Players Championship Breakdown: Scheffler chasing more history, Canadian’s in the mix, and more

 The 51st edition of the Players Championship tees off this week at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

It’s been an interesting few months to start the PGA Tour season as we enter the tour’s flagship event.

With so many storylines on the horizon, let’s take a look at a few things to keep an eye on this week, starting with the No. 1 player in the world looking to get back into the winner’s circle, and ending with a brief history of holes-in-one on the iconic 17th hole.

Scottie going for a three-peat

It took 50 years for a repeat champion to emerge at this event as Scottie Scheffler became the first player in tournament history to win the event in back to back years in 2024.

Scheffler entered last year on the heels of a five-shot win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This year, he enters after losing over five strokes putting at Bay Hill in a tie for 11th.

Scheffler’s putting woes were well-documented in 2023 and 2024 before a putter switch made all the difference. He won four of his first five starts in 2024 after making the change, on his way to a nine-win season.

The 5.328 strokes lost putting is the worst performance on the greens for Scheffler since the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, when he lost 6.032 on the greens. The next week he won the Travelers Championship in a playoff over Tom Kim.

The start of 2025 has been slow for the standards that Scheffler set in 2024. In four starts since returning from a hand injury suffered over the holidays, Scheffler has one finish inside the top 5 and has landed outside of the top 10 in two of them. Last year, Scheffler played in 21 events and finished outside of the top 10 three times.

He remains a huge favourite this week due to his world-class ball striking and ability to scramble around the greens.

Big Guns vs. The Field

Scheffler is a huge favourite this week but he isn’t the only big name capable of taking down this event.

Collin Morikawa and Rory McIlroy are both gaining more strokes per round than Scheffler this year, something that couldn’t be said last year as Scottie was head and shoulders above everyone else.

Not far behind Scheffler’s 1.57 strokes gained per round this year is Hideki Matsuyama at 1.41, and if you remove the 7.23 strokes Ludvig Aberg lost the week he was sick and withdrew from Pebble Beach, he sits around 1.40 per round in his four other tournaments.

The grouping of Morikawa, McIlroy, Matsuyama and Aberg has combined for three wins and four other top-5 finishes this year.

On FanDuel’s Big Guns vs. The Field market they are currently priced at +340 to have any of those four players win this week.

Also priced on this market is the group of Aberg, Matsuyama, Justin Thomas and Xander Schauffele.

Thomas has looked sharp early in 2025, finishing inside the top 10 in three of his six starts and has gained on approach in his last 12 tournaments.

Meanwhile, Xander Schauffele made his return to action last week at Bay Hill after missing two months with a rib injury, finishing T40 while losing over five strokes around the greens.

Aberg and Matsuyama already have wins this year. Thomas has won on this course before, and Xander now rolls into the event after knocking off some rust with his short game and looks to add to his resume after claiming two majors in 2024.

That group is priced at +550 and has the longest odds of any grouping in this market.

Here is a look at some other options listed.

Canadians in the mix

As TSN’s Bob Weeks pointed out early this week, we have several Canadians in the field this week at TPC Sawgrass.

Headlining the group is Corey Conners, who just finished solo third at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The 33-year-old Jupiter, Fla., resident has made five appearances at this event with his best finish coming in 2021, when he finished seventh.

The two best Canadians on tour this season have been Nick Taylor and Taylor Pendrith.

Taylor returned to the winner’s circle earlier this year taking down the Sony Open in a playoff and has been very impressive with his irons as he has gained on approach in all seven events he’s played this year.

Meanwhile, Pendrith continues to be a very volatile golfer in 2025. The Canadian has played in seven events, finishing inside the top 10 twice and has also missed two cuts.

Here is a look at how the Canadians in this event have fared on tour in 2025 based on their strokes gained.

Twitter fingers to contender 

Not long ago Michael Kim was the Twitter Guy on the PGA Tour.  

It seemed he was more known for his tournament takeaways and Q&A sessions than his play on the course.   

And then, out of nowhere, the winner of the 2018 John Deere Classic reappeared and Kim has quickly become one of the best players on the PGA Tour this year. 

The 31-year-old Kim enters this week playing some of the best golf of his career. The American has finished inside the top 15 in five straight starts and ranks fifth on tour in SG: Tee-to-Green.

According to RickRunGood.com’s trends feature, Kim enters this week playing well above his 100-round baseline and is the second-best trending golfer in the field behind Scheffler.

Kim has made four starts in this event, failing to make the cut three times and his best finish was in 2017 with a tie for 60th.

He ranks 36th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 20th in SG: Approach and fourth in scrambling. He is also fifth in SG: Tee-to-Green and 10th in putts less than 10 feet.

Kim might not be the biggest threat to win this event but if his name pops up on the leaderboard Sunday afternoon no one should be surprised.

Hole in one on 17 

The iconic 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass is worth the price of admission. 

The hole featuring an island green is nothing more than a pitching wedge on most days for the players, and yet it offers a range of scores stretching from a one to 12.

Bob Tway holds the unfortunate record of the highest score on the hole with his 12 at the 2005 championship, while Ryan Fox and 13 other golfers share the record of making an ace.

Something must be in the air on the property lately. After waiting three years between Ryan Moore in 2019 and Shane Lowry in 2022, we have seen four aces on the 17th over the past two years, with Fox being the most recent in 2024. 

The odds for another ace at the 17th this year is +145 on FanDuel. That number comes with an implied probability of 40.82 per cent.