COURSE: The Tournament Players Course at Sawgrass LOCATION: Ponte Verde, Florida Designed By: Pete Dye JNSE DESIGN: By Ted Maiden "PINE VALLEY WITH PALM TREES" Host to the yearly Players Championship, The TPC as Sawgrass is distinctly the "grandfather" of all TPC courses. The course and club are operated by the PGA Tour and serve as the headquarters for the PGA Commissioner and his staff. When it first opened, Jack Nicklaus was asked if the controversial design suited his game. "No," he said, "I've never been very good at stopping a five iron on the hood of my car." Ben Crenshaw, normally the most diplomatic of players, pronounced the course "Star Wars Golf, designed by Darth Vader". After some heavy reworking of the greens and some traps, it has today become the charmer. Crenshaw now says that "there are no weak holes." And it makes the listing of the top 100 courses in the world. #18 is listed as one of the toughest finishing holes in golf. And, the signature hole, #17, is world famous and intimidates the most daring and bravest of players. Sawgrass was the first STADIUM designed course. Large areas were raised and terraced for the sole purpose of allowing spectators a good view of the play. It's rated at 74.0 with a slope of 135 from the Championship tees, 71.9 with a slope of 130 from the Pro tees, 68.7 and a slope of 126 from the Men's tees, and 64.7 with a slope of 123 from the ladies tees. Since 1977, this tournament has raised more than $5,000,000 for charity. It was originally called THE TOURNAMENT PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP, or TPC. But when a couple dozen other TPC courses were born, Deane Beman and the PGA changed the name to The Players Championship and only the course retains the TPC designation. JNSE DESIGN CREDITS: The reference material came from many different sources. Golf Courses of the PGA Tour is a great book and was used for its color photographs on a couple of holes. Gordon Mobley sent me a package with a dandy overhead map that was part of the handout stuff for the last round of the 1992 Players Championship. He also sent a newspaper article that had different players commenting on each hole. That's where the hole quotes come from. I have to mention Mark Willet. You can actually find a couple of his objects at in unmodified form. That, and he did not get to harass me extensively while finishing this course, in the same manner that I have harassed him during our joint effort on Cherry Hills. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Then there is Tony Woodward. Tony happened to start a design on this course at about the same time I did. He was neat enough to send me a yardage book that he had. We laughed about the fact that there were many discrepancies in the reference material. I tried to get Tony to release his design first, but he has chosen not to. Tony, I tried. But, I found out during our interfaces that Tony is the real "class act" and for that reason, dedicate this design to Tony and the friendship I hope we can cultivate in the future. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, I had about 10 hours of video of the network broadcast of the 1992 tournament. The views of the course from the Met Life blimp became the judge and jury as for accuracy of the design. I thought about putting the Blimp in the background just like I did when I designed The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, but decided it would be redundant. The background is my own abomination, but I think it goes well with the course and looks very "FLORIDA" like. If there had been enough room, I would have included the ever-present palmetto palms that you can't walk 2 inches without finding here on the East Coast. I decided instead to make the course a bit more colorful with a spring-like blooming azalea bush that should keep your spirits in a spring-like mood - the time of year when the tourney is played. If I missed someone on the credits, well, at least YOU know who you are. I welcome feedback on the quality of my design efforts. I can be contacted on Prodigy by message to NPNW54A. I also am the sysop of the Double Eagle BBS in Melbourne, FL. The Double Eagle is the only BBS solely dedicated to the Jack Nicklaus Golf Game. I carry in excess of 200 of the best and latest courses and membership is free as of this writing. The number is 407-259-9771 - 1200-9600 baud v.32, v.42bis, MNP5 - ANSI - 8N1.