PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Now with the PLAYERS Championship trophy on the line Sunday, someone will look to join a prestigious list of golfers to host the hardware.
But as Scottie Scheffler tees off, he'll look to do something that no one in the history of the PLAYERS Championship has ever done.
Win back-to-back titles.
When asking the defending champ why it's so difficult to win at the PLAYERS Championship, he noted:
"I just think it's a golf course where you don't see a lot of repeat winners in general," Scottie Scheffler, the PLAYERS defending champion responded, "there's not a guy that you have seen win on this golf course a bunch. I think it's just the nature of the course, it doesn't really suit one type of player. It really is a Pete Dye, just kind of genius design, where you have to hit all different kinds of shots, and it tests you in a lot of different ways. That's why I think it's one of the best places we play on TOUR, just because it really doesn't suit one type of player."
Justin Thomas, the Champion of 2021 said, if you're trying to even win this tournament for the first time, you better have as versatile of a game as you can.
"I just think you have to have a lot of shots and you have to have kind of be able to execute what the course and the conditions are giving you. Especially with it being in March now, you can get cold, you can get rain, you can get a lot of wind. It's unfortunately going to be soft more often than not, but you can get it firm sometimes, so it's more just kind of adapting, adjusting, and it's just not a place I feel like you can show up and you know what you're going to get every single year, like maybe some other places," said Thomas.
Additionally, The PLAYERS Championship is known to be the honorary fifth major and having the strongest field in golf, which can make things even trickier.
"First of all, it's a huge championship, and I think anybody that gets a chance or has had the chance to do that, or just win for the first time for that matter, feels the pressure and magnitude of the championship. Then, you get in here and it's not 10 or 12 guys can win, it's like 80, 90 guys can win. I think that's why we haven't had a repeat, still hard to believe we haven't, but I think that's one of the main reasons why," said Dan Hicks, the sports announcer of NBC.
The 50th winner of The PLAYERS Championship will be crowned on Sunday, March 18.