Big purse, big challenge await field at Players Championship

There has been plenty of debate through the years whether The Players Championship should be considered the PGA Tour’s fifth major.

What’s indisputable is that the tournament features the best and deepest field on tour every year.

The 2022 version, which begins Thursday at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, is no exception as 46 of the top 50 players in the world rankings tee it up.

The exceptions are the No. 12 Bryson DeChambeau (hip injury); No. 19 Harris English (hip surgery); No. 29 Kevin Na, whose wife gave birth in Las Vegas to their third child Monday; and No. 45 Phil Mickelson, who is on a possibly self-imposed break from the tour.

What they’ll miss is golf’s showcase on a course as tough as players see all year.

“Every part of your game needs to be good,” Jon Rahm said. “It’s demanding off the tee. It’s demanding on the approach shots. If you miss the green, you’d better be in the right spot. It’s demanding all throughout. That’s what makes it such a great golf course.”

Golf fans know TPC Sawgrass from the spectacular island green 17th and the treacherous 18th with water down the left from tee to green. But the players know it’s the 16 other holes that will make or break their rounds. The final eight all have water in play.

“You can play it a million different ways,” Collin Morikawa said of the course. “It tests every aspect of your game, and you can’t get away with just hitting some bad shots and getting away with a par or getting away with a birdie even. You have to play really good golf.”

Asked to describe the course, reigning player of the year Patrick Cantlay was succinct.

“Precise,” he said.

And if the challenge of a tough course isn’t enough to handle, there’s the pressure of playing for the largest purse in golf.

The $20 million purse includes $3.6 million for the winner, a sum that grabs players’ attention.

“Obviously the prize fund is huge, and that’s great, but there’s a lot of other things that go into the event to make it feel the way it is and make it feel special,” said 2019 champion Rory McIlroy.

“When you show up, you can feel the weight of what The Players means to everyone, and I think that’s the coolest thing,” said Morikawa, who compared it to his PGA Championship win at Harding Park in 2020. “You could tell that people were walking on ice, knowing that this is what this week represents. And that’s the same thing you feel this week.”

The Players also tends to bring the cream of the crop to the top of the leaderboard. There is rarely a fluke winner in the 40-year history at TPC Sawgrass.

There has also never been a repeat champion, something 2021 winner Justin Thomas has been reminded of repeatedly.

“I think first and foremost, look how deep this field is,” Thomas speculated as to why repeating hasn’t happened. “It’s just really hard to win a golf tournament when you have most of the top 100 players in the world.”

Rahm hopes to add his name to the list of champions at the event, but he knows it’s a daunting task.

“You need to be in extreme command of your golf ball. That’s what I like about it,” he said of the 7,256-yard Pete Dye masterpiece. “He makes what I call functional golf courses that are really aesthetically pleasing.”

Greg Robertson covers golf for the Review-Journal. He can be reached at grobertson@reviewjournal.com.