The start of the 2021 golf season has been outrageously (sometimes unfairly!) good. There have been superstar winners (Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson), plenty of controversy (Patrick Reed at Torrey Pines) and so many strong finishes it's impossible to rank them all.
And now we enter the heart of the season. From this week until Oct. 1 there are six massive events -- roughly one a month -- with four majors, this week's Players Championship and the Ryder Cup. First up is the best field in golf at TPC Sawgrass in what is always a terrific, enticing and often extremely complex event.
There will be some noticeable absences (more on that below), but if the future repeats the recent past, the rest of 2021 is going to be absolutely spectacular. Let's take a look at the top 10 storylines to follow entering the 2021 Players Championship.
1. Defending a title: It's been two years, but Rory McIlroy is technically the defending Players champion with his win over Tommy Fleetwood and Co. back in 2019. His recent form has been a bit dodgy, but for him, that means finishing in the top 15 instead of the top five. Because the floor is so high, the dial does not need to be turned all that much for him to contend and potentially win. There is maybe a philosophical concern with Rory right now (see his quote below after finishing T10 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational), but from a technical standpoint, he still has tremendous days. The question is whether he can string four of them together in a row.
"Yeah, I feel OK," said McIlroy after the Arnold Palmer Invitational. "There was some good parts this week again. Some stuff that I'm sort of, I don't know what the word is or how to describe it, but just a little dejected or ... maybe like maybe looking to go in a different direction. I don't know. I need something, I need a spark. I need something, and I just don't seem to have it. Some days, it's good; some days, it's not. So I'll get up there tomorrow, get some practice in and get ready for next week."
2. Spieth is ... back? There are a couple of trends running perpendicular to one another right now. Jordan Spieth has finished in the top five in three of his last four PGA Tour events, but his history at TPC Sawgrass does not inspire. In his last five appearances at The Players, he has one made cut and has no finishes better than T41. It's just not a course that fits his "all over the ballpark" game very well (though he did finish T4 in 2014), and I suspect that trend is the one that will win out (of course I also thought the same last week at Bay Hill). Regardless, he has reinstated himself as the biggest must-see product in professional golf in Tiger Woods' absence. That will not change -- at least for the first few days -- this week.
3. Shutdown retrospective: One year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit sports and impacted how we thought of coronavirus in the United States, I remember the distance between Rudy Gobert and the cancellation of last year's Players feeling like it was both 10 seconds and 10 years even though it was really only about 24 hours. There is nothing to celebrate on this anniversary, but it was certainly a marker in time for golf and this tournament, which was canceled after one round of play on Thursday. This week, by the way, will have 20% capacity at TPC Sawgrass, which is similar to what the last two tournaments in Florida -- the WGC-Workday Championship and Arnold Palmer Invitational. Fans are slowly making their way back to sports as vaccines rollout across the nation. The hope is that, by this time next year, we'll see the type of crowds that have been absent the last calendar year.
4. Course setup: The PGA Tour has low-key done a good job with its setups so far this year. Despite playing lift, clean and place on days where rain was a possibility (this is preposterous), courses have been pushed a bit over the last month. No. 17 will get all the attention this week at TPC Sawgrass, as it always does, but my hope is that conditions are fast and firm and not the slop-fest we saw for Round 1 last year where the course record was broken. Fast and firm makes for better, more entertaining golf and delivers a champion who's hitting the ball best and not just who gets the luckiest with the putter for a weekend.
5. Repeat winner? I don't know that this is statistically true, but in my head, The Players is the most difficult event on the PGA Tour to win multiple times. Since 2004, only Tiger Woods (2013) won with a previous Players under his belt. Other than that, we've gotten 15 first-time champions. This is great news for Johnson, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau!
6. In their absence: Though this tournament will not be defined by the players who will not be in attendance, missing Koepka, Matthew Wolff and Tiger Woods for a week as big as this one is not insignificant. Koepka was the last to bow out on Sunday evening with a strained right knee, and he's cruised around TPC Sawgrass in the past. Wolff, too, was awesome in his debut last year before he got shut down, and these three are among the more compelling stars in the game. They will be missed.
7. Morikawa momentum: Following his win at the WGC-Workday Championship, I'm fascinated by what Colin Morikawa does at TPC Sawgrass this week. On paper, it's a course that plays right into his elite ball-striking game. And indeed, he was 4 under before Round 2 was canceled in 2020. It's probably already happened, but with one more monster win, we can no longer talk about him, Wolff and Viktor Hovland in the same way we have over the last few years.
8. Bryson momentum: After his win on Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational -- his third in his last 15 starts, by the way -- DeChambeau talked about maybe hitting his drive on No. 18 at TPC Sawgrass into the 9th hole way off to the left of the lake in front of the 18th green. It was hilarious, fitting and fascinating for somebody whose desire to deconstruct the way the game is played at the highest level remains relentless. He's never been great at TPC Sawgrass, but he's also never weighed 260 pounds when playing it. His plan of attack will always draw copious amounts of intrigue, and that will be exacerbated at the biggest events in the world (like this one).
9. Every shot, every day: We got it for 18 holes last year, but the PGA Tour will again show video of every single shot of the tournament. That's a big deal when your capacity is just 20% and when so many folks are still watching from home. It adds a bit of gravitas to a tournament that already has plenty of it, and it makes this week feel separate from all the other ones. I'm hopeful that this technology eventually trickles down to the Honda Classic and Genesis Invitational and that The Players takes another step to elevate itself, but this is a good separator for this tournament this week.
10. Reassertion of superstars: This is all relative, but the top three players in the world have been a bit quiet of late. No. 3 Justin Thomas does not have a top 10 since the Tournament of Champions in January. No. 2 Jon Rahm has not won since last August. And No. 1 Dustin Johnson has been very mediocre for his last five rounds (I told you it was relative!). Those three are among the 10 biggest favorites to win, and while in the macro there are zero concerns about any of them, in the micro they have not been at their best of late.
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March 09, 2021 at 12:03AM
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2021 Players Championship: 10 storylines to follow during the year's first big event at TPC Sawgrass - CBSSports.com
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