17th at Sawgrass stands out as the most infamous hole in golf

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Brad "The Russian" Krosnoff chose this as his final resting place.

The setting appears quite tranquil, with beautiful blue water, surrounding hills, a light breeze blowing, birds singing, manicured grass surrounding tall pines and oaks and a definitive, centerpiece island green.

The 17th green has been completely rebuilt over the last year. (Stan Badz/PGA TOUR/WireImage)

Krosnoff, a longtime PGA TOUR caddie, was a smart man, with an undergraduate degree from Yale and a law degree from Dickinson, and claimed a rare triple by toting winning bags on the PGA TOUR, Champions Tour and LPGA. When he died in Pittsburgh at age 67 in early March 2003 after a long battle with leukemia, his widow, Peggy, shipped his ashes to John "Bucky" Buchna, Joey Sindelar's longtime caddie, in Jacksonville, Fla. The directions were to honor Krosnoff's final wish of spreading the ashes over the water on the 17th hole of the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. Veteran TOUR player Dan Forsman presided over a ceremony just before the 2003 PLAYERS Championship, with 16 caddies in attendance.

"He just liked the hole," says Buchna, a friend for 15 years. "He always said he wanted his ashes spread there."

It was as if Krosnoff was making some type of sacrifice to the golf gods to help his brethren in golf who have walked this way.

Not that it worked.

Consider the estimated 120,000 balls -- approximately three per player -- that everyday golfers seemingly enjoy splashing down annually. Or that during the Super Bowl XXXIX media party in February 2005, 1,650 shots were attempted and only 101 (6 percent) found the green. Divers can get rich off this, entering the water four times per year to fetch the waterlogged balls and sell them back to the pro shop for 7 cents per ball. Everyday players who have late-afternoon tee times will often skip numerous holes on the back nine to try the 17th as dusk settles in.

"I rode up behind the tee one day and watched a man pull out a dozen new Titleists, open the box and promptly hit every one of them in the water," says TPC Sawgrass superintendent Fred Klauk. "He didn't give it a second thought."

Or just remember what happened in 1985 when Angelo Spagnolo, a 31-year-old Pennsylvania grocer, played here in the Golf Digest-sponsored "America's Worst Avid Golfer" contest. On a steamy June day, Spagnolo hit 27 balls in the water from the tee box and drop area. Finally, TOUR rules officials directed him to putt down the cart path on the left and up the narrow path that leads to the green from the back left. Spagnolo totaled 257 to "win" the Digest title -- keyed by a 66 on No. 17. Former TOUR Commissioner Deane Beman dubbed the path leading to the green, "Angelo's Alley."

Or recall a much less-publicized moment.

In the early 1980s, longtime GOLF Magazine editor George Peper was having a terrific round on the newly opened course, which was then made more even treacherous by the many unkempt areas. He came to No. 17 with hopes of shooting a near-par round. His tee shot fell just short in the water, and he proceeded to the drop area, with hopes of salvaging his round. A sand wedge shot also found water, spinning off the front of the green. In frustration, Peper tossed the club in the air. It lodged in the lower limbs of one of the overhanging pine trees. Peper retrieved another club in an attempt to dislodge the first. That one stuck also, followed by a third club in the tree. The group behind and the following one were waved on. Thirty minutes later, Peper used his 7-iron to get all of the clubs down.

"I've always been good with a 7-iron," Peper jokes. "Of all my time in golf, that is by far the most embarrassing moment."

These mere humans experienced their devastation in near solitude. But consider the field in THE PLAYERS. They face a packed house seated along a hillside amphitheater and in surrounding corporate chalets, informed by a huge electronic scoreboard that measures the distances of approach shots and balls in the water. Give the players an ample preview of the hole from the adjacent 16th hole and a walkway to the 17th tee that skirts the edge of the pond. Then include the immense televisions focus on the 137 yards of real estate, all with the highest purse in golf on the line.

PGATOUR.COM has broadcast Live@17 during the first two rounds of THE PLAYERS for seven consecutive years, capturing every shot by every player with commentary by a rotating group of broadcasters and former TOUR players. The broadcast, which achieves record numbers annually, will be shown for the eighth consecutive year in 2007, this time over all four rounds. Golf fans anxiously await a train wreck.

"Everybody on the Internet is watching and they have always got a camera there," Chris DiMarco says. "Whoever does make the big number on that hole is just overplayed on every sports channel all over the world. There's so much that goes with that hole."

NBC utilized 42 cameras for its PLAYERS coverage in 2006, with 10 exposing every angle of attack on No. 17, including a microscopic lens embedded in the lip of the tiny front bunker. Cablecam, which is also used in NFL games, was used in 2006. The camera suspended from a series of ropes and pulleys hovered to the left of the hole, stretching approximately 190 yards from behind the tee box to beyond the green. Welcome "Big Brother" to golf.

The two best seats on the 17th hole are reserved for two veteran cameramen -- on an uninhabited island and 120 feet in the air. That's where NBC's Brian Phraner and John Boeddeker spend the majority of their time at THE PLAYERS. Each morning during tournament play, following a brunch, the duo heads to No. 17 for the next eight hours. Phraner is ferried by a johnboat with a trolling motor to the island right of the green, where he is marooned. His main duties are to get reactions of players on the 17th tee, to operate the super-slow-motion camera and pan to approach shots on 16.

From between the 17th green and 16th fairway, Boeddecker is belted into a small deck -- flying his American flag in honor of September 11 -- and then hoisted into the air above the trees, where he has a clear view for shots of Nos. 16 and 17 and a portion of the 18th hole.

Each cameraman carries a snack and tries to stave off the call of nature by avoiding drinks hours before their duties. Their biggest challenges? For Phraner, it's bird droppings from the island tree. For Boeddeker, excessive wind could force him down.

"This is the most tranquil, peaceful place you can be," says Boeddeker. "When the weather is beautiful, there's no place you'd rather be. But when the weather is nasty, it could be the worst place to be."

"The great thing about that hole is there's always something happening," says Tommy Roy, NBC's executive producer for NBC Sports. "In a typical golf tournament, you will have many times where the leaders are walking to their next shot on another hole. We always have the luxury of cutting the viewer to the 17th tee. There's always drama there." This is also the setting where Tiger Woods became famous.

First, the good: The Striped One first entered the golf mainstream here on a steamy August day during the 1994 U.S. Amateur. The 18-year-old Stanford freshman, wearing khaki shorts and a panama hat, was 6 down at one time in his 36-hole final with Trip Kuehne. But he battled back to 1 down entering the match's penultimate hole, the 17th. His bold approach shot to a back-right hole location ended up on the right fringe, close to water. From there, he sank the 20-foot birdie putt, and for the first time, he displayed his now-famous fist pump. He parred the 18th to win 1 up for the first of his record three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles.

In 2001, during the Saturday of his first PLAYERS Championship title, Woods' 9-iron tee shot caught a gust of wind and sailed to the back left of the green, approximately 60 feet above the hole, which was cut on the front tier. The ensuing birdie putt broke left at first, slowly reached the crest of the hill and then sped down the slope to the right -- with NBC analyst Gary Koch chanting, "Better than most! Better than most!" -- before barreling into the hole just as caddie Steve Williams pulled the flag. The crowd roared. Again, the fist pump ... this time twice.

But lest you think that Tiger rules 17, get a load of his 36-round cumulative PLAYERS Championship numbers: 13-over par, including three birdies, three double bogeys and 10 bogeys.

When you play (17) on Tuesday and Wednesday, it's a pretty easy hole, a little flip 9-iron, no big deal," Woods says. "You get out there in the tournament, all of a sudden there's a pin location that's tucked in the corner or over a slope, and the green seems to shrink up a little bit. You know you've got to step up there and be committed." In actuality, the 17th has rarely been a final-round factor for the winner. Only two of the 25 champions have bogeyed the hole on the way to victory. The hole ranks in the middle of the pack for difficulty since THE PLAYERS moved here in 1982. However, disaster is always a thought away, especially with the addition of wind, as the 17th hole ranks second only to No. 18 in triple bogeys-plus (163 for 17, 174 for 18).

But there have been memorable moments late in the tournament.

During the completion of the storm-interrupted third round of the 2005 PLAYERS on Monday morning, Bob Tway stood on the 17th tee, just four strokes out of the lead at 7-under par. Winds gusted up to 30 mph from left to right. Tway, standing 6-foot-4, swayed in the breeze and then air-mailed his tee shot over the green. He walked left to the drop area, which is 77 yards from the green. His third shot flew the green. Then his fifth and seventh shots landed on the front of the green and spun back in the water. His fifth attempt found the green. Three putts later he holed out for 12, replacing Robert Gamez and his 11 in 1990 as owner of the dubious record for the all-time high score on the hole during THE PLAYERS.

"You play great in a tournament and all of a sudden, you're out of the tournament and in last place," Tway said. "It's a shame to play that well for that long and then have that happen."

Scott Verplank, who would finish tied for second in the 2005 PLAYERS, was so shocked by the undoing of his good friend and playing partner that he refused to inquire the final damage for the scorecard. Verplank marched to the next tee box and proceeded to hook his drive into the lake on the par-4 18th hole.

In 1987, Jeff Sluman faced a 4-foot winning birdie putt in a sudden-death playoff with Sandy Lyle. Just as Sluman was about to putt on 17, a Florida State male cheerleader (ironically, Sluman's alma mater) dove into the pond on a dare from friends. Sluman backed off the putt, waited approximately five minutes as the swimmer was hustled off the grounds, and then missed. Lyle won with a par on the next hole.

"I heard the splash; I thought it was a fish," Sluman said years later. "I kind of stepped away, and then I heard all the booing. I thought they were booing me for stepping away from the ball. I mean the shock, the thing goes through your body, and you are like. 'Wow, this is really a tough crowd.' Then you look up and you see some clown having an identity crisis swimming around."

In 1998, area resident Len Mattiace came to the 17th trailing leader Justin Leonard by one stroke. Pumped up, he flew a 9-iron over the green. He walked slowly to the drop area and hit sand wedge into the front bunker. He thinned his bunker shot over the green and eventually holed out for an 8.

"When I hit it in the water, my heart came out of my body two or three times because it was disappointing," Mattiace said. "So that was a shock and I don't think I have ever hit it in the water there in tournament play. Dropping it was new to me and I just had to take a minute or so and kind of regain my composure because everything was going well. I played the round that I wanted to play. I was 6-under, right, through 16 holes?"

All of this drama for a hole that was dubbed a mistake by none other than the designer --Pete Dye. When Dye was building the course in 1980, the swampy land required a lot of fill material to build fairways. The best sand was located in the area of the 17th hole. Originally, the par 3 was supposed to just have a hazard down the right side with the green perched on the edge.

"I don't think any of us really thought of the 17th hole," says Dye, who originally designed the back of the green to slope away from the tee. "It just kind of arrived. We just kept digging. Actually, I think my wife Alice came out one day, looked at the area and said let's just make it an island green."

The result of all this? The 17th has become one of the most memorable holes in all of golf, whether that is good or bad.

"It's like having a 3 o'clock appointment for a root canal; you're thinking about (17) all morning and you feel (bad) all day," TOUR veteran Mark Calcavecchia says. "You kind of know sooner or later you've got to get to it."

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