By Kyle Schatz
The Player’s Championship is one of the biggest events every year in the Jacksonville area, but it was not always played here nor was it the first PGA golf tournament in town.
The First PGA tournament in Jacksonville was the Jacksonville Open. The Jacksonville Open first started in 1945. The tournament was played at the Hyde Park Golf Club until it was discontinued in the 1950s. In the 1960s, the tournament came back to Jacksonville. At first the tournament had the same name as it had before, but in 1968 it changed to the Jacksonville Open Invitational. In 1969 they changed the name again to the Greater Jacksonville Open which it stayed until it was discontinued in 1976. The PGA tour decided to discontinue the tournament so they could move The Players to Ponte Vedra Beach.
“At the tournament Beman asked a friend where a good place to golf is. His friend told him that Ponte Vedra Beach was a good place to play. After Beman saw the area, he wanted to make it the new home of The Players.”
TPC Sawgrass Storyteller
In 1976 at the final Jacksonville Open, Dean Beman, the second commissioner of the PGA tour was looking for a new home for The Players Championship. The tournament was constantly moving around previously playing in Georgia and Texas. “At the tournament Beman asked a friend where a good place to golf is. His friend told him that Ponte Vedra Beach was a good place to play. After Beman saw the area, he wanted to make it the new home of The Players.” said a TPC Sawgrass storyteller. Dean Beman purchased 400 acres of swamp land from Paul Fletcher and Fletcher offered to sell the land for a dollar to Beman if he could successfully build a golf course. The one-dollar check is hanging on a wall inside the clubhouse at Sawgrass today. After Beman purchased the land Pete and Alice Dye started designing the course. Up to this point all tournaments were played on courses designed by professional golfers, and a golf architect. The Players Tournament was first played at the Sawgrass country club from 1977 to 1980. When the tournament moved to the stadium course it was the first Tournament Players Clubs to be built. After the first tournament many players, including Jack Nicklaus, publicly critiqued the course. Ben Crenshaw said, “the course was designed by Darth Vader.” Over the following year, Dye made changes to the course, making the greens less severe and replacing several bunkers.
Today the course is one of the most famous PGA courses in the world and home of the PGA headquarters. The course is also home to one of the most infamous holes in all of golf, the 17th hole island green.
Graphic by Ryder Navarra
