PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — In hindsight, the skilled engraver who etches the champion’s Waterford crystal at the Players Championship could have started around lunchtime on Sunday, two hours before Webb Simpson headed to the first tee.
After all, ever since his tournament-record-tying 63 on Friday, Simpson stayed in absolute control, starting the final round with a commanding seven-shot lead. No player in the history of the PGA Tour ever had surrendered a 54-hole lead that large.
But this is T.P.C. Sawgrass and its daunting Stadium Course, the designer Pete Dye’s green-grassed house of horrors, a venue that can inject terror and disaster into otherwise peaceful Sunday afternoons.