A new twist for Plotts: Creator Classic

The Wednesday afternoon maintenance round before a professional tournament is somewhat sacred to a superintendent. It’s the last look at the course in full daylight before the players go off early in the morning. Fix divots, spot-water dry spots, mow. One last real good check before showtime.

Sure, Matt Kuchar might be pulling up late on No. 15 while the sun is getting low — like he did yesterday at TPC Sawgrass, host course of The Players Championship — but for the most part, the course is deserted. And, if they need to, the crew can work around Kuch.

But how about adding an 8-hole mini-tournament to the tee sheet that goes off on No. 10 at 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon?

That’s what happened on Wednesday afternoon at the 2025 Players Championship. In a typical year, Jeff Plotts, director of golf course maintenance, TPC Sawgrass, would be preparing for players like back-to-back champion Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele. But in a new twist for Plotts and his crew, he was adjusting for the Creator Classic, a 10-person tournament filled with YouTube golfers.

“You’d think they’d want us to prepare for the best players in the world the day before the tournament,” one member of the crew was overheard saying, “but it’s someone’s great idea to instead prepare for YouTubers.”

Plan accordingly

While Olympic golfer Victor Perez — a 6’6” Frenchman ranked No. 96 in the world — was somewhere readying for his Thursday tee time, YouTube megastar Fat Perez, “the most comfortable man in golf,” was on the No. 10 tee.

It was a solid in-person crowd who watched the Wednesday afternoon 10-player-field. YouTube live-streamed Creators Classic, the first of three of these tournaments. The broadcast received nearly 700k views in the first 12 hours. Social media stars like eventual winner Grant Horvat (@GrantHorvatGolfs on YouTube), Trent Ryan of Barstool Sports and Kyle Berkshire, world long drive champion, played in the tournament.

For the maintenance team, they adjusted by heading directly to hole 16 to get ahead of the tournament. A massive crew quickly fly-mowed the bunker, raked up pine straw and fixed divots.

“We’re kind of adjusting our planning accordingly for that,” Lucas Andrews, assistant director of golf course operations, told the crew and encouraged them to work as efficiently as possible.

All’s well that ends well for the TPC Sawgrass crew. Maintenance was performed mostly as normal, and aside from one massive chunk take by @BarstoolTrent, no one could tell the Creators Classic was ever here by Thursday morning.

All of our coverage from the 2025 Players Championship is brought to you by Quali-Pro.