Expecting a shootout between Germany’s Martin Kaymer and the USA’s PGA Tour wunderkind Jordan Spieth, fans surrounded the first hole from tee to green, five deep when the two approached for their 2:35 tee time. Kaymer ripped it 310 yards down the middle. Spieth hit it in the right rough. A chink in the armor? You might have thought so but actually Spieth took the lead with a birdie on 4 to go to -13. And that was it. Kaymer inherited a share of the lead after Speith bogeyed 8 and then took the lead for good at nine with a birdie out of the bunker while Spieth’s second shot in the rough forced him to settle for par.

Kaymer had it to 15 under before play was suspended while he was playing the 14th hole forcing a 91-minute delay because of lightning. That changed the fabric of the end of the tournament, with Kaymer and Spieth, along with Sergio Garcia and Francisco Molinari among the contenders finishing in front of just a smattering of fans.

The golf course yielded some low scores among those not contending. Former champ K.J. Choi shot a 65 and finished the tournament at -7. Rory McIlroy’s crazy experiences here at The Players continued, shooting a 66 on the final day to finish at -9. McIlroy shot 31 on the back, birdieing 16, 17 and 18 to continue his great play at the Stadium course on holes with double digits. “Overall it looks like another back door top 10 but it’s getting close. I’m playing solid, things are headed in the right direction.” McIlroy played the back nine in 17 under this week, but 8 over on the front hurt his chances. “I feel very comfortable on the back nine here; and just played the front nine a little better (today) and ended up shooting a lower score.”

The leading money winner on tour, Jimmy Walker opened on Thursday with a 75 and was wondering if he’d make the cut or not when he teed off Friday. Instead, Walker shot 65 on the final day for a top ten finish, including an eagle on eleven. “I was running and gunning,” he said after his round. Make a couple of birdies, and if the wind picks up and the storm starts to maybe come in, you never know what could happen.” As the top ranked player, Walker is having some new experiences at tournaments and he said it’s making him change his game a bit. “It makes me feel like I need to keep the pedal down. Sure would be good to be number one at the end of September so that’s what we’re trying to do.”

After the rain delay, Kaymer certainly made it interesting, making double bogey from the left trees on 15 and taking a one-shot lead to the final three holes. A par on 16 didn’t give him much cushion over Furyk who was doing interviews in the rain while waiting to see what might happen.

“I’ve struggled at this golf course,” Furyk told us while after making a 2 ½ foot putt to finish at 66. My results haven’t been nearly as good as I would have liked. It’s fun to play well in front of friends and family.”

Meanwhile, Kaymer hit the strangest shot on 17, just clearing the bunker and spinning back to the high rough in the front of the green. A short chip left him with a long par putt that he poured right in the middle of the cup to maintain a one shot lead and continue the drama. “It was hard to read because it was getting a little dark,” he said afterwards. “But it went in and it’s on the card so I’m happy.”

Two shots on 18 put Kaymer on the front of the green with just under 50 feet to the hole. Two putts would win the title for him and Kaymer thought back to the putt he made to win the Ryder Cup last year. “I was walking up there thinking that one of the best players in the world should be able to make it in two putts to win.” He admitted the just over 3 footer he had left was no easy roll for the victory. “It was left to right and downhill and I was thinking, ‘Just go in’ and it did.”

Kaymer was incredibly gracious in the awards ceremony, thanking the fans for being “fair, even though I was playing an American the last couple of days.” He admitted the opening round 63 put a lot of pressure on him for the rest of the week. But said playing with Jordan Spieth really helped him. “He’s a good guy, and a really good player for someone so young. You have a great player to watch for a lot of years to come.”

“When you shoot that low score on Thursday, everybody expects you to win,” Kaymer explained. “You expect to finish high, there’s just a lot of pressure.”

Interestingly enough, Kaymer was 12 under through 36 holes in this year’s Players, and won at -13 under, the fourth consecutive year that score was good enough to win.

He also thanked the volunteers and reminded everybody to be nice to their mom, not just on Mothers Day. He’s a good player, and proved over the last 4 days he’s a pretty good guy too.

Tee times for the first two rounds are out fo the 2014 Players. They’ll play in threesomes and start at 7:15 as expected, going off the first and the tenth tee. If you’re a morning player on Thursday, you go in the afternoon on Friday and vice versa.

In the morning on Thursday, last week’s winner J.B. Holmes goes off the 10th tee at 7:47 with Ken Duke and Rory Sabbatini. Stuart Appleby is at the same time going off one. A contender last week, Martin Flores is in the first group off of #1 with Lee Westwood and Brendon de Jonge.

Patrick Reed is playing with Jason Dufner and Luke Donald at 8?08 off #10, the start of four good groups in a row going off the back. Zach Johnson, Jordan Speith and Graeme McDowell at art 8:18, the Harris English, Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy at 8;29 followed by Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia at 8:39.

Billy Horschel is a morning player on Thursday at 8:18 at number one. K.J. Choi is at 7:57 on #1 and Ernie Else is at 8:39 on number one.

The afternoon rounds start at 12:25. Angel Cabrera goes off number 1 at 1:07. Keegan Bradley in the next group at 1:18 with Jonas Blixt and Webb Simpson. Jim Furyk Henrick Stenson and Brandt Snedeker are at 1;28 and then Rickey Fowler, Adam Scott and Steve Stricker at 1:39. They’re followed by Matt Kuchar, Bubba Watson and Jimmy Walker at 1;49. Matt Every is at 1:39, Ian Poulter at 1:49 and Russell Knox at 2:21.

Phil Mickelson played a practice round this morning with Ricky Fowler and Dustin Johnson. They all switched clubs on 17, with Fowler and Johnson playing Mickelson’s left-handed irons. All three had nice swings from the other side, a testament to their athletic prowess. Fowler actually knocked one on the green. Mickelson does just about everything else right-handed, so he looked good from that side of the ball as well. Mickelson had his press conference this afternoon and laid out the nuances of the Stadium Course. His approach to 17 will be “middle of the green. I think you make more birdies that way,” he said about the island green. Phil says the course is a bit softer than in past years so he’ll keep driver in the bag and hit it a lot. “I think we’ll see some low scoring.” Mickelson is toying with two putters this week, and probably will play “the blade” after working with it on Monday.

Bubba Watson played in the morning as well. He said he likes to look at “the ground, how it lays out, and it’s difficult here because the fairway and the rough seem to blend together when you’re looking from the tee.” Watson doesn’t like to aim at trees, so that’s his reason for never seeming to drive the ball well here. Watson laughed when he was reminded that if he wins here he could move to #1 in the world. “Let’s remember that my best finish here is 37th. We probably don’t need to worry about that.” But it was interesting that his assessment of the rankings is that they’re flawed. Phil Mickelson has never been the top ranked player and Watson doesn’t see how that’s possible. “I played against Tiger when he was at his very best,” Mickelson reminded everybody. Watson said LeBron James and Kevin Durant have been in contact with him since his Masters win.

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem held his annual “State of the Players” media session, limiting his comments to the Players. He noted that the television broadcast of The Players this year could reach a billion people, being broadcast in 230 countries. Regarding the greens, Finchem sais they’re going to replant the Stadium Course with a strain of grass called TifEagle after the 2015 tournament. The Tour has struggled getting the greens right since moving to May in 2007 and they now believe giving a little more room on the greens, changing them slightly and going with the new grass could be the answer.

Finchem didn’t seem concerned that the NFL draft was rescheduled for this week. He joked that if “Shad would share with me who the Jags were going to draft in the first round, I might watch that.” Finchem also downplayed Tiger Woods’ absence, saying “it’s not the first time we haven’t had Tiger.

As far as The Players staying in May, the Commissioner said he likes the date and hopes to make it work. But if they keep having what he called “these weather related issues, we’ll re-think the date.”

Finchem has been Commissioner for 20 years and recently named Jay Monahan as a Deputy Commissioner, kind of a Commissioner in waiting role. Monahan was the Executive Director of The Players in the past and has fulfilled a variety of roles with the Tour, putting him in a position to become Commissioner. When? Finchem says he’ll be around for a while and is looking forward to finishing his tenure.

For most of it’s existence, The Players signaled the beginning of the golf season for many fans. While the Masters was a sign that spring is here, The Players in March is where golf fans started to focus on the season and the sport. Many of the top players skipped the California swing (private jets and 24 hour communication services were not a part of PGA Tour life yet) and started their season in Florida. Stops in Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Miami and here provided easy travel, similar conditions and usually warm weather to get the season started. (Although The Players was originally scheduled for the first week of March, it eventually moved to the final week of the month and, of course, to May in 2007).

What’s different about this year is that The Players is nowhere near the beginning of the season. In fact, it’s the 26th event of the Tour’s “wraparound” season, with just 15 tournaments remaining in this “year.” That means a win here can go a long way in the end of season FedEx Cup standings and qualifications for the Ryder Cup, the Tour Championship playoffs and extra cash.

“It’s my favorite week of the year,” Ben Crane said yesterday, echoing the sentiment of just about every player we talked to. “It’s our championship, the field is great, the golf course is a tough test. It’s a Major in my mind.” You also hear that a lot from the current participants. While the first generation of players in this tournament were almost unanimous in their disdain for calling this tournament anything but a “bigger” competition, (some of that coming from a general animosity for then Commissioner Deane Beaman) the current players have no such bias. When Adam Scott won in 2004, he said it felt like a major to him because he grew up in Australia watching this tournament on television and imagining winning it one day. While the Tour increased the payout for winning The Players exponentially every year, getting the attention if not the respect of the players involved from the beginning, comments like Lee Trevino’s “It’s hard to read dirt,” and Jack Nicklaus’ “I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to hit 4-iron to the hood of a car and stop it,” ensured that The Players would stay stuck in a slightly elevated status but never up for “Major” consideration.

A little historical perspective is important when you look at The Players development. Beman’s dream of the Tour having their own championship grew out of his belief that “the Super Bowl, the playoffs and the World Series of our sport were owned by somebody else.” While the USGA, the R&A, Augusta National and the PGA owned the four major championships; the PGA Tour ran the week to week competition that brought the names and faces of the Tour into fans living rooms. As a former player, Deane had some history with Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer as well as the rest of his contemporaries. He won the US Amateur; he won on Tour and was a rival, albeit mostly friendly to the guys out there playing.

Remember as well that Jack had started the Memorial and Arnold his tournament in Orlando, each with the idea that it would be the next “significant” tournament. Nicklaus never tried to tamp down the idea that the Memorial could be on track to be the next Major. And both of them, along with Gary Player as the Big Three, had expanded their reach in the game to building golf courses. All three expressed real reservations about the Tour getting into the golf course building business as their competitor. So if The Players was in essence, “Deane’s Tournament” it wasn’t going to get their approval as anything but the next stop on the Florida swing.

The media followed the Big Three’s lead, most turning their noses up at the idea there could be a “5th Major.” Legendary golf writer Dan Jenkins once wrote, “TPC sounds like something you sniff, not a golf tournament.” The Players represented the TOUR: fans, excitement, money and fun. It was a long way from the hushed locker rooms of The Country Club, Oakmont, Seminole and other tradition-laden clubs. The Tour itself couldn’t quite identify what The Players was supposed to be either. Was it “Augusta South?” For a while they tried to emulate the major championships and even shunned their home-town, stiff arming North Florida and South Georgia, insisting the byline for stories and television coverage be “Ponte Vedra” with no mention of Jacksonville (my friend Verne Lundquist admitted it took him two years to figure out how to pronounce the host town) Then The Players was marketed as an international destination, which it is becoming. But in recent years, they’ve embraced Jacksonville and North Florida, understanding that without the full support of the local community, they’d just be spinning their wheels.

I read an article the other day where the author said you could have put the Stadium course anywhere. I chuckled at his lack of historical knowledge, not knowing that the local support of the Greater Jacksonville Open through the volunteer force and the foresight of Beman, the Fletchers and others landed the PGA Tour headquarters and their showcase event in the right spot.

Here.

Home.

For a while it was a murmur, then some idle chatter but the talk about the greens at the Stadium Course for this years Players has grown into a full-blown conversation today. It’s been customary to allow players to practice on the Stadium course starting on the Saturday before the tournament, accommodating those who either missed the cut in Charlotte or didn’t play last week. Instead, the course has been closed until today, with no play anywhere on the Stadium for the last 9 or ten days. (It’s been closed to resort play for about 3 weeks already). So while they’ve had trouble this year with grass on 4, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 14, they’ve only kept 4, 11 and 12 closed today and until further notice.

The greens have noticeable patches on them, and perhaps growing grass for the next three days non-stop will help their playability and their appearance.

Either way, no players, caddies, no anybody on the greens.

The players found out today with a memo posted about the condition of the greens. There has been no official comment, and won’t be until tomorrow at Commissioner Tim Finchem’s press conference.

“It’s not unusual based on the weather we’ve had,” one player told us this morning, “but for this tournament, this late, it’s pretty rare.”

The Tour has said an “over aggressive” chemical application is the cause. Locals (including some charter members) have told me it’s a combination of the chemical, the bad weather and poor use of the “sub air” system they have here to take moisture off the greens.

“They can’t get the roots to grow,” one member of 27 years told me. “Worst I’ve ever seen it.”

This tournament has 29 of the top 30 in the current FedEx Cup standings in the field. Only Jason Day is not here because of injury. Twenty-seven of the top 30 in the official world golf ranking and 20 of the 21 PGA Tour winners in this season are here.

Eight former Players winners are in the field, 23 major champions and 15 of the participants are first timers. By the way, if the winners seem younger to you, 10 of the 21 different winners on Tour this season are under 30. Twenty countries are represented, with Australia second behind the US with 10 players.

Jim Furyk, Jonas Blixt, David Lingmert, Matt Every, Luke Guthrie, Russell Knox and Billy Horschel are players in the tournament who call North Florida home.