Taming TPC Sawgrass

On raw March days like this (a mix of wet snow and wind swirling about Boston's North Shore), it's easy to start day-dreaming about warmer locales. One of my favorites of recent vintage was the spectacular golf courses of TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Florida, where I ventured in early 2008 to write a story for Delta Airlines on the Players Experience. Here's the tale ...

Walking in Jack's footsteps

After flailing my way around the first 15 holes of the daunting TPC Sawgrass course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, my caddy Donald Cross decides to up the ante as we stroll to the 16th tee.

"Don't worry," says Cross. "You've got the greatest three finishing holes in golf coming up." As if I needed any more pressure.

Another caddy, Mark Martin, leans over and says conspiratorially: "These three are what it's all about. This is where you play your golf. Forget the first 15." Forget them? I've been having the time of my life on a course that has baffled the world's finest golfers during the annual Players Championship, even if my game hasn't cooperated. So I step up to the tee box with precious little to lose, and boldly ask Cross for my driver.

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It's fashionable today for sports fans to disparage pampered athletes. Funny, though, how quickly attitudes change once the roles are reversed, and we're the ones getting special treatment. The Tour Players Experience at TPC Sawgrass gives duffers of every stripe a chance to feel like golf royalty by offering all the accouterments that professional golfers enjoy at the Players Championship – right down to personalized lockers, your own caddy, private lounge and restaurant, and a round of 18 at the sumptuous Stadium Course. Yes, you're paying for the privilege ($1,295-$1,615), but getting good value for your investment is the least of your worries. It is a priceless event.

"For the serious golf fan who wants to experience the magic of the fairway, this is hallowed ground," says Dave Pillsbury, president of PGA Tour properties. "They can't play at Augusta National (home of The Masters). But people can come here and play this course, the home of the Players."

The "experience" starts well before you arrive at the stately clubhouse. Checking in to the beautifully renovated Sawgrass Marriott, I find a golf-themed room complete with a gift package including golf shirt, golf towel, a selection of premium beers and value passes to the hotel's spa and superb restaurant, the Augustine Grille. I secretly wish every golf outing started in such style. My afternoon is spent in the capable hands of Todd Jones, the head instructor at the Tour Academy (touracademy.com), who dissects my stance and swing in a state-of-the-art video booth and makes several polite recommendations to help bring some consistency to my game.

Early the next morning, I hop aboard the short shuttle that takes me to TPC Sawgrass. The entry road – Championship Way – is lined with images of the past winners, and I instantly sense that I'm someplace special. I'm greeted by a VIP escort, and handed a very special bag tag, or "brag" tag, made of fine Italian leather, engraved with my name and featuring a tile depicting No. 17. A tour of the property ensues.

The sprawling 77,000-square-foot clubhouse, done in a stunning Mediterranean Revival style (similar to the grand hotels built by railroad magnate Henry Flagler) and completed in 2007, is worthy of Pete Dye's celebrated Stadium Course. Just inside the wrought-iron front doors, huge Bart Forbes murals greet visitors. To the right is three-time Players champion Jack Nicklaus, winning the first Players Championship in 1974 in Atlanta. To the left is Jerry Pate, winner of the 1982 championship – the first at TPC Sawgrass – diving into the lake adjacent to No. 18 after tossing Commissioner Deane Beman and Dye into the drink. The second floor serves as a gallery of champions, with striking watercolors of all 28 former winners by artist Chris Duke. The paintings, like so many artifacts and points of interest throughout the resort, serve as a launching pad for tales told by escorts, guides, even the caddies

"Our job is to bring to life the stories that people have seen unfold on television over the last 34 years," says Pillsbury. "These are stories that resonate with golfers." After accepting an engraved money clip in the President's Cup library, which is used for registration on tournament week, I'm taken to the clubhouse's "inner sanctum," says Billy Detlaff, the national golf director for the TPC Network.

"It's actually three clubhouses in one, and this is the totally private side of the clubhouse," he says, pointing out the separate entrance used by players during tournament week. The players' section includes a lounge area – complete with leather chairs, flat-screen televisions and a pool table ("You don't want to get into a billiards match with Vijay Singh," warns Detlaff) – a general locker room, a private bar (Pub 17) and restaurant (Champions), and a champions' locker room which reads like a veritable Who's Who of golf luminaries, from Nicklaus to Love, and Woods to Mickelson. There's even a special room for the Barber's Chair, a remnant from the old clubhouse that was used by Lee Trevino among others to recount horror stories of rounds gone wrong. In the aesthetically appointed Champions, the décor changes annually, as the walls are adorned with items donated by the reigning champ, including scorecards, photographs, a caddy's bib, and the like.

"We wanted the feel of a fine European estate," says Detlaff. "We're sharing our family history, our heritage, with you. The players are our family. This is their home."

I share a locker with Geoff Ogilvy, the Australian who captured the 2006 U.S. Open. Afterward, my locker plaque is mounted as a keepsake, adding to my stash of Sawgrass memorabilia. "The idea is to give the everyday player a chance to feel exactly what it's like to be a PGA player in the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass," says Detlaff. Which, of course, leads us to the course.

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The Stadium Course, the first course specifically built with spectators in mind, originally opened in 1982. Dye, recognizing the improvements in equipment technology and players' athleticism, set out to create a golf course that didn't favor any one style. The result of his labors is nothing short of a masterpiece. A major renovation in 2007 only enhanced the existing layout, with an efficient sub-surface drainage system that quickly clears the fairways of rainwater. Like the game itself, TPC Sawgrass is a humbling venue that readily rewards great shot making and coldly punishes mistakes. "Dye-abolical" is how one caddy describes the greens.

Conversely, our caddies are anything but frosty. I've never played with a caddy before, and admittedly was a little self-conscious about having someone with my name across his back, essentially waiting on me. Ultimately, though, it's a treat, and I soon realize that pro golf is a true partnership between player and caddy. Cross and his three colleagues are all exceedingly personable, and supremely knowledgeable of the vagaries of Dye's undulating fairways and greens. "One of the great things about this course is that there isn't a single hole I don't like," admits Cross.

Throughout the course, strategically placed markers highlight special moments in Players Championship history, from Hal Sutton's two eagle shots on No. 4 in 2001, or Davis Love III's dramatic chip for a birdie at No. 8 in 1992. Each marker serves as an invitation for another tale. Beginning this spring, participants can even upgrade to the Ultimate Experience, and have a former pro such as Calvin Peete, the 1985 Players champ, join them for a tidy $2,000 (per foursome).

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"Welcome to Pete Dye's world," says Cross almost apologetically after I send another wayward shot into a fairway bunker. "This course is a beast." By No. 9, I'm convinced. I've given Cross full license to choose whatever club he feels is best suited for each situation, and rarely even look to see what he's selected. I listen attentively to his instructions, and try my best to follow them. "The problem," I tell him, "is that you're assuming I can hit it where you want me too."

"Assuming, hoping," Cross says with a grin and a shrug, before repeating his mantra. "Just follow through on your swing."

With 15 holes played, I start to fatigue, and my shots become even more erratic. Just in time for the game's best known three-hole finish. "Phil Mickelson says 16, 17, and 18 represent the greatest risk-reward in golf," says Kent Simon, an advertising executive with the PGA Tour. "That's quite an assessment, considering the source."

Considering that Lefty is the defending Players champ, I'm inclined to agree. Still, I'm no Mickelson, and my approach to the green on the par-5 No. 16 is far more time-consuming, thanks to a narrow, twisting fairway that puts a premium on accuracy (something my game is noticeably lacking). It takes me five strokes to simply reach the green, and once there, I'm still 25 feet from the hole.

After lining up my putt, I finally smacked the ball where Cross tells me to, and the Titleist rolls gently to the edge of the cup and drops. I giggle like a kid. It is a harbinger of things to come, as we head for the next hole. "This," says Detlaff confidently, "is one of the great walks in golf."

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No. 17. The hole is synonymous with TPC Sawgrass. It is the hole depicted on the tile decorating my snazzy new 'brag" tag (and almost every other piece of Sawgrass paraphernalia), the one where Tiger's famed 60-foot "better than most" birdie putt jettisoned him to the Player's Championship in 2001. Stepping up to the tee, I didn't want to be in the same position as Fred Couples in 1999 (Couples carded a miraculous par 3, depositing his first tee shot in the lake before nailing a hole-in-one on his next shot). So I bury my head, swing as smooth as possible, and refuse to look up until I here the magic words: "You're on the green!"

From 35 feet, the hole looks microscopic. Cross indicates where he wants me to aim, but I push the ball wide, and it slides past the cup. The four-foot comeback putt looms large. Cross whispers: "Just hit it through the back of the cup." That's exactly what I do, putting a little too much muscle into it. The ball strikes the back edge, pops straight up, and then mercifully falls in. The cheer from my three playing partners and our caddies sounds just like a gallery to my ears. "That's all anybody's going to ask you about," says a beaming Simon. "How did you do on 17?"

Not a minute after I hole my putt, a nasty front sweeps in, bringing driving rain that lashes our foursome as we tee off on 18, reminiscent of Bishop Pickering's infamous final round in Caddyshack. It was if the Golf Gods are supremely annoyed that this duffer from Beantown had the audacity to tame the fearsome Island Green. Lord only knows what the heavens would have sent if my birdie attempt dropped.

Drenched but undeterred, I march triumphantly toward the 18th green and, eventually, the clubhouse and a cold one at Pub 17 (after grabbing one last souvenir; namely, my name off my caddy's back). I knew that no matter what the weather threw at us, it couldn't dampen the elation of my three strokes at No. 17. On a course where storytelling is king, I now had my own tale to tell.

FINIS