2021 Players Championship: Top 10 power rankings at TPC Sawgrass
If I asked you who are the two players with the largest margin of victory at the Players Championship over the last 14 years, how long would it take you to land on Jason Day (2016) and Webb Simpson (2018)?
It’s true, both players strolled to four-shot victories at TPC Sawgrass.
Simpson epitomizes how a good game manager can not only win at the Stadium Course but can dominate. He fired 66-63-68-73 with his second-round tying the course record. His 18-under final score was the best since Fred Couples went 19 deep in 1996.
Simpson gained over nine strokes putting and more than eight in his first two rounds. That’s tough to replicate, but he’s is still one of the best with the flatstick. The 35 year old ranks 20th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting (.66). Missing at least a few greens per round is inevitable for even the best ball strikers. Fortunately, the former Wake Forest Demon Deacon is 12th in SG around the green (.473).
A lack of length can harm Simpson in a lot of big events, but this isn’t one of them.
“…approach shots, they mean everything,” Simpson said in 2019 in a transcript from ASAP Sports. “These greens are undulating, there’s trouble, there’s so much to it, I mean there’s a couple holes out there if you drive it in the rough, we’re thinking about laying up and not going for the green. And so you look at a guy like Sergio who is a shot maker, great iron player, has been forever, he’s won here and contended a number of — I think he has two or three other seconds. So I definitely think — I’m confident with my iron play and that’s pretty much everything here.”
Simpson can also rely a little bit more this week on longtime caddie, Paul Tesori, who’s a Jacksonville native.
Simpson has finished T-15th and T-16th twice since 2013 at the Players Championship.
Webb is coming off a week of rest after finishing T-6th at the WGC-Workday Championship. He’s made his last nine cuts. Simpson last won in June at the RBC Heritage and has seven top-10s since then, including two at the majors.