Why 1 pesky tree has everyone’s attention at Players Championship

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The first hour of the second life for the 6th hole tree everyone is talking about at the Players Championship was … incredibly boring. 

As the first groups worked around the front nine Thursday morning at TPC Sawgrass, they all seemed mostly unbothered by the hanging tree that was added to the visual of the teeing ground this year. It was driver, driver, driver, driver — everyone played the longest club in their bag. 

But the reason everyone is talking about the tree this week is because its presence is supposed to inflict decision-making. It’s supposed to ask players to hit different clubs. It’s supposed to do … exactly what happened as the sun burned off the dew. 

After 16 players hit driver, Corey Conners was the first to play 3-wood. A smooth one 261 yards into the fairway. Patton Kizzire was next, also choosing 3-wood. Only Kizzire made a lazy-looking swipe at the ball, sending it to far right the broadcast cameras lose track of it. Was the visual hazard of a massive tree trunk a factor in his horrible miss? 

Pete Dye wanted it to be. The course architect who designed TPC Sawgrass 45 years ago was famous for visual deception. And for decades, the 6th tee had a tree limb hanging out over it, tormenting players’ thoughts on repeat, even deflecting their shots on occasion. It was Dye’s preference to make players hit a specific type of shot, and just one specific branch did the job until the tree was overcome with disease just over a decade ago. In 2014, it was removed as a safety hazard, clearing the hitting ground of all distraction, letting players launch shots as high as they please … until this year, when the Tour craned in a new tree to replicate and honor Dye’s design. 

“He wanted the tree to not really be in the way, but you to think its in the way,” Davis Love said in a video produced by the Tour. “It got to the point where [the original tree] was literally in the way. It was drooping.” 

Love was in charge of the project, which included finding a similar tree about 100 yards away and moving it into place. In total, the tree, roots and surrounding soil dug up weighed more than 500,000 pounds. The act, Love said, is similar to repotting a plant. An aptly-named company called “Tree Mover” was brought in for the intricate process, which you can check out in the video below. 

Ask around this week and everyone is well aware of the tree, what it looks like, and is ready to share an opinion on its merits. Only most of them — players, caddies and coaches alike — don’t really see it being impactful. One coach called it “the most overblown story” on the property, insisting zero players will come close to hitting the tree. Caddies on the putting green Wednesday made fictional prop bets, setting the over/under for number of balls that strike the tree at 0.5. Either you think it will happen or you think it won’t. 

Through the first half of the first round, no one came close. But contact with the tree isn’t the point. It’s just shifting players’ trajectory and asking for something specific. In that sense, mission accomplished. The average apex of all tee shots on the PGA Tour is more than 100 feet in the air, and the hanging tree lowered that number into the 60s Thursday. Some players played stinger drivers that apexed at just 45 feet off the ground.

As the weekend goes on, the dilemma may increase in significance. One quiet element of the addition was that adding the tree also required moving back the tee box, lengthening the hole by an extra 20 yards. Want to play a 3-wood? You’ll be further back from the green than last year. Not to mention that the tournament setup committee still has room on the tee box to move the teeing ground backward.

In advance of the tournament, the Tour did its best to catch player reactions as they happened upon the tree for the first time (which you can watch here). Some enjoyed the look of it. Others gave it no thought. Matt Fitzpatrick didn’t hold back at all.

“Oh, this is the dumbest tree I’ve ever seen,” Fitzpatrick said immediately as he reached the tee. The Englishman fancies himself a golf course architecture critic, unafraid to speak his mind. And for that, we appreciate him. A few minutes later, after roasting a stinger driver, he walked off and added a bit more:

“If someone could remove it, that would be great.”