Best of the Players Championship: The 25 Most Dominant Performances
By Bill Felber
This was the first of Couples’ two Players titles and only the second championship of his developing tour career.
Although played for a third time at TPC Sawgrass, the course had been extensively renovated – mostly in response to player complaints — since Hal Sutton’s 1983 victory. Greens were flattened and slowed and several waste areas removed. The changes were noticeable on the scoreboard: The four-round stroke average fell by three strokes from its 1983 level.
Couples used a Friday 64, the week’s low round and a course record, to take the halfway lead at 135, two ahead of first-round leader Jim Thorpe. His advantage held at two, this time ahead of Seve Ballesteros, entering Sunday’s final round of play.
But demons lurked, the most threatening being veteran Lee Trevino, who moved within one stroke of Couples on the front nine of the final round. Couples rose to the challenge. At the eighth hole, his 2-iron stopped two feet from the cup for a birdie. At the ninth, his approach stopped six feet from the cup and he dropped that birdie putt as well. He led by three.
“I felt and pressure, and it was a good pressure,” Couples would later tell reporters.
His final test was the island green 17th, which Couples arrived at holding a two-shot lead. He recorded an uneventful par, rendering his three-putt at 18 meaningless.