Players Championship Preview: Picks, Key Stats & Players to Watch

The PLAYERS Championship has arrived and with it comes the biggest purse of the year. We have some big question marks to answer like the health of Rory McIlroy and the overall form of world number one Scottie Scheffler. Last year, this tournament was one in a playoff and it’s set up for high drama once again. 

 

TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course

 

Par: 72

Yardage: 7,352

Greens: Poa trivalis overseed

 

Key Stats 

 

• Strokes Gained: Approach 
• Strokes Gained: Off the Tee – accuracy being weighted heavy 
• Bogey Avoidance
• Strokes Gained: Around the Green 

 

If we look at the last five winners of the PLAYERS Championship, all five of them were 30/1 or shorter odds pre-tournament. This has always been a tournament where big name players come to win – but that has been even more so the case in recent seasons. I believe the move of the tournament from May to March has aided in that – and I expect that trend to continue this year. 

 

Si Woo Kim 

 

Si Woo Kim has never felt like a safe bet or play to me, but I’m pretty confident this is a new version of him. He started playing really well towards the end of last season, and has top-five numbers in approach per round on the PGA Tour this season – which is the number one factor for me this week. His driver has been solid as well, basically his entire game has been outside of the putter. If he could putt at all right now, he probably has two wins this season already and I’m comfortable enough playing him because if and when he finds that putter on a given week there’s a good chance he’s at the top of the board on Sunday afternoon. He’s won here before, and while this can be a volatile tournament, he’s been anything but this season. 

 

Russell Henley 

 

Henley is someone I’ve written up a lot in the past and his game is perfectly crafted for a course like this. He’s highly accurate off the tee and one of the best iron players on tour. His irons have actually been subpar by his standards for the last few tournaments but I will ride with the larger sample size that we’ve seen from him. Despite that, he finished with a T6 last week and I fully expect him to be in the mix this weekend like he seemingly always is, he just needs to put four rounds together. 

 

Tommy Fleetwood 

 

Fleetwood was a big disappointment for me last week, but I’m going right back to the well this week. He’s been pretty much the third best player in the world for me the last year behind Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy and I’m not going to let one down week deter me from a tourney I’ve been waiting to use him at. Word from the grounds is that this course is going to play as tough as we’ve seen it in recent years and I think that favors Fleetwood more than it hinders him. There also seems to be a strong weather split favoring the AM/PM wave and Fleetwood will be off on Thursday morning looking to get off to a quick start before the wind picks up in the afternoon.