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If you've read or watched any Shakespearean tragedy, you know that the fifth and final act is always a bloodbath. Romeo and Juliet's families butcher each other in not-so-fair Verona. King Lear's madness costs him his kingdom and his three daughters.
But if TPC Sawgrass' PLAYERS Stadium course, home of THE PLAYERS Championship, has a counterpoint among the Bard's tragedes, it's Othello, whose title character sees his life and love undone by a supposed ally. At Sawgrass, architect Pete Dye takes the role of the manipulative Iago, seemingly placating but subtly undermining the golfer for the first 15 holes before the full shape of his brutal scheming comes to light at the very end. At the end of every Players Championship, all but one player ends up a victim.
Having already been tested thoroughly to that point, any even half-informed golfer stands on the 16th tee knowing what lies ahead: the most waterlogged finish in championship golf. But despite that fact, the Stadium's final act features a sense of variety that makes it a mini-masterclass, more torture than triumph.
The genius of TPC Sawgrass' three-hole par 5-3-4 finish
Because he tended to work on sites where he needed to manipulate the terrain in order to create compelling architecture, Pete Dye crafted a specific final stanza at many of his golf courses by making the 16th hole a par 5, the 17th a par 3 and the 18th a bruising par 4. Great golf courses are more than just a dozen and a half compelling, cohabitating holes; the best routings stir a keen sense of ebb and flow, tension and release, opportunity and intimidation.
Dye's ideal 5-3-4 finish reliably brings rounds to a thrilling conclusion. Placing a birdie opportunity at the 16th hole gives a tired golfer hope, setting them up for either the exhilaration of tackling the course's final challenges or, more often, the crushing feeling of a final knockout punch. Placing a penultimate par 3 makes it a fork in the road; by giving everyone a flat lie and a view of a teasing flag, scores from 1 to 5 sit on the table like golf's version of a shell-game. Many golfers spend the first three and a half hours of their round thinking about a great late par 3. Both of those scenarios tee up a final-boss 18th hole to ask one of the most revealing, fundamental questions of every golfer: Can you hit two quality shots in a row?
Dye's ingenious arrangement of golf features elevates this dynamic to the level of mastery at TPC Sawgrass. The tee shot on number 16 is arguably the easiest of the day, slightly downhill to a broad landing area. The hunger to gain ground causes players to overthink and overswing, complicating what should be a foot-on-gas moment. Water lurks on the weak (fade/slice) side for right-handers with the bailout side being trickier than it appears.
The iconic island-green 17th hardly needs any introduction here, except to note its swing-hole nature: at less than 150 yards, it yields up plenty birdies alongside dreaded others when the winds are calm. Once again, tension between opportunity and disaster creates drama.
Then the 462-yard 18th, with its sliver of fairway arcing at an uncomfortable angle from right to left and its ornery green, steals back its fair share of shots. Every day, it leaves many golfers feeling like Othello: abused and defeated.
Pete Dye's devotion to the 5-3-4 finishing stretch
The 5-3-4 finishing par pattern appears elsewhere in Dye's portfolio with similar poignancy. In Wisconsin, Whistling Straits' rugged version raises the leverage on the par-5 16th because of how nasty both the par-3 17th and par-4 18th can be. At Kiawah Island's Ocean Course in South Carolina, the 17th hole is the hardest of the three and while the 18th is no pushover, it's a slightly softer landing. At the Stadium Course at PGA West in the California desert, one of Dye's greatest all-time hazards lurks left of the par-5 16th green: a massive 25-foot deep bunker. But the star of the show is "Alcatraz," an island-green sibling to Sawgrass that precedes another slightly less intimidating finisher.
All three golf courses have held big-time professional tournaments that have featured numerous thrilling finishes. Three holes is often enough for a trailing player to mount a heroic final charge, and it's also a chance for a leader to either consolidate a victory or fall to pieces. We've seen both scenarios play out over the decades, both in match and stroke play. The closing holes at Kiawah featured some tense moments for Phil Mickelson in the 2021 PGA, but he navigated them well enough to become the oldest-ever major champion. Thirty years earlier, Mark Calcavecchia suffered the opposite fate when his late-match collapse against Colin Montgomerie provided hope for the European side before Bernhard Langer missed a fateful putt on the 18th to ultimately give the Americans the 1991 Ryder Cup Matches.
Athletes like to compartmentalize their battles. College basketball coaches have taken to parceling games out into four-minute "wars" between media timeouts. Golf's own math makes it logical to break courses down into three-hole battles. And among golf course architects, there was no wilier late-game tactician than Pete Dye.
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