They say that the TPC at Sawgrass is the only course where an aspiring winner tees off on the first hole of the final round, while thinking about the 17th. But of the leaders in the Players Championship today, it is difficult to imagine Tiger Woods harbouring such fears.
Its appeal seems to have heightened in recent years, due to the ever-increasing litany of disasters. For instance Woods made a birdie there on Saturday by sinking an extraordinary downhill putt of 60 feet. And both Irish challengers, Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke birdied it yesterday.
Yet the hole came about by accident. Designer Pete Dye, who wanted the Stadium Course to challenge golfers mentally as well as physically, came upon the notion of an island hole after huge amounts of sand had been hauled out of the area so as to create spectator mounding.
In the event, the quality of the sand was so good around the 17th that they kept excavating until Dye looked at it one day and saw a flat piece of land with a surface area of 6,500 square feet. If the surrounding area could be filled with water, he would have an island green.
He and his wife Alice, who had played a similar hole on a course nearby in the late 1940s, discussed the idea. And so was born one of the most notorious par-threes in golf - unquestionably the trademark of the Stadium Course.
Viewed as a menace or a masterpiece, depending on one's experiences there, it never fails to make an impact. "Play the course during a quiet visit here and the 17th is a nine-iron or pitching wedge - no big deal," said Joe Durant, current leader of the US money list. "But surround it with 20,000 people and suddenly you come to realise that a good tee-shot could be pivotal to your round."
Essentially it's all about mind games - a case for golfers to copy their equine friends by wearing blinkers. And its appeal to the ordinary player has much to do with the fear it engenders in the most seasoned professionals, who are supposed to execute the perfect shot, whatever the circumstances. As the 1999 Players' champion, David Duval, put it: "If you want to win this tournament, you had better learn how to hit that shot."
Interestingly, the green is the largest on the course, but television guru Johnny Miller reflected the thoughts of the players when saying: "Standing on the tee, it looks about a sixth of that size." Which goes some way towards explaining why it doesn't meet with universal favour.
When asked how he would compare it with the short 12th at Augusta National, which can also be ruinous to a scorecard, especially in swirling winds, Woods replied: "There is no comparison. On the 12th at Augusta, you have bunkers, you have greenery other than the green, you have short grass to hit the ball long left. I don't see a whole lot of that on the 17th here."
As a traditionalist, Nick Price, Players Championship winner of 1993, also dislikes it, because major mistakes and minor mistakes meet the same, wet fate. "However you care to describe it, I don't think it fits the rest of the golf course," he said.
All the various measurements associated with the 17th, are reminiscent of one of the many astute observations attributed to Bobby Jones who referred to golfers as "dogged victims of an inexorable fate". According to Jones, golf is a game of inches - those between your two ears. The 17th at Sawgrass explores that theory to the full.
