Golfing Disasters/Part five: Gary Moran remembers Len Mattiace's horror show on the 17th at Sawgrass in 1998
After the excitement of the Masters a few weeks ago, we're sticking to the assertion made in the first of these columns that Augusta is the course to produce a dramatic finish. However, if there is a single hole guaranteed to generate some Sunday afternoon excitement, it is surely the par-three 17 on the TPC at Sawgrass which since 1982 has been the venue for the Players Championship.
Measuring just 137 yards, it is among the shortest holes on Tour, but the green is surrounded by water and connected to the mainland by only the skimpiest of bridges. "I think it's a great hole," says local resident Vijay Singh.
"I mean it's not a difficult hole if you go out there on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and just play it. But, you know, come tournament day, for some reason that green just shrinks. It only seems like six-foot square near the hole and the rest of it feels like it's all water."
"Man, it just haunts you," says former British Open champion and now NBC commentator Johnny Miller. "It's the greatest short par three in the world."
It certainly tormented Len Mattiace in the 1998 Players Championship. Mattiace turned professional in 1990 on foot of a successful amateur career that included appearances in the Walker Cup and the Masters and an NCAA title with a Wake Forest team which also included Billy Andrade.
"Coming out of college, All-American, zip right into the pros, win my first or second year, top 30 every year, that's what I was thinking."
Well the victories didn't arrive quite as readily as expected. The first year, Mattiace earned just $495 from three Nationwide Tour appearances and only got a solid footing on the main circuit in 1996. In the next few years his bigger wins included the Compaq World Putting Championship and a Canon camera for a hole-in-one at the Greater Hartford Open.
So it's fair to say it looked like being an above average week for Mattiace when he went into the final round of the 1998 Players tied for fifth position, albeit six shots behind the leader, Lee Janzen. As the day progressed, exceptional replaced average in the equation.
Mattiace also lives nearby and uses the course for practice in his off weeks. So he didn't lack for support. His ill mother was there to watch from her wheelchair and her son had every chance of completing the Hollywood script when he covered the first 16 holes in six under par to tie for the lead.
With Janzen spraying the ball all over the course en route to a 79, the title seemed to rest between Mattiace and the reigning British Open champion Justin Leonard.
By his own reckoning, Mattiace plays the 17th approximately 60 times per year and it's doubtful he ever played it as badly as when it mattered most.
He backed off the tee-shot three times before airmailing the green with a nine-iron.
After a penalty drop he hit a lob wedge which caught the only bunker on the hole. Both of those shots he considered reasonable strikes but for a player who once made 13 sand-saves out of 13 in a tour event, the bunker attempt was a shocker.
"I basically skulled it and was disgusted with myself because I went ahead and hit it when I wasn't ready to hit it."
Forced to drop again, Mattiace ran up a quintuple-bogey eight and even with a classy birdie on the last, he finished four behind Leonard in tied fifth place.
Despite two wins in 2002, it's with the '98 Players and the 2003 Masters, which he lost in a play-off to Mike Weir, that most people associate Mattiace. If his form of this season and last doesn't improve quickly, it's likely to stay that way.
