THE PLAYERS Championship: Sunday unpredictable

The Players Championship is set up for a dramatic and unpredictable Sunday.

Jerry Pate won THE PLAYERS Championship the first year it was held at TPC Sawgrass, in 1982. In perhaps one of the oddest celebrations in the history of sport, Pate found course architect Pete Dye and threw him into the lake that guards number 18 at TPC Sawgrass from Tee to Green.

In the event the 91-year old Dye is in attendance Sunday and wishes to congratulate whoever wins this year’s PLLAYERS Championship, I might suggest he wait to do so in the clubhouse. Or wear a wet suit.

The first three rounds on the newly revamped TPC Sawgrass have been somewhat similar to watching a horror movie. TPC Sawgrass started its annual reign of terror on the best players in the world on Thursday and cranked it’s killing spree into high gear on Saturday, fueled by high gusty winds, heat, and the revamped but not exactly user-friendly TPC Sawgrass layout.

Nine of the top ten players in the OWGR made the cut, but only one of them, Masters Champion Sergio Garcia, has any realistic hope of winning the PGA’s flagship event on its home course.

That’s not to say THE PLAYERS heads into Sunday with an obscure front page on its leaderboard or that anything is anywhere near settled.

JB Holmes and Kyle Stanley hold the overnight lead at 9 under but there are 13 others within 6 shots of the lead including Major Championship winners Louie Oosterhause at 8 under and Garcia at 5 under.

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On a day where one-by-one the game’s best took turns drowning their chances in ponds created from the swamp that Dye designed on the 7100 yard par 72 serial killer, Holmes and Stanley were both just pretty steady. Holmes posted 2 under 70 and Stanley put up even par 72.

Holmes announced his presence with a 367 drive on number 1 and went on to make 9 straight pars on the front before his 3 birdie-1 bogey back 9. Stanley came out a little shaky making bogey on 3 of his first 4 before settling down and posting his 72. That score got him paired in the last grouping on Sunday with Holmes.

The main thing that has Holmes and Stanley atop the leaderboard is that on Saturday neither of them made worse than bogey. That in itself was apparently quite an accomplishment. There were some scores on Saturday from some of the biggest names in the sport that were shocking. The constant montage of the Sawgrass death march and slaughter that the winds blew in was similar to watching the 6th flight of a club championship as opposed to golf’s 5th major. Here are just some of the unfortunate instances that wiped out golf’s big boys:

Rickie Fowler – Triple Bogey 7 on 18
Dustin Johnson – Double on 16
Vijay Singh – Two triples on par 3s
Hideki Matsyama – Quintiple bogey 9 on par 3 13th
Jason Day – Double on 13
Phil Mickelson – birdie free 78 including double on 9
Jon Rahm 82 – From 4 under to not making Sunday cut. His round featured 3 doubles
Justin Thomas – Triple on 18. He like Rahm now has the day off on Sunday.

The quest to avoid posting numbers more appropriate for a diving contest has gone on all week and through the process of elimination produced a compelling list of contenders forTHE PLAYERS Championship on Sunday near impossible to handicap.

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Masters Champ Garcia has the momentum, confidence, and track record at Sawgrass but none of that means a thing without a bit of luck if the course and conditions repeat their part of the equation on Sunday.

Louie Oostenhaus is another Major winner who won’t be intimidated by Sawgrass on Sunday and the remaining contenders are a true gumbo of pro golf styles of play.

Sunday atTHE PLAYERS Championship should be exciting. The winner will likely be whoever avoids disaster. That said If Pete Dye shows up on the 18th green to congratulate the eventual winner you might want to stay tuned to see if he drowns.

Next: PLAYERS favorites blown out on Saturday

NBC has the live coverage beginning at 1pm cst. I’m not certain they are promoting the potential drowning or not. This may however be the first time a golf telecast needs a parental rating for viewers if Saturdays carnage continues on Sunday.

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