2022 Players Championship: Jon Rahm’s No. 1 Strive to Lead Six Categories to Watch at TPC Sawgrass

The 2022 Players Championship will serve as the natural end to the first quarter of this season’s PGA Tour golf tournament. Everything from Hawaii to Florida looks set to lead up to this huge week at TPC Sawgrass, which is also the top of the PGA Tour’s annual calendar.

Everyone is playing this week. Yes, almost everyone. Bryson DeChambeau is absent with persistent wrist and hip injuries, but 47 of the world’s top 50 will tee off in what should have been a nasty, gritty Player. You can call any league you want, but to know which is the most important, just check the league list.

Technically, The Players isn’t a major championship, but when the only top 50 players miss out due to injury… or a recent international incident get involved with the financial branch of a foreign government and create a domino effect where losing sponsorships can lead to suspension or not… you know the tournament is super important.

Here are six items to watch when the Player starts.

1. Difficult to accept: The annual player is a nightmare for those of us in the prognostic game. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who wins or even plays well year after year. No one – not even Tiger Woods – has won this tournament more than twice since it moved to TPC Sawgrass in 1982, and not only that, it is rare to even find repeat players even a pattern of their past success in the near future. Victory is also hard to see that coming. World No. 6 Rory McIlroy embodies this idea. He took the 2019 version after missing the cut in 2018 and then missed it again in The Next Player in 2021 (The 2020 Player has been cancelled). McIlroy doesn’t miss many cuts, and his last three starts here show how difficult it is to determine who will play well.

2. Weather is ultimately a factor: We haven’t seen a lot of wind and rain affect the settings on this year’s PGA Tour (or at the Players Championship over the past few years), but all of that is about to change. Rain is forecast throughout and we could even experience wind and Open Championship-like conditions for a few days. This will be music to suit the ears of the likes of Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Daniel Berger, Will Zalatoris, Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland.

3. Who plays Sawgrass best (does it even matter?): Every week, I use Data golf course history tool to see who in the field played both overall and historically best against their weekly results. These are the numbers (minimum 10 rounds at this golf course).

Best overall

• Si Woo Kim: increase by 2.26 strokes per round
• Hideki Matsuyama: 2.18 SG
• Justin Thomas: 2.16 SG
• Sergio Garcia: 2.02 SG
• Adam Scott: 1.99 SG

Best than their average in all events

• Si Woo Kim: 2.01 sticks higher than expected
• Mackenzie Hughes: 1.24 SG
• Tom Hoge: 1.21 SG
• Justin Thomas: 0.90 SG
• Jhonattan Vegas: 0.89 SG

While this data may seem less important here in the short term than elsewhere, Data Golf still thinks it matters in the long term. That is, for players like Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott, who have played a lot of rounds here (134 aggregates), have countless times to finish in the top 20 (17 times in total), have passed the period. Their basic expectations and both win this course, these numbers can really tell a story.

However, the stat that I am perhaps more interested in this week, is the ball that has stood out in the past 20 rounds. Those are the good players at the end of the year, and when there is a low correlation to past game at TPC Sawgrass and future results, they may be smarter numbers to look at. These are them, according to Data Golf.

Crosses in the last 20 rounds

• Jon Rahm: 2.78 SG
• Will Zalatoris: 1.98 SG
• Cameron Young: 1.84 SG
• Viktor Hovland: 1.83 SG
• Justin Thomas: 1.73 SG

4. Late shots: While we’ve seen loads of ways to win this week – both with Si Woo Kim and Webb Simpson’s dominance in mind – TPC Sawgrass also allows for some crazy ending kicks that deliver drama. incredible calculation from superstar players. Rickie Fowler played the last six of the six holes back in 2015 and then played four playoff holes over two under in the playoffs to win. Last year, Thomas shot 64-68 over the weekend to beat Lee Westwood by one shot. His run included a stretch where he played 9-12 at TPC Sawgrass in the bottom 5 on Sunday and completely dominated the tournament. It elicited some hype from his now-caddie, Jim “Bones” Mackay.

“[His 5-wood into No. 16 on Sunday] is one of those scenes where you wish you had 30 more seconds… just to say, ‘You’ll never know how good that is,'” Mackay said in This excellent story about the art of JT.

TPC Sawgrass can be a volatile place (especially when it comes to the weather) which also makes it fun and when there isn’t too much separation the first two days you usually have the last days Crazy week with impressive plays finally win the golf tournament.

5. Jon Rahm’s big position: The number 1 player in the world is losing the top position (see more below). Not only that, he’s slipped a bit in his last two events with results falling outside the top 10 in both the Genesis Invitational and the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week. (All “sliding” is relative while you’re still in your 20s) However, he’ll have a chance to take it all back here: a stronghold at the top, a reminder of Who is the best player on the planet? in the past few years and a win commensurate with the way he’s played for nearly 12 straight months.

Rahm has an interesting history at TPC Sawgrass. A T9 in Player 2021 is impressive, but it’s his T12 in 2019 that people probably remember most. Rahm took the lead against Tommy Fleetwood and McIlroy advanced to the final round and played brilliantly on the front nine before 39 on the back, including an infamous swap with his caddy Adam Hayes on par-5 11 didn’t end well (at least on that day) a brace on the 17th pushed him out of the top 10. He has remained (by far) the best dribbling striker in the world since the very beginning. year 2022.

6. New number 1: Not only the world No. 2 Morikawa has a chance to become No. 1 for the first time, but also 3 other players also have a chance to become No. 1, including Hovland, Patrick Cantlay and No. 5 Scottie Scheffler, who this month never won before. PGA Tour event. Real youth movementand so the rush for 1st place as the rest of 2022 unfolds.