(Editor’s note: With the Players Championship just days from starting, we’re taking a look at the famous 17th hole in a series of posts from longtime Florida Times-Union golf writer Garry Smits. This is the first.)
Divas are frequently known by one name: Madonna. Taylor. Beyonce.
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Then there’s TPC Sawgrass’s diva, known by one number.
17.
The par-3 17th hole at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, with its iconic Island Green, is the star of the show for The Players Championship.
That’s all that’s needed to conjure the image and evoke memories.
It’s a prime number in every sense, the star of the PGA Tour’s biggest show on turf: The par-3 17th hole of the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is an Emerald island surrounded by blue water that looks beautiful until the moment a Tour player sticks a tee in the ground during The Players Championship, places a ball on it and contemplates everything riding on one swing.
Then 17 bats her green eye and beckons seductively.
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“Come up and see me sometime.”
Pete and Alice Dye on construction site at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida circa 1980. Photo by PGA Tour
All the player needs to do to make that date is judge the winds of March, swing a wedge or 9-iron, and land the ball somewhere on a putting surface of less than 4,000 square feet, with around 30,000 fans in full throat, conflicted between wanting to see a good shot or anticipating disaster.
It’s the mind game that is repeated four times during tournament week, with the pressure on Sundays multiplied by a factor that depends on the player’s position on the leaderboard.
A good shot can either win the tournament or keep a player alive going to the final hole.
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A bad shot ― even a marginal shot ― destroys hopes with the splash that almost surely follows.
It’s a process that will be renewed again March 12-15 when The Players Championship is contested at the Stadium Course.
More: What is the highest score on the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass for the Players Championship?
Pete and Alice Dye speak at the 2014 Golfweek Architectue Summit. (Golfweek photo)
Alice Dye made suggestion for No. 17
The number comes from its spot on the Stadium Course. It’s the 17th hole of 18, the final par-3 hole on the course and the creation of architect Pete Dye, with inspiration from his wife Alice, when they found a vein of sand under what used to be a thick, tangled swamp.
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They kept digging because the sand was white gold, wholly suited to be used for the banks and mounds Dye and former PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman envisioned for the “Stadium Golf” concept that would give fans a view of almost every shot, from multiple vantage points.
Eventually, so much sand was dug around what was going to be a par-3 green at the end of a peninsula that Alice Dye made the suggestion that came to define the hole, the course and the tournament.
“Just make it an Island Green,” she said.
Put another way, Alice Dye essentially echoed the cliché of a Hollywood producer discovering the fresh young face at Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard.
“We’re going to make you a big star, baby.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: TPC Sawgrass No. 17: Architect Pete Dye’s wife inspired signature hole
Read the full article here