PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | Love it or loathe it, the par-3 17th hole at the Players Championship makes a beautiful noise.
Most years, it’s more curiosity than calamity. Still, it’s arguably the most recognizable hole in American golf, and when a day like Saturday blows in, it’s extraordinarily entertaining – so long as you’re not the one trying to find the green where the flag was bending in the breeze 136 yards away.
Saturday, when a wicked cold front blew in once the gushing rains finally relented, was golf’s version of rubbernecking at a car wreck. It was virtually impossible not to look, at least for a little bit.
When designers Pete and Alice Dye dug it out of the swampland that is now the Stadium Course, they probably didn’t envision a tournament day with gusts occasionally reaching 40 mph coming at the players from about 10 o’clock. That’s what happened as the rain-interrupted first round bled into the second round on a day typically reserved for third rounds.
Was it fair?
“It’s luck,” said Brooks Koepka, who went double bogey, triple bogey in two trips through the 17th, raising his cumulative score to 20-over par there since 2015.
“There’s nothing you can do. It’s gust dependent, and it is what it is.”
“It is what it is” has become annoyingly overused, but Koepka found a proper use for the phrase when he applied it to a hole that even non-golf fans recognize.
“It’s a big, massive dartboard, and you’re like, ‘Just hit it anywhere on there."
Rory McIlroy
When the next sizzle reel is created extolling the charms and challenges of the 17th hole, it can start the way Saturday morning did.
In order, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Koepka and Collin Morikawa, Nos. 5, 7, 18 and 2 in the world rankings, respectively, deposited tee shots in the water.
By sundown Saturday, when it was cold enough for fingers to feel numb, 29 balls had found the water in one day. It only felt like more.
And the worst thing about the 17th hole was that the rugged par-4 18th was waiting, playing a full stroke over par and playing into such a wind that Koepka asked his caddie, Ricky Elliott, if he could reach the green in two shots.
But back to the 17th hole.
“It’s a big, massive dartboard, and you’re like, ‘Just hit it anywhere on there.’ I hit a pretty good 7-iron. It pitched 123 (yards),” Rory McIlroy said.
How far does McIlroy normally hit his 7-iron?
“185. It’s crazy,” McIlroy said.
It naturally led to an overflow of conversation about whether the 17th is too gimmicky or if the conditions on Saturday created an aberration.
“The 17th hole is a disaster of a hole … and it was shown to be so today,” Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, a frequent critic of the hole’s design, tweeted Saturday evening.
“It’s entertaining as hell, but so would filling an Olympic swimming pool with sharks and asking (Michael) Phelps to swim the race of his life.”
There were no sharks in the water surrounding the 17th hole on Saturday, just a couple of dozen more golf balls than usual.
Ron Green Jr.