Golf

Players Championship 2017: Live updates, scores, leaderboard, highlights, and more from TPC Sawgrass

The “fifth major” is one of the most fun and dramatic events in golf. Follow here for updates throughout the week at TPC Sawgrass.

by SB Nation Staff

May 11, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

The Players Championship is the biggest event of the PGA Tour season. It is, of course, not the biggest golf event of the year. There are four majors that the powers that rate and sort these things have decided carry more weight. The PGA Tour does not control those four events, but they do control and operate The Players and it is a massive tournament with a strong identity.

The annual trip to TPC Sawgrass has become a four-day event perfect for the pros, attending fans, and TV audience. The course is instantly recognizable. Whatever your opinion is of its architectural merits, it makes for a good watch and an entertaining tournament. It has a strong “brand” with a look that everyone recognizes and some world-famous holes. Sometimes it’s good to embrace a different kind of golf and a different kind of tournament. Not everything has to be stuffy or an impossible test. The Players is a party with all the resources of the game’s deepest Tour brought to bear on its marquee event.

The strongest field in golf will encounter a slightly different layout this week, with TPC Sawgrass undergoing some fairly significant renovations over the past year. An all new redesigned 12th hole has grabbed most of the early course coverage, but every green was also re-done in the intervening months, too. The finish is still the same and it’s one of the best setups for dramatic TV in the game.

Live Updates

Throughout the play on Thursday, SBNation golf writers Kyle Robbins and Brendan Porath will update the action, live from Sawgrass.

10:46 am EST: We’re officially off and running at Sawgrass — and the storylines are plenty early. Rickie Fowler is among a group of four leaders at 4-under par early. Just one shot behind? Both Phil Mickelson and Jason Day. Still, it’s early. A number of the headliners — like Sergio, DJ, and Rory — won’t get underway until later this afternoon closer to the 2 p.m. ET hour.

Thursday tee times

The field at The Players is always loaded — almost no one skips this event anymore, unless they’re injured. It’s strong from top to bottom and there are ample stars in both the morning and afternoon waves to follow each of the first two rounds.

The PGA Tour also doesn’t mess around, giving the fans what they want and always consolidating the top guys for some power pairings. Here are those marquee groups on Thursday, all times ET (and here is a full tee sheet for the day):

8:16 a.m. — Rickie Fowler, Jason Day, Henrik Stenson

8:27 a.m. — Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, Hideki Matsuyama

1:19 p.m. — Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka

1:30 p.m. — Jon Rahm, Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer

1:41 p.m. — Sergio Garcia, Matt Kuchar, Adam Scott

1:52 p.m. — Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas

Thursday Media Schedule

There are also no pretensions about coverage here. Unlike The Masters, we don’t have limited TV coverage. The PGA Tour welcomes soup-to-nuts access to watch their premier event. PGA TOUR LIVE will be your go-to for watching the most important morning groups, while Golf Channel will have the afternoon coverage for TV. Here’s the Thursday media schedule: