When you walk between the 16th green and the 17th tee at TPC Sawgrass, the path of grass, even without the ropes, is so thin that you think any misstep could result in you falling in the water.<\/p>\n
The razor-thin margin on just that particular walk is a microcosm of the whole place. Any shot, long or short, could find a watery end. The PGA Tour\u2019s crown jewel is not a major, but the stage in which The Players Championship is contested is the most major of tests.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just because it\u2019s not a major championship by definition doesn\u2019t make it anything less than what it actually is \u2014 the Tour\u2019s best event.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great test of will, a test of patience, and obviously a test of hitting some good shots,\u201d said Cameron Young, who won this year\u2019s Players Championship on Sunday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Young\u2019s tremendous come-from-behind win, which happened thanks to some you-cannot-be-serious collapses and a leaderboard shaken so hard it felt like James Bond himself ordered it, helped showcase why The Players doesn\u2019t need extra labels or pomp and circumstance. Year after year it delivers \u2014 since The Players\u2019 move back to March in 2019, each of the champions has been ranked inside the top 15 in the world \u2014 and it doesn\u2019t need to be called anything else.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sunday at The Players was supposed to be a coronation of sorts for Ludvig Aberg, one of the game\u2019s top young stars who held a multi-shot lead heading into the finale. But as is the case at TPC Sawgrass, that kind of lead means little. Aberg was steady if unspectacular on his front nine, shooting an even-par 36. But the wheels came off after he made the turn, hitting his approach on No. 11 into the water en route to a bogey before hitting his drive into the hazard on No. 12 and a double bogey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Young and Matt Fitzpatrick (a pal of Young\u2019s and his playing partner on Sunday) had made some tidy Sunday charges. Fitzpatrick, who had to navigate drunken yelps of “U-S-A” and other Ryder Cup-lite jeering, made three birdies in a four-hole stretch on the back nine while Young made three of his own birdies in his first eight holes after making the turn, including adding a circle to the card on the iconic par-3 17th. He hit his tee ball to just nine feet in the stadiums of all stadiums.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way everything is raised, you just know kind of all eyes are right there on you,\u201d Young said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On 18, Young stepped up to the tee with a singular swing thought and roasted a 375-yard laser into the fairway \u2014 the longest such drive on that hole in the measured ShotLink era.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overarching thought is, I’m going to hit the best shot of my life right here,\u201d Young explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Fitzpatrick in the trees on the right and being forced to punch out, he missed his 8-footer for par and Young had less than a foot to become The Players champion, the biggest win of his career. That, he said, was the only time all day when he felt like he was going to throw up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really, really good until I had to make the eight-inch putt on the last hole, and I just about fell apart,\u201d Young explained. \u201cI couldn’t get my line to point anywhere near the hole, and I went and hit it anyway, which maybe I shouldn’t have. But it went in, so all is well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through the afternoon, with storms threatening to push a playoff into Monday if it went that far, each of the contenders began to slip away. Bob MacIntyre chipped into the water from the side of the green on No. 16, Sepp Straka pulled his approach on No. 18 into the water (sensing a theme here?), while Michael Thorbjornsen, who was in the final group with Aberg, had long been ejected \u2014 he made a quadruple-bogey 8 on the par-4 4th and, for good measure, knocked his tee shot into the water on No. 17 en route to a 5-over 77.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no surprise to know, then, that each of the last three winners of The Players Championship have come from more than four shots behind. They\u2019ve been tremendous champions as well, with Scottie Scheffler winning in back-to-back years in 2023-24 (the first player in tournament history to repeat as champion) while Rory McIlroy won in 2025 before claiming his Masters title a month later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The winners and the moments they produced are filed away and trotted out not as desired nostalgia but as excitable possibilities for what could come next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The informal discussion around calling The Players Championship the \u201cfifth major\u201d has been going on for what seems like forever, but it hit a fever pitch this year because the PGA Tour itself released a promotional video with the tagline included \u201cMarch is going to be major.\u201d<\/p>\n
But after some of the players on Tour did not agree with such a bold claim \u2014 Rory McIlroy said earlier this year, \u201cIt\u2019s The Players. Like, it doesn\u2019t need to be anything else\u201d and Brooks Koepka said earlier in the week, \u201cI think you’ve got to have one big event on the PGA Tour, and it’s their staple, and I think it’s a good thing\u201d \u2014 even new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp seemed to relax his description.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take a lot of pride in The Players, and with all the major talk, some may say even too much pride. Ultimately, that is not for us to decide. But what is clear is that fans, players and partners consider this to be one of the best tournaments in the world, and we are honoured to showcase it this week,\u201d Rolapp said Wednesday, before play began.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A major it is not. But that\u2019s OK. The stage is big enough, the champions are grand enough, and when you think about where it sits on the golfing calendar, it\u2019s plenty meaningful.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Players always delivers. For now, and for what\u2019s to come next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis tournament certainly has a major feel. The Players is an unbelievable event,\u201d Young said, trophy to his side. \u201cThe atmosphere out there, the way that I felt feels very much like a major championship. I’ve been around the lead with a hole or two to go in a few majors, and it’s the best prep that you could ask for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you walk between the 16th green and the 17th tee at TPC Sawgrass, the path of grass,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-541453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}