Players 2025: The new (familiar) tree that could wreak havoc at TPC Sawgrass this week

By

[PHOTO: Richard Heathcote]

As if the players at the Players didn’t have enough to worry about this week, a new obstacle faces them at TPC Sawgrass. Sort of.

The older golfers teeing it up at the 2025 Players Championship certainly remember the tree that used to overhang the tee on the par-4 sixth hole. In fact, Davis Love III used to find former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem before the tournament each year to ask/beg, “Has the tree on No.6 been removed yet?”

Well due to natural causes, the intimidating tree was lost to disease in 2014. And had there been a funeral for it, we’re guessing not many PGA Tour pros would have showed up.

But now a new, eerily similar tree is back in the same spot after a decade of a more unobstructed view. And, ironically, Love had a huge hand in it happening.

The two-time Players champion led a revitalisation project of the course that intended to return the course to Pete Dye’s original vision. And that included major efforts to replace the controversial tree with a 200,000-kilogram oak found about 100 metres into the woods on the right side of the hole.

“I’m sure I’ll get comments from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” Love told PGATour.com in February when asked about the tree, “but I can’t wait to watch Thursday.”

Of course, it was probably a lot easier to put that bad boy back there when you’re only going to be watching.

On Tuesday, two other former PGA Tour winners, Brad Faxon and Johnson Wagner weighed in on this wooden obstacle during video segments shared. And both indicated golfers need to keep their tee shots low on the par 4 that has been lengthened to 413 yards (378 metres).

“The tee has been moved back a bit so this tree, which was found in the forest to the right, has kind of a reverse U-shape,” Faxon says in a video. “It’s definitely in play, it might take driver out of somebody’s hands because if you hit it a little left or a little right you could clip the tree.”

In a Golf Channel segment, a graphic showed that the right-most portion of the tree hangs only 19 feet above the ground. And at its highest point in the middle, there’s only 30 feet to work with.

“Every single time I teed up on this tee box, I thought about the tree,” Wagner said in the same segment. “I definitely altered my shot. Usually, back then it was a 3-wood, the hole was only about 380 yards.”

Players 2025: Is TPC Sawgrass a true championship course or just a tricked-up TPC track?

Wagner added that a new tee was designed around the placement of the new tree and that there’s plenty of room for tee shots to fly underneath, but PGA Tour rules officials “want the players to think about it”.

A nervous Wagner then found the fairway with two attempts, although the first one he said came within a few feet of clipping the tree. “I’m definitely thinking about the tree now,” Wagner said before his second attempt. “Hands are shaking a little bit. Gosh that was close.”

It’s not as nerve-wracking as the tee shot on the iconic island-green 17th hole (what is?), but this is definitely going to be in the players’ heads all week.

“You definitely have to keep it down,” Faxon added. “Look how narrow this shot looks. “This is going to be one of the most talked about changes for 2025.”

And Davis Love III might get the brunt of that talking.