From Jay Monahan to Mike Tirico to a PGA Tour Father, Everyone Has a Story From the Island 17th

The most famous par-3 in golf might claim a ball or two (or more!) but leaves an indelible impression on everyone who takes it on.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Andy Schwab needed only one swing Tuesday on the famed 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass.

Oh, the father of PGA Tour player Matthias Schwab would’ve needed many more than that to actually finish playing the famed 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass. But one swing was enough for Dad.

“I expected it would be hard,” Schwab said. “But I didn’t expect it to be the vurst, the vurst!”

His slight Austrian accent served to highlight his frustration but he was grinning. He’d been walking along the par-5 16th hole during a Tuesday practice round when his son popped a surprising question.

“Matthias asked me if I would like to hit a stroke on 17,” Andy said. “I said, ‘for sure, yes.’ I knew his clubs were not very playable for me. I tried his clubs a few years ago, I can’t hit them. But 17, this is the greatest one-stroke hole in golf.”

You can probably guess what happened after Dad joined his son on the tee. Andy cued the video on his cell phone.

Andy Schwab, father of PGA Tour player Matthias Schwab, didn't fare well at 17 but could still smile :: Gary Van Sickle/SI

There he is, bending over to tee up the ball. “Look at this,” he says. “This is not so bad.” Andy, who carries a 4.6 handicap, makes a pair of loose, relaxed practice swings but doesn’t have time for his usual 20-minute pre-golf stretching routine. The video shows an anxious swing. Andy lurches forward a little early and turns out of the follow-through prematurely. He doesn’t pose to watch his shot. He doesn’t have to. Given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play the infamous 17th hole, Andy cold-topped it into the lake.

“It didn’t get in the air,” Andy said. “The ball maybe went 50 meters, no more. It looked terrible.”

Matthias filmed video of the shot. “So I have all the leverage on my phone if I ever need it,” he said with a laugh.

Andy told his son to “show the video to nobody” but of course, Matthias forwarded it to his brothers and his mother.

“The brothers had fun to see my stroke,” Dad said. But he is unable to conceal his delight over the whole nerve-wracking episode. “I shouldn’t have done it, it’s maybe one time in my life. It was—I don’t know the English word—not adventure, it was an experience. I will never forget how I did this stroke.”

For the record, Matthias followed his father’s shot by hitting a 9-iron onto the middle of the green. He’s 28, a Vanderbilt University alum, ranked 295th in the world, moved to this area six months ago, practices at Sawgrass when he’s home and has gotten comfortable with the TPC’s luxurious surroundings. “We don’t have anything like this in Austria,” he said.

Thursday, Matthias will play in his first Players Championship. Dad will be watching.

“I hope to have more fun here the next few days,” Andy said.

The Commissioner Might Be Watching

Jay Monahan likes to go for a late-morning stroll when he’s working in the PGA Tour’s ultra-modern new office complex. Usually around 11:30 or so, he ambles about 350 yards—or the approximate length of a Rory McIlroy drive—and finds himself near the tee box of the par-3 17th, arguably golf’s most identifiable hole.

Why not? If you had the Mona Lisa hanging in your garage, wouldn’t you stop by to gaze at it every day?

“I make a point to see the first groups coming through,” said Monahan, commissioner of the PGA Tour. “I see them go for 16th green, I see them hit their tee shots at 17, I see their reactions, I see them take pictures. I take it all in.”

Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports

It reminds him for when he worked at Fenway Park for a few years earlier this century. “Even in the dead of winter there, I’d look out over Yawkey Way and see a car or a cab pull up and a father and son get out to take pictures,” Monahan recalled. “Being there, in a place like that, is special.”

The 17th has become one of those iconic places, whether you think designer Pete Dye was an architectural deity or the worst thing to happen to pace of play in the game’s history.

Monahan doesn’t try to interact with the paying customers and average hackers enjoying their rounds (which can go for up to as much as $840, forecaddie included, at certain times). “I know all they care about is trying to get that ball on the green,” he said. “It’s their experience. I don’t want to interrupt that.”

The first time he played the 17th hole was in the mid-1990s during an outing for the PGA Tour’s corporate partners. He rinsed his first shot in the lake but put the second one on the green. He didn’t define the moment, the moment defined him.

“Like many people, the anticipation through the course of the day got to me,” Monahan said. “Was I thinking about it all during the round? I was. I was thinking about it on my drive down to the course, prior to the round and all during the round. I don’t remember what club I hit. I tried to forget since it didn’t work out well.”

Visiting the 17th, Monahan said, grounds him in the reality of his job. It helps him recharge and, by the way, relive a good memory. He aced the hole in 2020 while playing with his brother and two friends. He remembers that the pin was in the front-right part of the green. He doesn’t remember what club he hit. He also remembers that he got off cheap on the buy-drinks-for-everyone tradition.

“The clubhouse was closed because of Covid,” he said. “The ball ended up on top of the Styrofoam in the cup. But it ended up in the cup. So I’m good with the hole.”

Sometimes, Monahan walks up by the grandstands at 17, well left of the peninsula green. “I’ve had a ball come pretty close to me there,” he said. “That’s something you’ll never forget.”

A Memorable Ace, Somewhere Else

Near the end of 2021, English golfer Aaron Rai, a two-time winner on the DP World Tour, was looking for a base in America where he could live and practice. He ventured onto the Sawgrass course for the first time, playing 18 holes while his mother and sister walked along.

He started on the 10th tee. The 17th hole played into a brisk wind. He struck an 8-iron that caught a gust of wind and rode the elevator up before falling into the water short of the green. He decided to re-tee instead of going to the drop zone. “I thought, I can’t have my first memory playing this hole be of not getting a shot on the green,” Rai said. He knocked the second shot on the green, then three-putted for a triple-bogey 6.

It got weird when he came around to the front nine and holed an 8-iron shot on one bounce for an ace on the par-3 3rd hole. “It was later in the day, I wasn’t quite sure it was in the hole,” Rai said. “I said, ‘I think it went in.’ We got there and couldn’t see a ball on the green. I think my mom and my sister said something like, ‘well done,’ took a picture of the ball in the hole and we went onto the fourth.”

The episode left Rai as the rare outlier whose most memorable shot on a par 3 at Sawgrass didn’t happen at the 17th.

“It was a weird round,” he said. “But I remember when I got to the 17th tee for the first time, I stood there for five full minutes to try to take it in. It was surreal to actually be there.”

A 'Tin Cup' Moment

Nearly everyone who plays TPC Sawgrass has a story about playing the 17th hole for the first time.

Multi-sport broadcaster Mike Tirico’s first round happened somewhen in the 1990s. Every time he hit a good shot of 120 or 130 yards during the round, he told himself, “Just think about this. It’s not an island green. It’s all good, it’s all good.”

He arrived full of confidence at the 17th tee. And then drowned his first three swings in the lake. He refused to go to the drop zone. It was his “Tin Cup” moment.

“I knew I could put it on the green,” Tirico said. “I still believe I can. My fourth ball made in on. It was one of those things where we were going to stay there until the end.”

He doesn’t remember what score he made on the hole. Asked if he remembered what club he hit, he looked at the two golf writers he was talking to and shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’m not like you guys.”

Taylor Montgomery, a former University of Nevada—Las Vegas player, is competing in The Players for the first time this week. He visited Sawgrass to play a Korn Ferry Tour on the adjacent Dye's Valley course but didn’t get to tour the main course. Last year, he came to practice for a few days and toured the course in a cart to get a look.

“The weirdest part is, I thought the 17th green was huge,” he said. “I got there today and thought, This green is half the size of what I saw the first time. Maybe it’s because the stands are up but the green looks even smaller, even though I know it hasn’t changed.”

Early Wednesday morning, he hit a 9-iron shot onto the green in a practice round. His caddie hit a shot to 15 feet and made the birdie putt. “He’s going to hold that over me forever,” Montgomery said. “I’ll have to wait until next year when he hits it in the water.”

Harrison Endycott, an Aussie from north of Sydney and another first-time Players entrant, remembers playing a Korn Ferry event at the other course and borrowing a cart to drive around Sawgrass.

“It was dead calm and I thought, It’s not that hard,” he said. “I played the back nine Tuesday and now that it’s firmer and windy, that tee shot at 17 is a lot more precise. I loved it, though. My caddie and I tried the ‘better-than-most’ putt down the hill, too. Did I make it? Well, there wasn’t a hole there. So I’ll claim I did.”

Better than most? Based on notoriety, that’s the 17th hole in a nutshell.