The last time I wrote about the PLAYERS Championship was six years ago. I’d been doing Cheeky Nine for about seven months at that stage, growing it steadily, and that year’s PLAYERS was going to be my first time covering the annual trip to TPC Sawgrass. I published my article for that week on the 11th of March, 2020. I had Justin Thomas, Bryson DeChambeau, Rickie Fowler, and Paul Casey down for the ‘Oracles’ Fourball’. And I was all set for what I hoped would be another big week of picking up followers.

But, instead … well, we all remember what ended up happening.

Having started as something that felt isolated and far away, COVID suddenly became frighteningly real. Up until then, it had just been a headline on the news, something that was happening in China, but nothing worth worrying about. Because why would we? This was just another one of those things that you see or read about. But we see and read about lots of horrible things. They were just always happening somewhere else. And that’s where they would stay. It’s how things worked.

When something like the PLAYERS succumbed to COVID, though? That was different. That changed the paradigm we were used to. Because our lives didn’t get interrupted. That happened to other people, those we only ever saw on television or through the screens on our phones. But from the moment CT Pan withdrew from the PLAYERS hours before the first round because of the looming threat of the coronavirus, that really did serve as an ominous harbinger for what was to come. That “thing” we’d been trying our hardest to ignore? The monster two towns over? Whilst, at that point, he might not yet have landed outside our doors, it only felt like a matter of time before we heard that knock.

To think about that moment now, however, is strange – and not just because it’s a reminder of the fact that we did, indeed, live through a pandemic. It’s that whenever I look back at that week in particular, I can’t help but be confronted by a whole host of ‘what ifs’. Because, like so many of us, the pandemic changed everything for me. Had it not been for COVID postponing golf tournaments until further notice, I wouldn’t have started writing weekly chapters of a golf fiction book called ‘Mustang’ to keep my burgeoning readership supplied with some kind of new content. And, as it happened, due to the surprising success of those chapters, that’s ultimately what led me down the path of foregoing golf coverage and focusing on book writing full-time.

And whilst I’d never swap what that decision did for me, over the years I’ve often wondered where Cheeky Nine would be now had I kept going with it. Seven years in? The legitimacy that would come from not only having such an established presence, but from existing just before the real onset of the TikTok era? Whenever I was struggling with the writing, it was those kinds of thoughts that would haunt me – the idea of sweating over an ‘Oracles’ Fourball’ seeming idyllic when compared to being stuck on a troublesome chapter.

But, fortunately, we never get an answer to those ‘what if’ questions. It’s a kindness, really – otherwise, we’d just spend our lives tormented. Instead, all we can do is live in the here and now. And, somehow, through all the twists and turns, the road has led me back here, to another week in March, writing about who to look out for at the PLAYERS. And whilst the monster lurking in the shadows this time around is a different kind of airborne threat to that we were facing six years ago, just like we did then, we’ll persevere and keep going until we get to that next cross in the road.

And, who knows, when that time comes, maybe those same twists and turns will see us cross paths again at some stage.

THE ORACLES’ FOURBALL

JAKE KNAPP

When you think of in-form players on the PGA Tour, you can’t get much better than Jake Knapp. Now, as I discussed last week, ‘form’ only ever really counts for so much when it comes to actually winning golf tournaments. But when you’re riding the tails of a run that has seen you not finish outside the top-10 in the last four tournaments you’ve played? That’s surely worth a look.

And, look, if you were here for when I picked Jake as someone to watch for the Genesis Invitational, all of the same reasons hold true for why I think he can do well at TPC Sawgrass as they did for Riviera. He’s a big hitter off the tee, which helps around a track as long as the Stadium Course is. His iron play has been solid all season (32nd in SG: Approach the Green). And his work on the greens has been stellar (4th in SG: Putting).

So, undoubtedly, Jake has the game to do well around TPC Sawgrass – something his 12th-place finish last year can attest to. The big question, however, is after two weeks off (one of those, we know, was down to an illness that kept him from playing at Bay Hill) is what kind of shape Jake will be in physically for such a demanding challenge as that which awaits him this week in Ponte Vedra Beach. The important thing, though, is that he did listen to his body and take the time off that it needed – which, after the schedule he put down since the beginning of the season, isn’t a surprise. Therefore, whilst he might not be rolling into the Stadium Course in the exact conditions he would’ve liked, this week is still there for Jake to make a big run at the top of the leaderboard and grab the win his play this season has deserved.

SI WOO KIM

If we’re talking about in-form players, Si Woo Kim has been right there amongst them since the beginning of the season. After a red-hot start that saw him finish T-11, T-6, T-2, and T-3 in his first four events, the wear and tear of such an exhaustive schedule eventually caught up to the 30-year-old, with two middling showings at Pebble Beach and Riviera capping off an intense six-week block of being on the road.

Having given the Cognizant Classic a miss in favour of taking a much-needed week off, however, Si Woo Kim returned with a solid T-13 finish at Bay Hill, a showing that has kept him riding high atop all the stat categories that matter. 2nd in SG: Tee-to-Green. 2nd in SG: Approach the Green. 4th in Driving Accuracy. 1st in Proximity to the Hole. And I could go on. But I think you get the drift.

Therefore, to see Kim rocking up to TPC Sawgrass this week, a tournament that he still holds the record for being the youngest winner of, thanks to his victory as a 21-year-old all the way back in 2017, everything is set up for the charismatic South Korean to add his name to that most famous of trophies for a second time.

LUDVIG ÅBERG

Having made the shortlist for my list of guys to watch last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational (before I, instead, opted for Keegan Bradley – nice one 👍), Ludvig Åberg absolutely has to make it into this week’s Oracle.

After an illness saw the start of his season disrupted, Ludvig has been slowly building back into the kind of form that we’re more accustomed to seeing from the Swede. Since that withdrawal from the American Express and a missed cut at the Farmers, Ludvig has been finishing higher and higher up the leaderboard with every tournament that he’s played, clocking up finishes of T-37 at Pebble, a T-20 at the Genesis, and, as we know, a T-3 last week in Bay Hill.

So, whilst it’s difficult to tell how the 26-year-old will react to his first real taste of going deep into the trenches on a weekend this season, we all know that Ludvig has the ability and the requisite game to do well around the Stadium Course – with the fact that he’s currently sitting 4th in ‘Proximity to the Hole’ being a particularly good sign as to where his game is at the minute. 

Therefore, if he’s as on-form with the driver as he has been with his irons, the big-hitting Swede could easily put that slow start to the season behind him by adding yet another one of the PGA Tour’s most coveted prizes to his already impressive résumé.

COLLIN MORIKAWA

Whilst tempted to put Michael Thorbjornsen in this spot (because I love a good outsider) it’s just too hard to look past Collin Morikawa to do something special this week.

And, look, there are the obvious reasons why Collin is being so highly tipped to perform well at the PLAYERS. In his last three starts, he has a win at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a T-7 at the Genesis, and a solo 5th at the Arnold Palmer this past weekend. And from a stats perspective, he is lighting up all the most telling categories – 8th in SG: Total; 3rd in SG: Tee-to-Green; 5th in SG: Approach the Green; and 9th in Driving Accuracy.

I mean, clearly, there’s no denying that, after the struggles he’s had with his game over the last few years, the 29-year-old is back to – or, at least, approaching – the standard of play that we became accustomed to so early in his career. And I can only think how exciting that must be for Collin. Because, usually, when guys finally get a win after a dry spell, it’s not unusual for their efforts thereafter to maybe take a hit due to the sheer emotional release of getting back into that winner’s circle. But when you see the run that Collin has been on since triumphing at Pebble, to me, he looks like a guy who is just excited to be back competing again. It’s like when you’re young, and something finally clicks in your game. You just want to be playing all the time. 

And I think that’s the wave that Collin is riding at the moment. He’s playing so well because he’s enjoying himself. It’s not a chore to be out between the ropes like it is when you’re struggling. He’s rediscovered that gear that propelled him to two Majors, and he’s playing with the freedom that comes with that. Throw into the mix, then, that he’s perhaps also playing with all the renewed vigour and focus of a guy who’s expecting his first child, and that’s probably spurring him on all the more.

In short, if there was ever a time for Collin Morikawa to get his hands on the PLAYERS Championship, it’s this week, for sure.