Course Profiles / THE PLAYERS Championship
Course Profile · Updated 2026-08-16

TPC Sawgrass (THE PLAYERS Stadium Course):
what wins here.

THE PLAYERS Championship · Derived from round-level strokes gained, 2022–2023–2024–2025 · ~73 players per field

Course-fit weights
OTT 21% / 25%
APP 39% / 38%
ARG 16% / 14%
PUTT 24% / 23%
Model — the weights Divot Lab uses for this venue (data blended with course judgment, recalibrated August 2026). Pure data — derived from the historical rounds alone (top-10 vs. field strokes-gained gap per category).

What the data says

Across 4 recent editions (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025), the players who finished top-10 at TPC Sawgrass (THE PLAYERS Stadium Course) separated from the field most through approach play (38% of the total separation), with off the tee second at 25%. Around the green mattered least — 14% — which is worth knowing when the broadcast narrative says otherwise.

The winners tell their own version: in 2 of the last 4 editions, the champion's best category for the week was approach play. That matches what separates the top-10 from the field — this venue rewards one skill consistently, all the way up the leaderboard.

Course notes: TPC Sawgrass — iron precision, water on 6 holes, Poa greens.

How the winners won

Strokes gained per round for each recent champion, by category. The green number is that winner's best skill for the week.

YearWinnerTo ParOTTAPPARGPUTTTotal
2025Rory McIlroy-12+0.66+1.94-0.19+1.24+3.65
2024Scottie Scheffler-20+1.61+1.59+0.77+0.31+4.28
2023Scottie Scheffler-17+1.14+1.90+1.26+0.03+4.32
2022Cameron Smith-13-1.30+1.66+0.35+2.88+3.60
Method. Weights are derived from DataGolf round-level strokes gained: for each season, the gap between the top-10 finishers' per-category average and the field's, recency-weighted across 4 editions with a 10% floor per category, then normalized. Winner rows show per-round strokes gained for the week. The model blends these derived weights with course judgment — both numbers are shown above, and every change to the model is logged publicly in the changelog. Full methodology: how the model works.

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