On Course: Dye-namic design

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL

There is more than just the famed island green. There is an evergreen ideal. There is an enduring aura to a golfing landmark, born not only of the challenge that it represents, but also of the caliber of players who have excelled on its tempestuous topographical features.

There is a legend behind the landmark, too, an iconoclast who took an idea for a golf showplace from another visionary and, literally, ran it into the ground.

The Stadium Course at the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., is the home course for the PGA TOUR's member players and site of THE PLAYERS Championship-the crown jewel of the TOUR schedule, offering the richest purse and attracting the best field in professional golf.

But that is just the functional description of the Stadium Course, conceived by former PGA TOUR commissioner Deane Beman and brought to fiery life by Pete Dye, one of the most influential architects of the last 50 years. Such a description omits the enchantment it evokes and the unmitigated exhilaration and infuriation it provokes.

Dye envisioned designing a place that was combination club and resort. With the help of his wife, Alice, he ended up creating a mystical playground that hosts more than 40,000 rounds per year.

"I can't explain it, but that place just has a feel about it and a lot of people pick up on that feel," Dye said recently. "They just want to go play that thing, even if they know they're going to get their brains beat in by it."

Much of the mysticism of the TPC at Sawgrass emanates from its regal stature. Before the Stadium Course came along in 1980, few golf courses that hosted championships were accessible to the general public. Most major championships took place on private layouts. The TPC at Sawgrass, one of 21 in the Tournament Players Club network, changed the dynamics of golf participation in the U.S. Now, the average player could test his abilities on the same 7,093-yard crucible where the world's finest players displaced divots.

No matter that the test was so arduous that not even the touring professionals enjoyed the Stadium Course at first. The layout has since been softened, made "more fair," but its firm, small, undulating greens and angular fairways require exacting shotmaking. Of course, the amphitheater mounding alongside the holes engenders a feeling of intimacy while at the same time making players feel like they are performers on a grand stage.

Negotiating the layout induces an anxiety that drove the first winner of THE PLAYERS Championship, Jerry Pate, to hurl himself into the pond beside the 18th green. Pate pitched Beman and Dye into that same pond for good measure.

The measure of a fine course can be taken by studying the caliber of players who have conquered it. Little wonder that the list of winners of THE PLAYERS Championship includes the game's biggest names, including 2001 champion Tiger Woods. Among the others: Hal Sutton, Fred Couples, Tom Kite, Steve Elkington, Davis Love III, Lee Janzen, Nick Price, Justin Leonard and David Duval.

Of course, no player shined more than Greg Norman did in 1994, when he tied Couples' course record of 63 on the way to a staggering 24-under-par total of 264 that remains the record for 72 holes.

And no hole is more memorable, more photographed, more famous than the par-3 17th at the Stadium Course. The 17th hole, only 137 yards, was an accident -- a rich irony considering that much of the TPC at Sawgrass and the network of TPC courses came to fruition through careful planning and bold foresight.

Dye originally intended there to be a small lake adjacent to the green. But the soil around the green site contained the best sand for filling in fairways on other parts of the marshy property. Before anyone noticed, three-fourths of the area around the green had been removed. Pete and Alice immediately remembered a watery hole at the nearby Ponte Vedra Club, designed by Herb Strong, and the island 17th was born.

The touring professionals dread the hole, since no lead is safe until it is navigated. Fans who attend the tournament love the hole for its unpredictability, savoring the good shots as well as the doomed.

And the many visitors who play the course - via an associate membership or as guests of the posh Sawgrass Marriott - dream of staring down the diabolical little hole. They seek to prove their mettle as shotmakers-no matter that their success rate is stunningly low. Course staff estimates that 120,000 to 150,000 balls are recovered from the watery depths each year.

But they usually meet triumph and disaster just the same. With a smile.

So it is with the enduring allure of the TPC at Sawgrass, which is more than a stomping grounds for the golf's elite or a resort for die-hard enthusiasts. It is the first of its kind.

It is a home for all players.