TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course Review

Dye built this course to be watched, and the mounding that lets a crowd of forty thousand see a shot also funnels every loose one into trouble. That is the character of the place. There is no relief hole, no stretch where a ragged swing goes unpunished, and the intimidation off each tee is deliberate: railroad ties, sand running to the water line, greens angled so the safe miss is smaller than it looks.

A ten handicap playing it from the wrong tees will not break a hundred and will enjoy about half the afternoon. The seventeenth is the most photographed hole in golf and it deserves the attention, because a hundred and thirty seven yards to an island has nothing to do with distance and everything to do with nerve. The rest of the closing stretch is just as strong, and the eighteenth, with water down the whole left side, is the harder hole of the two.

Conditioning sits close to tournament standard all year, with greens quick enough to make the slopes matter and turf that recovers fast under heavy play. The scenery is manufactured, which is a description rather than a complaint: this is flat Florida given drama by a bulldozer. The green fee climbs past seven hundred dollars in season, forecaddie included, and that is where the value grade comes from.