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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Ah, welcome to Players Championship week, featuring the most equitable golf tournament of the year.
Don’t believe it? Try this: Since the turn of the century, winners at TPC Sawgrass have been old and young, large and small, stars and journeymen, fiery and tranquil.
Most relevant from a prognostication perspective is that technical skillsets are similarly indiscriminate. The champions’ list is muddled with a puzzling combination of big hitters, great iron players and crafty putters. The leaderboard is annually littered with an amalgam of disparate types of players.
Factor all of that into your mindset and you’ll find that this tourney remains one of the most difficult to predict on a yearly basis.
That doesn’t mean Justin Thomas was an unforeseeable winner; in fact, he might’ve been one of the most calculable outright wagers last year. What it does mean is that there might’ve been 20 or 30 or 40 other candidates who similarly owned the talents necessary for success on this course.
Really, though, the leaderboard diversity isn’t just reflected in the guy who wins the trophy. Each of the last two runners-up was in his mid-to-late 40s. When Tiger Woods last won in 2013, he followed by a trio that included David Lingmerth, Jeff Maggert and Kevin Streelman. All of which endorses the main point: Things usually happen here that we don’t expect.
On to this week, specifically, which is supposed to start with an opening round featuring warm, rainy, calm conditions, transitioning over the next few days to cool, dry, windy conditions, only to close with some combination of all of those by Sunday afternoon.
What that all means is the year’s most equitable golf tournament — one which tests every part of a player’s game — might also be the most equitable from a weather standpoint, necessitating an ability to compete in a few different kinds of elements.
Our top pick is the PGA Tour leader in total strokes gained and the all-around category, this season, meaning he’s doing everything well, which is paramount for this venue.
Outright winner
Collin Morikawa (14/1)
I proposed this idea in a column recently, but it’s worth revisiting: The world’s No. 2-ranked player is eminently underrated.
Best guess is that this is mostly due to the exploits of players such as Woods, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth early in their careers. Essentially, we’ve become accustomed to young superstars thriving in the spotlight, which makes Morikawa’s accomplishments — five PGA Tour wins, including two majors, plus a victory at last season’s DP World Tour finale in less than three full years as a pro — almost feel somewhat ordinary by comparison.
The truth is, Morikawa has been brilliant by any standard, but it might be his recent consistency which is lifting his profile even higher. In three U.S.-based starts so far this year, he’s finished top-five in all of ’em. Now, he’ll head to a track which should suit his skillset, as he ranks 15th in driving accuracy and sixth in strokes gained on approach shots, exactly the type of combination we’re seeking this week.
While a T-41 result in his first start at The Players wasn’t overly impressive, a final-round 66 last year suggests that he just needed a few days to figure out TPC Sawgrass.
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