When the Stadium Course Was Really a Stadium

They didn’t call it the “Stadium Course” for nothing.

“No golf course up to that point had been built that was more concentrated on the gallery than the players,” said former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman, who spearheaded the TPC Sawgrass project. A key aspect of Beman’s vision was positioning the spectators above the players throughout the course. “You did all you could to build the spectator areas in the highest places on the course and the playing surface on the lowest point… so more people could see, and that’s the concept of a stadium.”

So when Pete Dye built the new Players Championship venue in 1980, he created raised-up viewing areas around the holes. Many of these structures remain, but they have lost a lot of their original detail.

How about, for instance, the grass bleachers that used to form a mini-coliseum around the first tee?

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Here’s what the same spot looks like today:

The first hole at TPC Sawgrass

Meh, right?

Around several holes, including Nos. 16-18, Dye built huge, terraced mounds where spectators could stand on different levels.

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Maybe the coolest of these features was the isthmus that ran between the 16th and 17th holes.

The 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass in 1980

In the 90s, it was eliminated, marooning One Tree Island in the middle of the pond.

The current 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass

Today, hospitality tents and ordinary grandstands occupy many of the areas where Dye and Beman conducted their stadium experiments. When the championship buildouts aren’t there, most of the spectator embankments just look like big mounds.

A little sad? Sure. But also understandable. It couldn’t have been easy to drain and mow a set of earthen bleachers.

Still, every old photo of TPC Sawgrass is a reminder of how radical the course initially was, and how much more conventional it has become.