Why we’ve never had a repeat winner at THE PLAYERS

One of the resolute, perennial truths about THE PLAYERS Championship is its unpredictability.

Since 2000, we’ve seen as many winners come from outside the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking as we have from the top five. Five of the last seven winners at TPC Sawgrass have ranked in the top 10 for the week in Strokes Gained: Approach, but Webb Simpson won in 2018 while ranked 62nd in that statistic. In 2019, Rory McIlroy won the championship while averaging 305 yards off the tee. Jim Furyk, the runner-up, was 34 yards behind him.

All of which helps explain why nobody has ever won THE PLAYERS in consecutive years.

Successfully defending any title on the PGA TOUR is fairly rare. In the 10 seasons from 2011 through 2020, there were 445 official events held on the TOUR. Only 13 times – or about one in every 34 tournaments – did a player go back-to-back at a particular event.

THE PLAYERS was first held in 1974, and only two tournaments on the TOUR schedule have had longer droughts without a back-to-back winner. The Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club has not had a player win in consecutive years since Ben Hogan in 1952 and 1953. And the Wyndham Championship, which has been held at three different venues, has not had a player successfully defend since Sam Snead in 1956.

So why has no player ever gone back-to-back at TPC Sawgrass? It’s a difficult question to answer, but 15th Club combed through more than 16,000 rounds of historical data in an attempt to find out.

Gaining Strokes in Different Ways

Pete Dye’s design gives players of all different skill sets scoring opportunities and distinct challenges all over the golf course. A look at the last two winners of THE PLAYERS explains that point perfectly.

In 2018, Webb Simpson won his first PLAYERS title despite losing strokes to the field on approach shots. A staggering 95% of his strokes gained for the week came on shots around the green and on putts.

Contrast that to the winning formula McIlroy utilized the following year, when 85% of his strokes gained came in the form of tee shots and approaches. He gained less than 5% of his strokes on the field with his putter, the lowest percentage of any PLAYERS champion the last 15 years.

Those jumpy trends persist throughout recent history when analyzing PLAYERS champions. In 2018, Si Woo Kim gained more than 35% of his strokes over the field on tee shots. In 2007, though, Phil Mickelson actually lost strokes on his tee shots, but managed to win thanks to spectacular iron play. The last 15 champions here are also all over the map with performance on the greens; they have gained anywhere from 5% to 63% of their strokes with the putter.

Let’s compare that to THE PLAYERS’ neighbor on both the map and the schedule, the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. While Bay Hill Club & Lodge provides a demanding test, the winning formula is more predictable.

For example, eight of the last 10 winners, including Bryson DeChambeau last week, have ranked in the top 15 in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach. Eight of the last 10 have also gained at least one stroke per round on their approach shots. Gaining strokes off the tee is typically not where players gain an advantage at Bay Hill, as nine of the last 11 winners gained anywhere from just 2% to 17% of their strokes with driver.

Trends like this are predictable at most TOUR venues, but not TPC Sawgrass. Not only has no player ever successfully defended his title at this event, it’s been a while since one was even remotely close. The last defending champion to finish in the top 10 at THE PLAYERS was Adam Scott, 16 years ago. Since THE PLAYERS found its permanent home at TPC Sawgrass in 1982, more defending champs have missed the cut (seven) than finished in the top 10 (five).

The statistics further explain the complicated genius behind the design of this golf course; TPC Sawgrass truly does not favor one specific type of player, but rather rewards the best overall performer in the field that particular week.