The Players Championship hole-in-one hits differently from any other as the ace has been achieved at one of the world’s most iconic golf courses.
The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, the host venue of the PGA Tour’s flagship event, contains four fabulous short holes where the world’s best players take dead aim once a year.
The iconic 17th hole is the one that springs to mind, both when talking about Sawgrass and essentially any conversation that concerns par-3s.
Not only is the tee shot threatening, but this green at TPC Sawgrass has larger slopes than meet the eye on your television screens. Although it is only 137 yards, just the sight of the island green is hugely intimidating, but this hasn’t stopped a number of players from finding the bottom of the cup from the tee.
In the latest playing of The Players, three players found the bottom of the cup.
Hayden Buckley was the first with just the sixth shot of the tournament into this hole…
That was followed by Englishman Aaron Rai during Saturday’s third round…
Rai is the first player from England – and, indeed, the UK – to have an ace at The Players – and this was followed by Alex Smalley…
It was the first ace of Smalley’s career on Tour and the first one in the final round of the Players Championship since Fred Couples in 1997.
Who has had a Players Championship hole-in-one?
3rd hole (177 yards)
– Jim Gallagher (1986)
– Russ Cochran (1994)
– Chris DiMarco (2001)
– Seamus Power (2019)
8th hole (237 yards)
– Gary Hallberg (1994)
– Mark Brooks (1997)
– Bob Friend (1999)
– Naomichi Ozaki (2000)
– Ted Tryba (2000)
– Michael Thompson (2013)
– Brendon Todd (2021)
– Viktor Hovland (2022)
13th hole (181 yards)
– Chip Beck (1992)
– Phil Mickelson (1995)
– Jay Don Blake (1996)
– Craig Stadler – (2002)
– Jose Maria Olazabal (2004)
– Justin Leonard (2006)
– Jesper Parnevik (2006)
– Henrik Stenson (2006)
– Fred Couples (2006)
– Robert Garrigus (2008)
– Chris Stroud (2013)
– Sungjae Im (2019)
- RELATED: A hole-by-hole guide to TPC Sawgrass
17th (137 yards)
– Brad Fabel (1986)
– Brian Claar (1991)
– Fred Couples (1997)
– Joey Sindelar (1999)
– Paul Azinger (2000)
– Miguel Angel Jimenez (2002)
– Willy Wilcox (2016)
– Sergio Garcia (2017)
– Ryan Moore (2019)
– Shane Lowry (2022)
– Hayden Buckley (2023)
– Aaron Rai (2023)
– Alex Smalley (2023)
Country-by-country breakdown
– USA: 26
– Spain: 3
– Ireland: 2
– Sweden: 2
– England: 1
– Japan: 1
– Norway: 1
– South Korea: 1
