As I think about watching The Players this weekend, I think about what I would do at the par-3 17^th hole. Have you ever wondered just how you’d do on that evil little spot of grass and water?

    Beyond playing the hole on my computer golf game or my son’s X-Box, I’ve never even seen the hole beyond television. I do know one thing. I’ve never played a golf course where one particular hole haunted me in my sleep the night before playing the course, as I’m sure this one would me.

    It’s such a simple hole. From the Tournament Tees it plays from 125 to 145 yards. A simple wedge or nine-iron for the pros, perhaps as much as a 7-iron for the rest of us mortal golfers.

    The problem lies in the penalty incurred for even the slightest error. Most of us are familiar with the golfing term that it’s “not how good your best shot is but how good your misses are”. Here there is no room for even a marginal miss.

    Better golfers tend to play away from trouble, fading or drawing the ball away from the trouble on a shot. No room for either of those here. Most times you can miss a green long or short and give yourself an easy chip. Not so here.

    Like the pros, I’m sure I’d find myself thinking about this hole right after I teed up my first drive on the range. I’d probably think about what club I’d hit at 17 and proceed to use a half-a-bucket of range balls perfecting that one shot.

    The scariest part of the hole is its simplicity. You hit a short iron onto the green, take a couple of putts and move along. Piece of cake.

    Unless you dump one in the water. Then you’re suddenly looking at bogey or double bogey at best. Knock another in and you’re putting down a number bigger than what you just wrote down leaving the par-5 16^th green!

    I know that I’d be nervous on that first swing. If it didn’t make the green and I found myself dropping and hitting three, I’d really get nervous. After that I could see myself donating a sleeve or two to the water gods.

    So before you laugh to heartily at the pros struggling to play this evil golf hole this weekend, think just how well you’d play the hole if you were in their shoes.