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Cameron Young seized the biggest win of his life at the Players Championship. Getty Images After six Players Championships and a whole bunch of other Sunday afternoons at golf’s biggest events, I’ve developed an entirely unscientific theory about TPC Sawgrass’ famed Island Green 17th. If you’re in the hunt late on Sunday and you fire for the flagstick side of the tucked Sunday pin placement, good things happen.

Cameron Young’s performance throughout the famed closing stretch at the Players Championship on Sunday deserves plaudits — he made pars on 16 while plugged in a bunker from 50 yards out and on 18 after hitting the longest drive in that hole’s history — but it was his tee shot in the 17th that I thought revealed the most about him. With Young’s tournament hopes hanging on a birdie on the hole, he stepped to the most terrifying tee shot at Sawgrass and delivered a seed straight at the flagstick. He was rewarded with a 10-footer for birdie that he drained, sending the crowd into a tizzy and tilting the balance of the tournament in his direction.

The thrust of my theory around the 17th has less to do with strategy than it does with gumption, and it can be distilled into the following sentence: You can’t bother playing TPC Sawgrass smartly. If you want to win on Sunday, you need: 1. birdies 2.

risk tolerance and 3. guts. The kind of golfers who thrive in that kind of environment are the ones who view the course and the tournament not as something to be feared but as something to be challenged.