The wacky, wet and wild finishes that have come to define FedEx St. Jude Championship

GERMANTOWN, Tenn. – Nearly three decades ago, the creation of TPC Southwind was heralded in a manner that contrasted the customary proceedings. Instead of the assembled dignitaries sticking shovels into the ground for a photogenic start to the construction process, they added soil to the site.

The dirt -- which included the “rich, black silt” of Florida’s TPC Sawgrass and the “sandy loam” of the Arizona desert, per the local paper’s report -- had been collected from Tournament Players Clubs across the country and shipped to suburban Memphis for the occasion.

Ultimately, TPC Southwind didn’t become known for its terra firma, though. Its water is its defining characteristic, and it continues to produce wet, wild and occasionally wacky finishes to the annual PGA TOUR event it hosts. This week, the top 70 in the FedExCup standings are assembled at TPC Southwind for the first of the three FedExCup Playoffs events. They’ll face a golf course known for its steep penalties and slim margins.

TPC Southwind holds the distinction of seeing the most balls hit in the water since ShotLink debuted in 2003 (and it’s not even close). The 6,298 water balls at TPC Southwind since 2003 are nearly 1,000 more than TPC Sawgrass, the first course to utilize Deane Beman’s “stadium golf” concept.

“The concept of a Tournament Players Club stadium course is to make sure when you come to the golf course, you get your money’s worth,” Beman, then the PGA TOUR Commissioner, said when he announced TPC Southwind. The course has held up its end of the bargain.

Like its predecessors, TPC Southwind was created with fans in mind. The spectator mounds that line the holes make it easier to observe the drama the course was designed to elicit.

“When everybody is under the gun, this golf course is going to show its teeth,” Bob Gilder said entering the final round of the first FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind. He shared the 54-hole lead with Bernhard Langer, and he proved to be prescient.

Gilder bogeyed the final two holes to shoot 71 and lose by one to John Mahaffey, who shot 65. “I made up my mind Saturday I would be as aggressive as I could be,” said Mahaffey, a past champion of THE PLAYERS and PGA Championship.

Birdies are available at TPC Southwind – Hubert Green flirted with a 59 on that same Sunday before also bogeying the final two holes -- but water is waiting to penalize the slightest miscue.

“Water always makes things interesting because it forces the player to play a bit more conservative off the tee,” said reigning FedExCup champion Viktor Hovland. “But then when you bail out, there's rough or a fairway bunker that catches the ball, and now you have a very difficult shot going into greens.”

The reward for hitting the fairways here is high, a trait that players appreciate. There was not a course on TOUR last year where players hit their approach shots closer from the fairway. TPC Southwind’s average fairway proximity of 25 feet, 11 inches was the lowest on TOUR in 2023. Only seven other courses had an average under 30 feet.

“The golf course is good,” said Patrick Cantlay. “It demands really good driving of the golf ball this week. You have to play from the fairway here.”

The fine line between birdies and bogeys can lead to dramatic finishes. Two of the course’s hardest par 4s are on the back nine, starting with the 406-yard 12th, which wraps right around a lake. Two holes later, players face the 205-yard, par-3 14th. The lake on the right has seen plenty of visitors in recent years. Players are given a respite with the short par-4 15th and par-5 16th, which were two of the course’s easiest holes last year, before facing a pair of trying two-shotters to close the round.

The 17th hole is 505 yards long, but plays downhill, while the severe turn of the 18th fairway forces players to make a choice. They can take less club and play perpendicular to the green, hitting their shot straight up the fairway, or they can try to carry the water and cut the corner.

The most famous meltdown in the Memphis heat came in 2010, when Robert Garrigus tripled the final hole and lost in a playoff. He snapped his tee shot into the water, then had to drop in front of the lake. His next shot hooked into trees on the opposite side of the water, forcing him to chip out across the lake and back into the fairway.

The past three years have seen similar excitement.

Last year, Lucas Glover had to make a 20-foot par putt, a 30-foot bogey putt (after hitting into the water on 14) and a 12-foot par putt over the final six holes to force a playoff with Cantlay, who shot a final-round 64 to make up a five-shot deficit. Cantlay’s tee shot in the playoff landed in the rough outside the hazard line, but bounced a handful of times before trickling into the water.

In 2021, Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English were clear of the field when they arrived at TPC Southwind’s back nine. They combined to shoot 81 on those holes, though. DeChambeau made triple at the island-green 11th after hitting his tee shot into the water. English also found the lake at 11, doubled the hole, and followed with another 5 after hitting into the water on the back nine’s other par-3.

A year later, Will Zalatoris earned his first PGA TOUR victory by holing a 7-footer for bogey on the third hole of a playoff with Sepp Straka. Both players hit into the water on the island 11th when they returned there for sudden death, but Zalatoris won after getting up-and-down from the drop area.

The preceding playoff hole was just as interesting.

Zalatoris’s tee shot bounced off the cart path and came to rest a few feet from a boundary fence. He had to chip out from the trees. Straka barely cleared the water off the tee, but his ball was on grass just inside the hazard line. He hit it to 7 feet after taking a penalty drop. Zalatoris hit his third shot to 15 feet, and both players made their putts for unlikely pars. That’s when they returned to the 11th hole to continue the chaos.

“This course is where every shot you hit you're on the edge of your seat,” Straka said. “It can get a little crazy.”