The PGA Tour moved away from the branding years ago, but the “Fifth Major” label still fits for the Players Championship—and that’s not a bad thing.
Starting with the Masters in April the monthly run of majors will begin, but this week offers an opening act of sorts with all the Tour’s best playing the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course for riches equal to a major.
A $4.5 million first-place prize is on the line plus 750 FedEx Cup points, the latter of which is equal to the payoff for a major win. And the game’s best player will be looking for some history.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler became the first back-to-back Players champion last year and now will look to join Jack Nicklaus (1974, ’76, ’78) as the other three-time winner. The last player to win a Tour event three consecutive years was Steve Stricker at John Deere Classic from 2009-11.
He’ll have to beat all the Tour’s best, again. Tiger Woods did not enter to compete in a final year of eligibility from his 2019 Masters win, but he’s the only notable absence from the 144-player field.
Past champions in the field are Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Si Woo Kim, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler and Matt Kuchar. LIV Golf players of course aren’t eligible, though one former LIV player is here—Laurie Canter, who moved into the top 50 in the world with a recent runner-up at the South African Open. He has played on the rival circuit in more than a year, meaning he could accept the invitation via his world ranking.
Everyone will take on the 7,352-yard par-72 Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, one of Pete Dye’s toughest and most famous creations. Players can score there—the last winner at single-digits under par was Sergio Garcia in 2008—but trouble looms all over the property and of course the island-green par-3 17th always has players’ attention.
This year marks the end of an era, of sorts, as the last 144-player Players field. Starting next year the field will have 120 players, as the Tour moves to what it believes will be a more competitive structure.
2025 Players Championship full field
144 players
Åberg, Ludvig
An, Byeong Hun
Berger, Daniel
Bezuidenhout, Christiaan
Bhatia, Akshay
Bradley, Keegan
Bridgeman, Jacob
Burns, Sam
Campbell, Brian
Campos, Rafael
Canter, Laurie
Cantlay, Patrick
Capan III, Frankie
Cauley, Bud
Chandler, Will
Clark, Wyndham
Cole, Eric
Conners, Corey
Dahmen, Joel
Davis, Cam
Day, Jason
Detry, Thomas
Dunlap, Nick
Echavarria, Nico
Eckroat, Austin
English, Harris
Finau, Tony
Fishburn, Patrick
Fitzpatrick, Matt
Fleetwood, Tommy
Fowler, Rickie
Fox, Ryan
Garnett, Brice
Gerard, Ryan
Ghim, Doug
Glover, Lucas
Gordon, Will
Gotterup, Chris
Greyserman, Max
Griffin, Ben
Griffin, Lanto
Grillo, Emiliano
Hadwin, Adam
Hall, Harry
Harman, Brian
Henley, Russell
Highsmith, Joe
Hisatsune, Ryo
Hodges, Lee
Hoey, Rico
Hoffman, Charley
Hoge, Tom
Højgaard, Nicolai
Højgaard, Rasmus
Homa, Max
Horschel, Billy
Hossler, Beau
Hovland, Viktor
Hubbard, Mark
Hughes, Mackenzie
Im, Sungjae
Jaeger, Stephan
Kim, Chan
Kim, Michael
Kim, Si Woo
Kim, Tom
Kirk, Chris
Kitayama, Kurt
Kizzire, Patton
Knapp, Jake
Kohles, Ben
Kuchar, Matt
Lashley, Nate
Lee, K.H.
Lee, Min Woo
Lipsky, David
List, Luke
Lower, Justin
Lowry, Shane
MacIntyre, Robert
Malnati, Peter
Matsuyama, Hideki
McCarthy, Denny
McCarty, Matt
McGreevy, Max
McIlroy, Rory
McNealy, Maverick
Meissner, Mac
Mitchell, Keith
Moore, Taylor
Morikawa, Collin
Mullinax, Trey
Norlander, Henrik
Novak, Andrew
Pan, C.T.
Pavon, Matthieu
Pendrith, Taylor
Perez, Victor
Phillips, Chandler
Poston, J.T.
Potgieter, Aldrich
Power, Seamus
Putnam, Andrew
Rai, Aaron
Ramey, Chad
Riley, Davis
Rodgers, Patrick
Rose, Justin
Roy, Kevin
Ryder, Sam
Salinda, Isaiah
Schauffele, Xander
Scheffler, Scottie
Schenk, Adam
Schmid, Matti
Scott, Adam
Sigg, Greyson
Silverman, Ben
Skinns, David
Smalley, Alex
Spaun, J.J.
Spieth, Jordan
Springer, Hayden
Stevens, Sam
Straka, Sepp
Suber, Jackson
Svensson, Adam
Svensson, Jesper
Taylor, Nick
Theegala, Sahith
Thomas, Justin
Thompson, Davis
Tosti, Alejandro
Valimaki, Sami
van Rooyen, Erik
Vegas, Jhonattan
Ventura, Kris
Vilips, Karl
Villegas, Camilo
Whaley, Vince
Woodland, Gary
Young, Cameron
Young, Carson
Yu, Kevin
Zalatoris, Will
Congratulations again to last weeks winner @seminoleed
Big changes at the top of the leaderboard
With a strong showing @Bill From Tampa takes the top spot with @seminoleed moving into 2nd. @DFSNOLE tumbles down the leaderboard to 3rd place
Good Luck to everyone this week
