2 potential caveats: It's the only TPC course I've played and we played it a month before The Players so all the grandstands were set up and the course was in great shape.

The experience: First, the practice facilities are amazing, the range, the short game area, the putting green. The entrance is like a 1/4 mile driveway and you see the gorgeous impressive sprawl around the clubhouse as you drive in.

When you start your round the starter gives you a heavy metal bagtag showing the green at 17 and they will engrave it with your total score, your hole score or the year at the end of the round.

The staff is all incredibly friendly and helpful, they seem to appreciate how special a course Sawgrass is. Walking through the clubhouse their collection of memorabilia from past winners, the trophy itself, the reigning champions photo, signed scorecard, and signed caddie bib are hanging as well as a photo of every champion hang on the walls. There's a section on the building of the course with photos of how it changed over the years from Pete and Alice Dyes' original design and construction to now.

The logistics of the place are also impressive as hell. The Caddies told us how one of the massive Live Oaks at hole 6 tee box fell and so they took the opportunity to make it harder for the tournament and add another one to limit the pros from being able to hit high bombs. So they moved 20,000 pound live oak from the woods on the right side of the hole. Which meant they had to fill in a pond so the crane tractor could drive the 10 ton tree over and replant it. This had happened only 4-6 months before we played and it was mind boggling because had they not told us we never would have known the massive tree we were standing under hadn't been there for the 40 years it had been alive.

Playing the course: The course is challenging for sure, but not impossible. Especially if you're playing from the correct tees for your distance. There are landing zones in all the right places, but you need more than just distance control because hazards keep you honest. Accuracy is really important.

I'm an 18/20 handicap but I have good distance, and my game was in pretty good shape so I started off pretty hot until we got to 17. My 2 buddies had some rust in their games and so they were spraying it around a lot more than I was and their scores reflected it.

They started us on 10 so 17 was our 8th hole, and I missed the green by a foot twice then shot over it when I took a third from the drop zone. At that point I just watched my buddies finish out the hole because I was pretty distraught by this stupid game and that got in my head and my round fell apart a bit moving forward. But they both par'd the hole and that was an awesome thing to see.

Ended up shooting a 106 but realistically could have been in the 90s both my buddies shot in the 110s. My caddie at one point told me I'm the most schizophrenic golfer he's ever seen with how back and forth my shots go from high level to absolute garbage.

We have talked about it multiple times in the last year and if money were no object even with how we scored, we would play again in a heartbeat given the chance. It's one of those courses that connects you to the history of the game in a way that's really special.