The biggest of the tournament of the year so far has arrived with the Players Championship. Carrying a prize pool of $25,000,000, the Players has long been regarded as golf’s fifth major and all eyes will be on TPC Sawgrass as the best players from the PGA Tour try to add their names to the list of players who have been able to win this iconic event.
Up until last year no player had been able to win back to back Players Championships but that all changed when Scottie Scheffler managed to retain the title he won in 2023. All eyes will be on the world number one who will be hoping to create even more history this week by winning the tournament for a record setting third time.
However, unlike last year, Scheffler will turn up wildly out of form and there will be several players hopeful of knocking him off his perch and getting their hands on the $4,500,000 first place prize.
Ahead of the action starting on Thursday, here is everything you need to know.
The Course
The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass needs little introduction. The mastermind of legendary course designer Pete Dye, Sawgrass is a beauty of course that contains several obstacles for players to overcome.
Water plays a key role across almost every hole on the course and bunkers of varying sizes can destabilise any round. However, the one hole that every player will need to conquer is the iconic 17th.
Arguably the most famous golf hole in the world, the 17th is a short par 3 where players take aim to an island green which is surrounded by water. Veer left, right, long or short, the only place that the ball will end up is in the drink and with it a player's chances can go up in smoke. It is set to provide plenty of drama this week.
If the 17th wasn’t nervy enough, the 18th see’s water hug the fairway and the green to the left. With the fairway narrow, any misstep could be costly and in order to win, a player’s nerves will be fully tested.
The one thing that is needed to be successful this week is accuracy. The greens are far smaller than what was encountered last week at the Arnold Palmer and if a player is struggling from the fairways, any chance they have of winning will be quickly blown into smoke.
The Favourites
As is now common everytime he tees it up, Scottie Scheffler will start this week as the overwhelming favourite for victory, but it’s fair to say that he heads to Sawgrass with plenty to prove.
Winning golf tournaments is hard, but over the last two years Scheffler has made it look easy. A winner of eight different tournaments last season, so far through 2025 the Texan is yet to get off the mark and he is fresh off one of his worst weeks in a long time at the Arnold Palmer.
Only able to finish eleventh, that marked the first time that he wasn’t able to finish inside the top ten at a PGA Signature Event and he will hope that last week was just a blip.
Despite all of his success last year, Scheffler has decided to change his putting grip and it’s fair to say that the move is yet to pay dividends - however he will hope that changes this week.
Over the last two years, Scheffler has found the challenge of Sawgrass exactly to his liking and nobody has been able to stop him. As has become common practice, if Scheffler plays well, he will win but whether he can finally string four quality rounds together remains very much up for debate.
There are very few tournaments in the game that Rory McIlroy hasn’t been able to get his hands on and back in 2019 it was McIlroy who was the master of Sawgrass.
The world number two has enjoyed a good start to 2025 and landed his first signature event when landing the AT&T Championship at Pebble Beach, but since winning in California he hasn’t featured as much as he would have liked in both the Genesis and Arnold Palmer.
The one thing that is noticeable for the world number two is that he doesn’t seem to be forcing things and you can see that he is trying to plot his way around the course with much more detail and care.
After two disappointing tournaments he will hope to bounce back at a venue he has enjoyed success at and end Scheffler’s reign of dominance around Sawgrass.
Completing the top three in the betting is Collin Morikawa.
Morikawa’s drive up to Sawgrass from the Arnold Palmer would have been a soul searching one. Seemingly having the tournament in his grasp, Morikawa blinked when the lights were at their brightest and would end up losing by one stroke to Russell Henley.
A two time major winner, Morikawa has stalled in recent years when it comes to winning the biggest prizes in the game and he will hope to make amends for last week’s heartache this time around.
Yet to win this tournament he will hope he can finally end his title drought and finally get over the winning line.
Others to watch
Justin Thomas has been steadily rebuilding his career and is another former winner of this event. Winless since winning the PGA Championship back in 2022, Thomas is steadily climbing back up the rankings and finds himself in and around the top ten of the current FedEx Standings.
Whilst he wasn’t much of a factor at the Arnold Palmer last week, prior to that Thomas had achieved three top ten finishes in five starts and will be hopeful of another high finish at a course he has fond memories of.
Russell Henley will be the most confident man in the field following his victory at the Arnold Palmer and there isn’t anything to suggest that this week won’t be perfectly set up for one of the most accurate players in the game.
He missed the cut at last week’s tournament but will be hoping to fare much better this time around.
One man who many might be unfamiliar with is Laurie Canter. The former LIV man is the first player who joined the Saudi funded tour who is now back in the PGA fold thanks to his strong performances on the European Tour.
A winner in Bahrain, he then almost backed that up at the South African Open. Clearly full of confidence, this represents a huge step up but at 150/1 he could be worth a small play this week.
Jack Hartman
A keen golfer and huge fan of the game, Jack has been covering golf for the last five years. Bringing you all the latest coverage and news from the PGA, LIV, LPGA and DP World Tours, never before has golf been so popular and Jack can’t wait to bring all the excitement to his readers.
