Players Championship opens Thursday

Golf's elite gather Thursday for The Players Championship, the most significant tournament in the world outside the sport's four major events. With golf having been given a boost last week by a popular young player's first PGA Tour victory, the game's s familiar names will compete for a top prize of $1.7 million out of a total purse of $9.5 million. The No. 1 spot in the world rankings will again be on the line, K.J. Choi will be trying to win the tournament for the second year in a row and Tiger Woods will hope to provide further evidence that his career is truly back on track. It all begins at 7:15 a.m. EDT Thursday, when John Mallinger hits the first ball at the TPC-Sawgrass course. All but three of the top 30 players in the world will be on hand this week. Fourth-ranked Bubba Watson decided to skip the event to be with his wife and newly adopted son after a hectic month following his victory at the Masters. Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood, ranked first, second and third, will keep their battle for the No. 1 spot going. McIlroy jumped back on top last week, when he lost in a playoff at the Wells Fargo Championship in North Carolina. The player who defeated McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, will also be in the spotlight this week after the clutch Wells Fargo victory that propelled him from 39th to 24th in the world rankings. Hunter Mahan, the only two-time tour winner this year, will join with New Orleans champ Jason Dufner, Steve Stricker, Webb Simpson and Phil Mickelson to create potential interest. And then there is Woods, having climbed to seventh in the rankings, thanks to his victory last month at the Arnold Palmer Invitation. It was his first win in the United States since 2009. Woods was never a factor at the Masters and missed the cut last week while Fowler was putting together his victory. Questions remain, therefore, as to how close Woods really is to being the player who dominated the sport for more than a decade. Woods will be paired with Fowler and Mahan for the first two rounds and they will start play Thursday from the 10th tee at 8:39 a.m. EDT McIlroy will play in the company of Stricker and Mickelson beginning on the first tee at 1:49 p.m.