The force-fed narrative began weeks ago through a not-so-subtle promotional campaign.
“March is going to be major.” Sigh.
It’s not difficult to understand why this inorganic campaign has been reignited. Investors want returns, especially when figures starting with “B” are involved. Reclassifying the PGA Tour’s flagship event would, in theory, lead to increased media-contract dollars. This is a for-profit business, period.
But the actual identity of The Players Championship is iron-clad secure. A deep, world-class field competes on a championship golf course for a colossal purse and one of the better titles in the sport. It’s a damn good event, whether it gets the magical five-letter adjective behind it or not.
Here are the top numbers and notes to know entering the 2026 Players Championship.
1. Over the years, Pete and Alice Dye’s design has produced unlikely contenders while simultaneously revealing that week’s best player. TPC Sawgrass is a complex examination for which there is no single answer key.
Is driving accuracy paramount? Scottie Scheffler led the field in fairways hit when he won two years ago. Last year, Rory McIlroy ranked tied for 67th — only two players who made the cut hit fewer. What about power? Fred Funk won in 2005, averaging a whopping 253 yards off the tee. Eleven years later, Jason Day averaged 312 to lead the field.
Players Champions are dialed in with their irons, right? Four years ago, Cameron Smith was 52nd in the field in greens in regulation and 44th in average proximity from the rough. The Aussie putted his way to victory, picking up nearly three strokes per round on the greens alone. When Webb Simpson won by four in 2018, he actually lost strokes to the field with his approach play.
Two of the last seven winners here led the field that week in strokes gained putting. But three of them also ranked worse than 40th for the week.
Nobody has ever won the Players Championship three times at TPC Sawgrass (Jack Nicklaus won three of the first five, each win held on a different course). The combination of lurking danger and rewarding scoring opportunities is one of this championship’s most endearing traits, and why this is professional golf’s most unpredictable week.
2. Scheffler has been the antithesis of unpredictability for the better part of five years now. That’s only made his recent array of loose iron shots even more surprising. Scheffler, who has led the PGA Tour in strokes gained approach each of the last three seasons, ranked a paltry 44th of 50 players to make the cut in that metric last week at Bay Hill. For Scheffler, it was his worst ranking in that stat in any tournament where it was measured for all 72 holes since the 2022 Players Championship.
That fact is coupled with a consistent downward trend: Each of the last three times Scheffler has teed it up, he finished the week with worse approach numbers than in the previous tournament.
That said, it should surprise nobody if Scheffler rediscovered superhuman form this week. Over the last three years, he has led all players at this championship in score to par, greens in regulation, strokes gained ball striking and bogey avoidance. His career average of 2.29 strokes gained total per round is the best of any player all time at TPC Sawgrass with at least a dozen rounds.
3. Will the defending champion be able to tee it up this week? Rory McIlroy withdrew from last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational before the third round after aggravating his back during a pre-round workout. Monday, he told Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis the injury was being “stubborn” and he wouldn’t arrive in Ponte Vedra until Wednesday at the earliest.
When McIlroy has been successful at TPC Sawgrass, it’s been because of his approach play. McIlroy has finished in the top 10 five times at this championship. Those weeks, he has averaged more than a stroke and a half gained with his approach play. The 10 times he has finished outside the top 10, he’s lost 0.15 strokes per round in that category.
McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond, was seen walking the course Tuesday, a positive sign. But if McIlroy is unable to go Thursday, he would be the fifth Players champion who was unable to defend his title the following year. The last was Smith in 2023 after he left for LIV Golf.
4. Collin Morikawa enters the 2026 Players as arguably the hottest player on the PGA Tour. His last three finishes are first, seventh and fifth. He’s a combined 45 under par in those three tournaments, making birdie or better on 31 percent of his holes played. He’s in the top 10 on the PGA Tour in fairways hit and strokes gained tee to green, and is picking up nearly a shot and a half with his approach play in his last dozen rounds. And as unpredictable as this championship is, Morikawa enters the week with some Sawgrass bona fides in the recent past: a tie for 13th place in 2023 and a T10 finish last year.
Morikawa’s most glaring weakness here has been on the greens. Morikawa has negative strokes gained putting in all five of his career starts at the Players, losing about a half-stroke to the field per round on average. If he’s even middling with the putter this week, Morikawa should be a presence Sunday afternoon.
Collin Morikawa comes in as one of the hottest players on the PGA Tour. (Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
5. A year ago, Akshay Bhatia held a share of the 36-hole lead at TPC Sawgrass. The weekend wasn’t as kind to him, though, as he staggered to a Saturday 75 and ultimately finished tied for third. Bhatia was undone at times by wildness off the tee: He hit 21 fairways in rounds 1 and 2, but just 14 on the weekend. On par 4s and 5s, Bhatia was a combined 5 over par when missing the fairway. He was 13 under after an accurate tee shot. That 18-stroke differential was the 10th-largest of any player in the field for the championship.
This all seems wildly relevant considering Bhatia’s performance a week ago in Orlando, Fla.. He hit 27 fairways in regulation, the fewest for any Arnold Palmer Invitational winner all time. If you include the playoff hole, however, he hit 10 of his last 11, sparking the back-nine surge that led to his third PGA Tour victory.
Bhatia’s performance on and around Bay Hill’s greens was nothing short of miraculous. He gained more than 16 strokes with putts and shots around the green, the most for any PGA Tour winner since ShotLink began tracking such things in 2004. Four men have won the Players the week after a PGA Tour victory, the last being Scheffler two years ago.
6. In last year’s Monday playoff, the tee shot J.J. Spaun rinsed at the 17th hole essentially wrapped up the victory for McIlroy. It adds to an extended lineage of memorable moments on the short par-3, which historically has played as the most difficult hole under 150 yards on the PGA Tour.
Statistically, the toughest pin position at 17 is back right, used traditionally in the final round. Per the PGA Tour, one of every eight tee shots hit with that pin in play since 2003 has found the water. Three players have found the drink here 10 or more times in the Tour’s ShotLink era. Two of them are in the field this week: Justin Rose (11 times) and Brooks Koepka (10). The latter is averaging bogey golf (4.00) in his 20 career trips to the 17th.
Adam Scott, competing in his 24th Players Championship this week, has 22 career birdies on the 17th, second most all time to Bernhard Langer (26). Scott has played the famed hole 82 times in competition. He’s hit his tee shot into the water just twice. The player in this week’s field who has played the 17th the most times without hitting it in the water is Denny McCarthy, at 24 and counting.
7. Looking for a few names who could finish the week holding the trophy? Over the last five years, no player has averaged more birdies or better per round at TPC Sawgrass than Hideki Matsuyama (4.92). His four top-10 finishes here in the last decade are the most of any player, and he enters the week in the top 10 on Tour this season in scoring average and strokes gained total. No player has averaged more strokes gained around the green on Tour since 2020 than Matsuyama, an important trait on a golf course where everyone is destined to miss greens in regulation.
Sepp Straka had a rough final round at Bay Hill, but his recent Sawgrass credentials are among the strongest of any player in the field. Only three players have finished in the top 20 three of the last four years here: Scheffler, Shane Lowry and Straka. During that stretch, Straka is third among qualified players in this event in greens in regulation and fourth in bogey avoidance.
Sawgrass szn pic.twitter.com/yneh2HEMQQ
— Gabby Herzig (@GabbyHerzig) March 10, 2026
8. Another ascending player to watch this week is Ludvig Åberg. For the second year in a row, digestive issues disrupted his West Coast swing, causing him to withdraw from his season opener at The American Express. Since then, the trend is directly upward: a missed cut at Torrey Pines, T37 at Pebble Beach, T20 at Riviera and last week a tie for third at Bay Hill. His last three tournaments have seen a similar uptick in strokes gained approach: rankings of 41st, then 24th, then third a week ago.
Åberg finished in eighth place in his Players debut in 2024. That week, he racked up more than three full strokes on the field tee-to-green per round. In his missed cut here last year, his ball striking was nowhere near as sharp, and he carded five double bogeys.
9. This will be the seventh edition of The Players Championship since it moved back to March. In those typically cooler temperatures, recent winners have generated more of an advantage through ball striking. Since 2019, winners on the PGA Tour have, on average, 53.4 percent of their strokes gained against the field with shots off the tee and approaches. At TPC Sawgrass, in that same time span, that rate is 62.4 percent.
The bright blue water everywhere you look tells you this, but disaster is seemingly creeping everywhere here. Last year, there were 241 double bogeys or worse made by the Players field. Only the U.S. Open (367) had more doubles or worse among every course on the schedule.
10. Each of the last six winners of this championship were in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking entering the week. Still, names such as Anirban Lahiri, Camilo Villegas and Chad Ramey have held a share of the lead at the end of rounds in that same time span.
A strong start is paramount: Twelve of the last 13 Players champions have been within four shots of the lead after the opening round. First-round scoring average for those tournament winners is a stout 67.2.
Thursday’s wave gets started at 7:40 a.m. ET off split tees.