[PHOTO: Logan Bowles]
Betting solely based on trends is a dangerous game. But some trends are simply impossible to ignore, which is the case with this weird phenomenon at the Players Championship during the past 17 years.
Before Scottie Scheffler’s second straight victory at TPC Sawgrass a year ago, a whopping 14 of the past 16 winners in the PGA Tour’s flagship event came from the AM/PM tee-time wave, meaning the eventual winner teed off in the morning on Thursday (before 10am, local time) and in the afternoon on Friday (after 12:30pm). In 2024, Scheffler became just the third player to win from the PM/AM wave since 2007, joining an elite mini-club that includes Tiger Woods (2013) and Martin Kaymer (2014).
The question is, is this totally random or has there been a common theme at the past 17 Players Championships that has favoured the guys going off early on Thursday? It’s more likely the former, especially considering that between 2007 and 2018 the tournament was still played in May. As much as we’d like to chalk it up to the unpredictable March weather, only the past five Players have been in March.
Then again, weather certainly played a factor during the May editions of this championship, often in the form of sweltering heat and high winds that burnt the Pete Dye gem to a crisp. Sawgrass was never crispier than it was in 2016, when Jason Day won the tournament but Ken Duke stole the show on Saturday, the 47-year-old journeyman beating the third-round scoring average of 75.59 by more than 10 shots with a round of 65. The grounds crew had re-rolled the greens prior to Saturday’s round after Day had torched the place over the first 36 holes with a score of 15-under.
It played a factor in 2007, too, the first time the championship was played in May. Due to raging winds on Thursday, the first-round scoring average was 75.41. Phil Mickelson shot a 67 in the morning wave and went on to shoot rounds of 72, 69 and 69 to clip Sergio Garcia by two.
Speaking of Garcia, the Spaniard won the event a year later, starting the week with a six-under 66. Conditions only got more difficult as the week wore on, making his strong start an imperative one. Garcia wound up winning with a 72-hole total of five-under, defeating Paul Goydos in a sudden-death playoff.
As for the past five Players Championships, all played in March, weather has not only played a role, it’s often been the main character. The PM wave in 2022 may have gotten the shortest end of the stick in PM wave history, with buckets of rain delaying play on Thursday and Friday so much that many players did not even complete their first rounds until Saturday in incredibly blustery conditions. Our own Cameron Smith was one of the 66 players lucky enough to finish their first rounds on Thursday, shooting a three-under 69. Starting the final round two behind, Smith closed with a 66 to beat Anirban Lahiri by one stroke.
In 2023, the year of Scheffler’s first Players win, the world No.1 teed off at 7:46am on Thursday and shot a four-under 68. Due to lack of daylight, 21 players failed to complete their opening rounds that day. Weather affected the second round as well, with heavy rain and thunderstorms suspending play at 4:27pm. Scheffler and the rest of the field completed the second round on Saturday morning, then Scheffler shot a 65 on Saturday afternoon and finished the job on Sunday with a 69 to win by five.
You can concoct myriad reasons to explain away the AM/PM winners sensation at the Players Championship. It’s the weather, it’s the winds picking up later in the day, it’s the fresh greens in the morning before all the foot traffic, etc, etc. However, there’s no doubting it’s a large enough sample size to take a long hard look at the tee-times this week before making any betting decisions. If Scheffler is going to ‘three-peat’, he’s going to have to buck the trend again. The two-time Masters champion tees off at 1:29pm on Thursday and 8:24am on Friday alongside Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele.
