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By Brett Avery
PGATOUR.COM Contributor

It's been 10 years, so the landmark tends to fade a bit in the memory, but as an indicator of the TPC at Sawgrass' role in the development of THE PLAYERS Championship it's a compelling tidbit.

The year was 1997, when Steve Elkington collected his second triumph, a stunning seven-shot victory as the Tiger Woods era was dawning. It was only the second time that a winner at the Stadium Course led wire-to-wire (Greg Norman did it in 1994) and Elkington was the lone player reaching double digits under par.

Davis Love III is one of only three players to win THE PLAYERS at Sawgrass twice. (Greenwood/WireImage)

Not that it was a weak field. Hardly. It was the first time in the Official World Ranking's history that everyone in the top 50 responded "present" when the morning roll was called.

The strength of THE PLAYERS' field has never wavered since the tournament moved to Sawgrass in 1982, consistently ranking as the deepest anywhere on the planet.

The four major championships make concessions to a more intimate field (Masters) or outside qualifiers (the U.S. and British Opens) or members of the conducting organization (club professionals in the PGA Championship).

But just making it into THE PLAYERS is a feat unto itself -- and a simultaneous glove-across-the-face challenge. Sawgrass is not for the faint of heart, which is why it crowns so many players destined for the World Golf Hall of Fame just down I-95.

As Jack Burke Jr., Elkington's teacher, noted in 1997: "An experienced player creates things."

This isn't a tournament you win three or four of in a career. Sure, Jack Nicklaus won it three times in the pre-Sawgrass days. But since 1982 only three men have won it twice, thanks to a combination of accuracy, tenacity and serenity: Fred Couples, Davis Love III and Hal Sutton. Those three and nearly a dozen other past champs have majors to their credit, a pedigree few events outside the majors themselves can match.

The first was Jerry Pate, the 1976 U.S. Open champion at Atlanta Athletic Club, who tamed the wilderness and a brutally difficult Pete Dye creation and then threw both Dye and Commissioner Deane Beman into the lake beside the 18th. Pate had taken a leap into water the previous summer after winning the Memphis Classic, his first title in two years.

Somehow that belly flop didn't play the same on the smaller stage.

Pate won by two strokes. Anywhere else, two strokes is a nail-biter. At Sawgrass it's close to riding a float in the Rose Bowl parade. Eleven winners have escaped on a margin of one stroke and Sandy Lyle took the only playoff. After 72 holes, one or two more seem almost inhumane. But it's largely unnecessary.

What it comes down to is someone blinks. And someone else doesn't.

Take 1986. Larry Mize led by four shots standing on the 11th tee Sunday. Only one man was within sight: John Mahaffey, well back in the rear-view mirror. Mize then managed to bogey four of the last five holes.

John Cook. Drove into the water at the 18th in 1983, giving Sutton the wiggle room he needed.

Jack Nicklaus shot a final-round 78 in 1989 and, like a bunch of guys who started within arm's reach of the leader that last day, couldn't top Tom Kite's coronation 71.

Heck, even Woods made a costly bogey at the 12th in 2000's final round and couldn't dash fast enough over the remaining territory to catch Sutton, doing a superb Rock of Gibraltar impersonation.

Dye knew what he was doing by introducing so much water around this course, especially at the last three holes -- the last four full swings of the club.

Sand, trees, rolling terrain and the densest grass provide only so many roadblocks to the exponentially competitive and talented. Water? It's the ultimate penalty on the scorecard and within the psyche.

Perhaps that's Sawgrass' ultimate contribution to the game. It's impossible to play here, year after year, and not bear some scars. It's not just the 17th's island green, surrounded by sirens lapping at the bulkheads. So exacting is the test, so daunting is the list of past champions, that you don't fluke your way into this one.

Sutton summed it up best in 2000. All week he'd jutted his chin out and said he wasn't afraid of going toe-to-toe with Woods, who had won eight times the previous year (including the PGA) and three times already that season.

Sutton was no slouch. He'd inspired his U.S. teammates by winning 3 ½ points in the previous year's Ryder Cup and had won THE TOUR Championship in 1998. His final-round 71 matched Woods, the other guy in the final group, stride for stride. And he surmounted everything the Stadium Course threw his way.

"To win on this golf course," Sutton said after collecting the trophy, "you have to overcome nerves. You have to show courage."

It's a test only the best in the game can pass.