Course Profile

TPC Sawgrass:
what wins here.

THE PLAYERS Championship · 8 editions, 2019–2026 · 3,141 rounds analyzed

Course-fit weights

OTT 25% · neutral

APP 27% · rewarded

ARG 23% · less decisive

PUTT 25% · neutral

Derived by regressing finishing position on strokes gained at this course, measured against the tour-wide baseline, then tested on seasons the model had never seen. Based on 581 player-events.

How it plays

Not what the scorecard says — what this course does to the same players, measured against everywhere else they play. Built from 3,141 rounds across 8 editions, and ranked against every course in the archive.

Measure	Versus elsewhere	Which means	Across the archive
Driving distance	−6.7 yds	shorter off the tee here	11th shortest of 89
Fairways hit	−1.1 pp	harder to find	middle of the pack
Greens in regulation	−2.8 pp	harder to hit	21st hardest to hit of 88
Scrambling	−1.3 pp	harder to save par	27th hardest to save from of 81

Scoring. These players average 0.15 shots more per round here than they do elsewhere.

Plays most like. Royal Birkdale, Royal Troon, Royal Liverpool — the closest courses in the archive on those four measures together.

A record of what happened, not a forecast. Estimates are shrunk toward the tour mean by how much evidence each course has, and every baseline leaves the course itself out, so a venue cannot define the average it is measured against. Split-half reliability 0.888. Weather is not controlled for.

What it has taken

The numbers the week has actually demanded, edition by edition, counted from the scores rather than from anyone’s summary of them. The cut line is the worst halfway score that still saw a Saturday.

-14

typical winning score

Range -20 to -12 across 7 editions.

-8

to reach the top ten

The tenth-place score, median of 7 editions.

to see the weekend

Where the cut fell, median of 7 editions.

Year	Field	Cut	Top 10	Won with
2026	122	+2	-8	-13
2025	143	-1	-7	-12
2024	142	-1	-13	-20
2023	143	+2	-8	-17
2022	140	+2	-7	-13
2021	153	0	-8	-14
2019	141	-1	-12	-16

The week, round by round

Scoring average for each round of the tournament, drawn against this course’s own four-round average. Round 2 has played 1.34 of a shot easier than round 4, the widest gap in the week.

hardereasier

ROUND 1

-1.24 avg

ROUND 2

-1.46 avg

ROUND 3

-0.74 avg

ROUND 4

-0.12 avg

Longer to the right is easier scoring than a typical round here; longer to the left is harder. Built from 2,028 rounds — every player who completed an edition at this course, counted in all 4 of his rounds. Only finishers are in it, because Thursday is played by the whole field and Sunday by the half of it that survived the cut: compare those as they fall and every course on tour looks like it eases off for the weekend. Weather is not controlled for, so a single storm-hit afternoon is in these numbers along with everything else.

Who has played above themselves here

Strokes gained per round at this course against the same player’s own average everywhere else. Being a good player is not enough to appear on this list — the comparison is with himself, so what is left is the part that belongs to the course.

Player	Rounds here	Here	Elsewhere	Gap
Brian Harman	27	+1.55	+0.50	+0.56
Sepp Straka	23	+1.36	+0.26	+0.54
Hideki Matsuyama	21	+2.14	+1.02	+0.52
Tom Hoge	27	+1.10	+0.15	+0.50
Corey Conners	27	+1.67	+0.73	+0.50
Sergio Garcia	13	+1.55	+0.47	+0.38

The gap is pulled toward zero by how few rounds sit behind it, so a player seen four times here does not outrank one seen twenty. Read it as a record, not a projection: players who keep coming back to a course are partly the ones it has already suited, and that selection is inside these numbers.

What the data says

Across 8 editions (2019–2026), approach play is the category that most separates players who contend here from those who do not — 27% of the model's weighting, against 23% for around the green.

The winners tell a partly separate story: in 4 of the last 7, the champion's best category for the week was approach play. That matches what the model weights, which is the cleaner case: the same skill that separates the field also tends to decide the tournament.

How the winners won

Strokes gained per round for every champion here since 2019. The highlighted figure is that winner's best category for the week. A dash means the category split is not published for that event — only the total is.

Year	Winner	To Par	OTT	APP	ARG	PUTT	Total
2026	Cameron Young	-13	+0.77	+1.77	-0.08	+1.20	+3.66
2025	Rory McIlroy	-12	+0.66	+1.94	-0.19	+1.24	+3.65
2024	Scottie Scheffler	-20	+1.61	+1.59	+0.77	+0.31	+4.28
2023	Scottie Scheffler	-17	+1.13	+1.90	+1.26	+0.03	+4.32
2022	Cameron Smith	-13	-1.30	+1.66	+0.35	+2.88	+3.60
2021	Justin Thomas	-14	+0.86	+1.60	+0.75	+0.41	+3.63
2020	Hideki Matsuyama	-9	+1.46	+2.23	+0.34	+4.28	+8.30

Method. Weights come from regressing top-20 finishes on players' strokes gained in each category, using only rounds played before each event, and comparing each course against the tour-wide baseline — so a weight measures what this course rewards more than golf generally does, not simply which skills help. Weights are kept only where they predicted results out of sample; where they did not, we say so. We tested our previous method, found it did not predict, and published that too: how the model works.

The field, ranked before they play.

Every tournament week we score the field on course fit and player quality. Lab Notes lands every Tuesday with what the numbers say, free.

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TPC Sawgrass:what wins here.