
After playing just 24 holes at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club outside Los Angeles in February, there were hopes that Woods would appear at TPC Sawgrass as a final warm-up before the Masters, the first major championship of the season. Instead, he will apparently go two full months between starts in official circuit events, unless he plays in next week's Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida, which seems unlikely.
The two-time Players Championship winner hasn't started at TPC Sawgrass since 2019, which must be disappointing for tournament organizers.
“In my opinion, he's like the heartbeat of golf, and every time he tees off it's a spectacle,” Xander Schauffele said.
uggetti: I feel like it's already hard to know what is or isn't important to Tiger. In theory, playing more before the Masters (like he did in 2019) would improve his wonder form. Furthermore, this is the first time Woods has come back from an ankle fusion and no one knows his body better than he does.
He said he wanted to play once a month (he hasn't even played two rounds since the Hero World Challenge), but if he doesn't play until Augusta gets his body ready for those hills, so be it.
Has golf's 'fifth major' suffered due to the split between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour?
Schlabach: There's no doubt that the migration of players from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf over the past three years has hurt the Players Championship field. Not only are current Masters champion Jon Rahm and previous Major winners Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and others missed.
These are aging players like Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey and Henrik Stenson and mid-level golfers Charles Howell III and Jason Kokrak. Those names helped the PGA Tour put together one of the best courses in the sport on one of the toughest courses in the world.
There's no arguing that defections haven't affected the depth of the Players Championship.
“I don't think it helps the tournament,” Schauffele said. “Yeah, I mean, I think you'd like to have those players playing, in an ideal world… We're definitely beating a dead horse, in my opinion. I mean, everyone knew what was going to happen when they made a decision, and this was probably the highest probability of the outcome, which is having people on different tours at that time.
“I know the guys are working to get everyone back together, but in the meantime, I'm on the page that it is what it is.”
uggetti: The “best golf course” is no longer the best golf course. If anything, the Players have gone from the Tour's premier event to the event that has suffered the most from both LIV's defections and the Tour's struggles to deal with the fallout.
Let's imagine a scenario this week in which Rahm faces Scheffler in the tournament that is supposed to be the main one on the Tour. Instead, we all have to wait until the four actual majors to get a real idea of how the world's best stack up against each other.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said Tuesday that he and PIF President Yasir Al-Rumayyan want to “quiet the noise and unlock golf's global potential.” How about we start by getting all the best players in the world to play the same tournaments again? So maybe after that we can worry about golf's global potential.
Who will take home the trophy on Sunday?
Schlabach: Scheffler. He is playing much better than everyone else. What a way to commemorate the 50th anniversary with the first consecutive winner.
uggetti: Everything says Scheffler, but if this golf season has taught us anything, it's that the unexpected will probably happen. How about a guy who plays with Scheffler the first two days? Justin Thomas has quietly headed in the right direction and I can see this being a week where he puts it all together.
