Tournament Preview, March 25-28

The Players Championship

A key shot at the TPC

This was one of the shots that helped me win last year's Players Championship. It came on the 529-yard 11th hole. At the time, Iwas one or two shots off the lead but in the middle of making some birdies and moving up the leader board. This is a hole where, if you don't make birdie, you're losing ground to the leaders.

On my second shot, I'd had 240 yards to the front of the green-a distance I can't carry. So I intentionally hit my 3-wood into this bunker. With the pin on a back-left tier, I knew I was OK in the bunker on the right side of the green, since I'd have plenty of green to work with.

In the bunker I was 35 yards from the pin, and I didn't want to put any backspin on the ball; I wanted to run it up to the flag. With my 56-degree sand wedge, I took a nice, long swing and made sure I hit well behind the ball, so it wouldn't spin much. On a shot like this, you want to swing all at one pace-you don't want to accelerate the club, because that's more likely to put spin on the ball.

The ball came out fairly low, skidded up the hill to about 10 feet, and I

made the putt for my birdie. I birdied two of the next three holes to take the lead, and went on to win.

Editor's note: This year, the Players Championship will offer a record $5

million in prize money-the most of anyfull-field tour event. Also this year,

Greg Norman will celebrate the fifth anniversary of his tournament-record, 24- under-par 264. TV schedule:

Thursday-Friday-USA, noon to 6 p.m.; Saturday-NBC, 2-6 p.m.; Sunday-NBC, 3-6:30 p.m.

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