Players Championship 2015: Live updates, scores, leaderboard, highlights and more from TPC Sawgrass

The Players Championship is often called the “fifth major” in golf. A win does not count as a major on a player’s resume, but the PGA Tour does everything it can to ensure it’s the most prestigious tournament in the world outside of those first four. The purse is the richest, the course is a non-rotating staple, and the field is the deepest in golf. The pros refer to it as “our championship.”

The PGA Tour does not have the rights or control of any of the majors, so this is their marquee event. The event and the course have their critics, who say it’s over-promoted, overpraised, and will never count as a major championship. But it’s a unique test that always features the biggest names in the game, and this year is no different.

The most significant part of this tournament’s identity is the course. Pete Dye’s Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is an instantly recognizable venue and unlike any other course these pros play on the annual schedule. Like the Masters, The Players does not rotate around the country to different courses and the pros know exactly what to expect each year they drop in to Sawgrass.

Dye is considered the father of modern golf course architecture and this is definitely one of his masterpieces. He and then PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman bought the land for one dollar and immediately went to work on clearing out what appeared to be a swampy and useless tract. The finished product was not some classic country club layout that you often get at the majors, but a totally different test with a true “stadium” setting.

TPC Sawgrass is one of the few remaining courses on the PGA Tour that really punishes these bombers if they hit it wayward off the tee. The par-4s can be brutal and are especially penal if you miss with your driver. That’s not always the case anymore at most courses where these guys can bomb-and-gouge their way to low scores. Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and almost every other world class player have had completely disastrous weeks at this tournament. There’s definitely a love-hate relationship with the different test it provides.

The most notable stretch is obviously the closing three water-filled holes. The signature hole is the par-3 island 17th. Because it’s so different from the traditional and classic country club setups, the course is sometimes panned for being circus-like and the 17th can be a target for that criticism. But it’s a become maybe the most famous par-3 in the world and because of where it sits, as the penultimate hole of the championship, it brings out the best and worst from these pros on what would otherwise be a simple 9-iron or pitching wedge shot. It really shouldn’t be that hard, and yet on Sunday with just two holes to play, that green starts to look a lot smaller.

The 17th gets all the pub, but the 18th is just as intriguing a design and a tougher hole. There’s an enormous lake running down the left side and it comes right up to the edge of the fairway, so you have to stay right.

But there’s tree trouble through the right side and on top of that, it’s ~460-yard hole so you’re going to have a sizable approach into a difficult green. A par is a good score and making a birdie late on Sunday to chase down the leader is a huge ask.

This closing stretch is among the best in golf and part of what makes Sunday afternoon at the Players so fantastic at the end. The course is not without its critics, but it has settled into its place on Tour since the early 1980s.

The PGA Tour sets up a handful of exemptions to ensure the field is an internationally strong group that’s the often cited as the deepest of the season. Unlike the majors, there’s not a large swath of the field reserved for flukey qualifiers at the U.S. and British Open or teaching pros at the PGA Championship. Those groups have almost always no chance to win those tournaments. At The Players, there are no amateurs and everyone is playing regularly and competitively on one of the top tours in the world.

This year’s field is 144 players strong and only two of the top 50 in the world rankings are missing. Victor Dubuisson passed on the event, the mercurial Frenchman opting to skip it for a second straight year for who knows why. And Tommy Fleetwood is also not here, but that’s simply because he moved into the top 50 last week after the exemption cutoff. There are 24 countries represented, including 84 players from the USA.

This is an event that’s gone off without Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in recent years, but all the big names are in attendance in 2015. You can view a full field list here.

A big part of the PGA Tour’s push to make this such an important event or a “fifth major” is by offering the richest purse in the game. For years it held that sole distinction, and then in late 2013, the PGA Tour and PGA of America made a joint announcement that they were making the aggressive move to an eight-figure purse. So this is the second straight year The Players purse will dole out $10 million to the field that makes the cut. That move two years ago led to a bit of an arms race with the other majors, who all made significant increases in 2014. Then this year, the Masters made the big jump to $10 million as well.

The winner will get a $1.8 million bounty and even the second-place finisher gets a seven-figure payout ($1.08M). The boatload of cash has always been big part of The Players and you should expect the PGA Tour to always ensure it at least shares the title of “richest purse in golf.”

Tiger Woods is out early again on Sunday, playing out the string over his final meaningless 18 holes. Woods is paired with Dustin Johnson, which is just about as starpower-packed a tee time you can get early on the weekend.

Because of the bunched-up leaderboard -- 30 players within five shots of the lead -- someone from a midday tee time has a chance to post a number, get into the clubhouse hours before the final pairing, and potentially win.

Here are some of the other marquee tee times for Sunday:

The weekend had sputtered a bit but a bunched-up leaderboard kept alive the hope for a dramatic finish. We got that and more on Sunday when Rickie Fowler charged up the leaderboard over his last six holes, which he played in 6-under. Fowler needed extra holes, however, to edge Kevin Kisner and Sergio Garcia in a playoff. It was an incredible finish that delivered a major-championship-caliber player. Some highlights from Sunday at The Players:

Sergio Garcia, noted shaky putter, bombed in an incredible putt at the 17th to make it a game.

This was the best finish in the history of The Players.

Tiger Woods went quietly, and with more ugly shots off the tee.

Chris Kirk leads a stupidly bunched-up leaderboard at the 54-hole mark. There are 30 players within five shots of the lead and conditions were favorably for big charges up the board on Saturday. Rory McIlroy is among the chasers, sitting four shots off the lead at 6-under. Justin Thomas set a birdie record at The Players and shot 41 spots up the board. It was a day full of shifts and movement, setting up more of the same on Sunday. Some more highlights:

Tiger hit a drive that landed short of the ladies tees.

Justin Thomas hit a shot directly into a fan’s cup holder.

Tiger set the wrong kind of personal record in a mostly ugly round.

Rory McIlroy just whiffed a flop shot, his ball moving just an inch.

Kevin Na and Jerry Kelly pushed the lead to 8-under on Friday afternoon. Tiger Woods snuck into the weekend after draining a birdie putt on his final hole to make the cut on the number. Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler kept themselves in contention, lurking on the first page of the leaderboard. Some highlights from the second round at Sawgrass:

Ian Poulter was heckled and lost his cool.

Jonas Blixt duck hooked a ball into a lake, so he decided to chuck his driver there too.

Matt Kuchar had to attempt a no-look backwards shot to avoid falling off the island hole and into the water.

We witnessed the most unorthodox, miraculous par in the history of the 17th island hole.

Phil Mickelson bombed out and wondered aloud how he ever won at this place.

Hideki Matsuyama and three others set the 18-hole pace with s 5-under 67. Spieth opened his round with two straight bogeys, while Rory posted a relatively clean card to finish just two shots off the lead. Tiger’s round, as always, was eventful from start to finish with an array of ugly tee shots, steady recoveries, and birdie putts at just the right time to keep the round from going off the rails.

Here are some of the highlights from the first day at TPC Sawgrass:

Spieth and Rory are the 20-somethings that get the hype, but Matsuyama leads.

Tiger Woods damn near whiffed what was maybe the worst tee shot of his career.

But Woods later redeemed his round a bit with this chip-in after juuuuust landing on the island green.

Rory hit an 8-iron from 203 yards and ran away from Jordan Spieth.

Brooks Koepka imploded in spectacular fashion at the island green.

In the end, 72 holes weren’t enough to settle a winner from what was a historically clustered leaderboard going into the final round. Rickie Fowler’s outrageous finish was historic, needing just 11 shots to play his final four holes, but it still wasn’t good enough to win. For that, he had to dispatch Sergio Garcia in a three-hole aggregate playoff and then Kevin Kisner in a sudden death playoff at the 17th. Here are your final results from The Players: