THE PLAYERS Championship: Three Players Leading The European Challenge

European golfers have enjoyed recent success in THE PLAYERS Championship–can they maintain the run this week at TPC Sawgrass?

Until Sergio Garcia claimed victory in 2008 the Stadium Course at the PGA Tour’s Ponte Vedra headquarters had rarely echoed to the sound of cheers for European raiders.

Indeed, before then, only Sandy Lyle, in 1987, had tasted success there and yet his win was quickly followed by Henrik Stenson’s triumph a year later, Martin Kaymer lifted the trophy in 2014 and then Rory McIlroy was victorious last May.

The Northern Irishman’s leads the European challenge this year, too, closely followed by two Ryder Cup team-mates, one Spanish and the other English.

Rory McIlroy

The World No. 1 had many difficulties coming to terms with the TPC Sawgrass challenge early in his career, failing to break par in his first six rounds on his way to three consecutive missed cuts.

His problems were not limited to Sawgrass, however, because he was experiencing widespread problems dealing with the distinct challenge of Pete Dye-designed layouts.

“The 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits was when I turned a corner,” he explained in his pre-tournament press conference Tuesday. “I turned up there and I hated it. I had to tell myself to like it for one week. I finished third that week and began to embrace what Pete tried to put in his courses.

“Going on from there, I won at Kiawah Island, won at Crooked Stick, won here. I’ve started to quite like them. They’re like beer when you’re younger. You sort of don’t like it but then you think it’s cool to drink it and then you sort of acquire a taste for it.”

He bounced back from those three missed cuts with a hat-trick of top tens which were, in turn, followed by three failures to make the top ten. If he does everything at Sawgrass in threes last year’s victory will have heralded a mini-boom period to cash-in on.

Moreover, it would conform to a wider pattern of McIlroy success.

Since the start of 2019 he’s amassed 23 top ten finishes from 29 starts, a record of stability that is drawing praise from his peers, but which creates problems of its own because some question whether four wins are sufficient reward from so many opportunities (he has entered the final round in the top three no less than 12 times in this spell).

Historical significance is within his grasp this week because victory on Sunday would make him the first player in the tournament’s history to successfully defend the trophy.

Jon Rahm

In May last year the 25-year-old Spaniard missed two cuts in a row, only the second time in his professional career that he has followed a stumble with a trip.

As if aggrieved, he has since played all four rounds in 16 of 17 starts and the exception was the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship when he might have been a little distracted by the pro-am format and a father-son partnership.

Of the other 16 appearances in this time a dizzying nine of them were top threes with a trio of victories, albeit none of them on the PGA Tour.

The run began with third place in the U.S. Open (his best finish in a major championship to date), soon after he finished 64-62 to win a second Irish Open (notably proving, on more than one occasion, that his anger management skills are improving) and he has risen from 11th in the world rankings to second.

In the past, TPC Sawgrass has tested his passionate temperament. On debut in 2017 he started the weekend in the top ten, but ended Saturday on the wrong side of the 54-hole cut after carding an 82.

Twelve months later he again traveled in the wrong direction on Moving Day, but at least a 77 allowed him to hang around for all four rounds.

Last year he turned the tables on his Saturday form, posting 64 to grab a one-shot third round lead, but the bad round was merely delayed 24 hours; a 76 saw him end the week 12th.

“You only learn from experience and getting yourself in those situations,” he insisted Tuesday. “That’s why I said that I didn’t play great, but it was still a great opportunity for me.”

He admits that his entire career, though remarkable for the speed with which he has proved himself world class, has also involved a steep learning curve.

“2018 wasn’t my best golf year, but when it comes to personal growth, it was huge for me,” he added. “Stuff I don’t want to talk about in public, but it was huge and it keeps on going.

“My first two years here, it’s not like I played bad, but I just didn’t have the showing I would have liked. Every year I started with a solid first round. It’s a golf course I like and last year I proved that I can play properly here. On paper, it should play to my strengths.”

Tommy Fleetwood

Many might consider that the Englishman plays this week from somewhere close to behind the eight ball after he missed the cut last Friday in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. It was, after all, his first failure to play four rounds since July 2018.

But the ever-cheerful 29-year-old dealt with carding a pair of 76s in typically droll fashion, saying: “If you’re going to do it (miss a cut), do it properly and be dreadful on all fronts.”

That was a reference to his assessment that no part of his game was in working order, but there really shouldn’t be any reason to panic about two bad rounds after nearly two years of solid brilliance.

Moreover, it is only a fortnight since he led the Honda Classic after 54 holes and still had every chance of winning when playing his apporach shot at the 72nd hole (and it’s quite possible that eight rounds of golf at PGA National and Bay Hill, both played in brutal conditions, would be more detrimental to his chances this week than a couple of days off).

Fleetwood finished 41st on debut at Sawgrass in 2017, added seventh in 2018 and fifth last year. That explains why his scoring average in the tournament of 70.17 is the lowest in the field (minimum ten rounds) and he ranks second for Strokes Gained Tee to Green in that spell, too, a decent statistical pointer for Sawgrass success.

Last week he had to watch compatriot Tyrrell Hatton beat him to a first taste of PGA Tour success and it might prove inspirational.