The week of THE PLAYERS Championship has arrived. The event that sums up everything a golfer needs to succeed. There are courts where you need power and distance to be successful, on others you have to be precise and strategic. On the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass you have to be all of that to come out on top and lift the golden trophy.
This week there will be a record of seven Latinos looking to keep the long-awaited title that also has a millionaire purse of $20 million dollars, with a prize of $3.6 million for the winner.
They are: the Mexicans Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz, the Chileans Joaquín Niemann and Mito Pereira (debut), the Colombian Sebastián Muñoz, the Argentine Emiliano Grillo and the Venezuelan Jhonattan Vegas.
“It’s a great test in golf,” says five-time PGA TOUR winner Collin Morikawa. “It really tests every aspect of your game.” For Dustin Johnson, two-time Player of the Year PGA TOUR You have to do everything well: “It’s a very demanding course, you have to hit the tee shot well, hit precise irons and putts well, in short, everything”.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary as host of the TOUR’s flagship event, having first done so in 1982, Pete Dye’s historic course makes for a very even-handed place, where it favors everyone and no one at the same time.
Says current World No. 1 Jon Rahm: “The golf course is so well laid out that no one has ever mastered it. One telling fact that anyone can win is that the only player who has never won on the Stadium Course is the defending champion.
In the 40 years at TPC Sawgrass, only five golfers have won THE PLAYERS twice, and none in consecutive years: Fred Couples (1984, 1996), Steve Elkington (1991, 1997), Hal Sutton (1983, 2000), Davis Love III (1992, 2003) and Tiger Woods (2001, 2013).
In fact, no defending champion has ever really come close. The best result is a tie for fifth place, Tom Kite in 1990 and Sutton in 2001, and the closest margin is four strokes away from the winning score.
The last time a defending champion finished inside the top 10 was Adam Scott, who tied for eighth in 2005.
As the flagship event of the PGA TOUR, THE PLAYERS Championship is obviously one that every golfer wants to have on their résumé.
“It’s major caliber,” says Rahm, who tied for ninth last year, his best finish in four starts at TPC Sawgrass.
SOME IMPORTANT FACTS
Five of the last eight winners have ranked as World No. 1 at some point in their careers.
Jason Day – The 2016 PLAYERS champion also has three other top-10 finishes. And since that win in 2016, no player has a better under-par cumulative score than Day, who is down (-36) in THE PLAYERS in that span.
Justin Thomas: Last year’s defending champion was seven shots behind the leader after 36 holes. He later won with the tournament record for 36 holes (64-68-132).
Jon Rahm: The Spanish player has not yet won THE PLAYERS. In 2019 he was T-12 and last year he was T-9. The other player who has an active streak of multiple top-15 finishes on THE PLAYERS is Brian Harman (T-8 in 2019, T-3 in 2021).
Sergio Garcia: Has had at least one top-10 finish in three different decades; he has seven top-10 finishes in 21 starts, including his win in 2008 and second-place finishes in 2007 and 2015.
Si Woo Kim: He is the youngest winner of THE PLAYERS, he was 21 years old when he won in 2017.
Dustin Johnson holds the record for 31-under amassed through the back nine holes at TPC Sawgrass since 2016. He also ties the mark for most rounds in the 60’s since 2016 (8, along with Ian Poulter and Keegan Bradley). Despite that, he only has one top-10 in 12 performances on THE PLAYERS.
The 17th: In the ShotLink era (since 2003), only three players have won THE PLAYERS despite hitting a ball into the water on the famous island green: Matt Kuchar in 2012 (first round), Webb Simpson in 2018 (first round) and last year’s champion, Justin Thomas. , also in the first round.
OTHER NUMBERS
There will be 1,800 volunteers this week
800 PGA TOUR Employees Contribute to Annual Success of THE PLAYERS
Nearly 200,000 fans are expected to cross the turnstiles into TPC Sawgrass for the 2022 edition
In 2021, 93 TV cameras captured approximately 31,000 shots from some 430 rounds of play, the largest television coverage of the year.
THE NUMBERS OF LATINOS
Abraham Ancer (Mexico): 2 participations (12th in 2019 and 22nd in 2021)
Carlos Ortiz (Mexico): 2 participations (MC in 2016 and 2021)
Joaquin Niemann (Chile): 29th in his only participation in 2021
Sebastian Munoz (Colombia): 1 participation (MC in 2021)
Emiliano Grillo (Argentina): 5 shares. He debuted in 2016. his best performance was in 2017 where he finished 11th. He missed the cut in his last performance.
Jonathan Vegas (Venezuela): 9 shares. He has two top-10 finishes (3rd in 2019 and 7th in 2012). He only missed the cut twice.
