[administrator]

The Players Championship (often styled THE PLAYERS Championship) is a prestigious annual golf tournament for professional male golfers which takes place every March on the PGA Tour. The inaugural event in 1974 was played at Atlanta Country Club in Marietta, Georgia before moving to Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas in 1975 and Inverrary Country Club in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in 1976. Beginning in 1977, the event relocated to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, first being played at Sawgrass Country Club's Oceanside Course (a combination of the "East" and "West" 9-hole courses). Since 1982 it has been played across the road from Sawgrass Country Club, on the Stadium Course at the "Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass" (usually referred to as the TPC at Sawgrass; it is not uncommon for "TPC" in this context to be conflated with "The Players Championship" because they happen to have the same initials).

The Players Championship offers the highest prize fund of any tournament in golf ($8 million in 2004, 2005 and 2006; 2007 purse not yet known), and is sometimes referred to by the media as the "Fifth Major", but it does not have official major status. The field usually includes virtually all of the top few dozen ranked golfers in the world, but unlike the three majors which are staged in the United States, it does not count as an official event on the European Tour, which has the Deutsche Bank Players Championship of Europe, although it is an imperfect parallel. The winner receives a fixed allocation of 40 points towards his Official World Golf Ranking, which is the most allocated to any event apart from the majors, in which winners earn 50 points. For comparison, the winners of the three individual World Golf Championships generally receive between 35 and 39 points. Winners of The Players Championship also receives a 5 year exemption on the PGA Tour, 3 year invitation to The Masters, 3 year exemption to The Open Championship, and a PGA Championship and U.S. Open invitation for that year.

The Players Championship can be further distinguished from the "Majors" in that it is owned and administered by the PGA Tour. In contrast, the U.S. Open is owned and administered by the United States Golf Association, The Open Championship by The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, The PGA Championship by the Professional Golfers' Association of America, (as opposed to the PGA Tour), and The Masters by the Augusta National Golf Club.

The Players Championship is best known for featuring what may be the single most famous hole in professional golf, the Stadium Course's Par 3, 137-yard #17, instantly recognizable to golf fans worldwide as "the Island Green" and what has become TPC Sawgrass' signature hole.

In 2007, The Players Championship will be moved to May, as part of a restructuring of the PGA Tour which also involves the introduction of the FedEx Cup and an earlier Tour Championship. This means that the PGA Tour will have a marquee event in five consecutive months (The Masters in April, the U.S. Open in June, The Open Championship in July and the PGA Championship in August). [1] Also, the course is undergoing major renovation.