The Players Championship has essentially become the PGA Tour’s fifth major tournament.
With a record amount of money available for the field, a venerable TPC Sawgrass course ready to challenge the world’s best players and one of the most iconic holes in the sport (No. 17’s island green), The Players has become a marquee event for both the sport and golf bettors.
So if you were one of the many DFS, One-and-Done or outright gamblers who spent the first half of the week coming up with the perfect lineup, Thursday morning provided quite a shock. Hideki Matsuyama—the No. 11 player in the world and the reigning Masters champion—withdrew from play with a back injury just after 7 a.m., only a short while before his scheduled tee time and right after lineups locked.
