THE official publicity for this week’s Players Championship includes a video in which a voice pretends to be that of the notorious 17th hole. To the strains of the theme from Six Feet Under, it booms out like the trailer to a Hollywood blockbuster. “You have skills, a lifetime of swings,” it says to the field. “I just have water . . . everywhere. That’s a lot of tears, a sea of intimidation. Thirsty?”

As if it needed the hype. The great and the good of world golf, save for the injured Tiger Woods, will tee it up in Jacksonville, Florida, on Thursday for the so-called fifth major, about which nothing will attract more attention than the penultimate hole at Sawgrass. One of the world’s most famous par threes, with its 137-yard tee shot to an island green, has become the dramatic focus of the PGA Tour’s flagship event, the point at which a catalogue of unsuspecting souls have been consigned to watery graves.

Only last year, when Phil Mickelson made off with the title, the list of victims reached what might be described as new depths. A record 94 balls sunk without trace during the 2007 Players, 50 of them on the first day. In the final round, Sean O’Hair was just two off the lead when he left the 16th green. After finding water from the 17th tee and drop zone, he plunged from contention. “It sucks,” he said. “Imagine working your rear off for 70 holes, and all of a sudden, it’s taken away from you.”

You think that’s bad? Spare a thought for Angelo Spagnolo, a 31-year-old Pennsylvania grocer, who entered the 1985 “America’s Worst Avid Golfer” contest. By the time he had hit his 27th ball in the water at 17, officials told him to putt round the cart path. His 63-overpar 66 contributed to a round of 257, after which the said path was dubbed Angelo’s Alley.

The 17th’s worst score in The Players was carded by Bob Tway in 2005. Four off the lead when he stood on the tee, he hit his first and second balls over the back of the green, let his third and fourth spin off the front, and three-putted for a dirty dozen. “It’s a shame to play that well for that long, and then have that happen,” he said.

Woods takes the same view. In last year’s tournament, the world No 1 complained that, if the worst happened on that hole, its position on the card allowed no time to recover. “I have always thought that the hole is a bit too gimmicky for the 17th hole of a major championship. It would be a fantastic eighth hole, but not as the 71st hole of a tournament.”

The purists dismiss it as a TV spectacle, a cheap circus in which the professionals are unduly humiliated, but others are not so precious. Lee Westwood, for instance, offers a reminder that he and his colleagues are in the entertainment business.

“Any hole that makes you nervous when you stand on the tee, has to go down as a good hole,” says the Englishman. “If I was watching the tournament as a spectator, I would go and sit among the galleries there.”

Westwood actually sees its position near the end of the card as its strength. “If it was the third hole on the course, it probably wouldn’t play that difficult,” he says, explaining that the hole’s psychological dimension defines it. Without that, it is nothing more than a nine iron to a generous green.

Westwood first played it in 1998, when Nick Price advised him during a practice round to seek out the mound

on the middle of the putting surface. It is a conservative strategy that has, for the most part, allowed him to avoid disaster. “More can go wrong on the 12th at Augusta,” he says. “But you don’t hear anyone complaining about that. Maybe they are worried they won’t be invited back.”

The devil is in the circumstance: the amphitheatre in which the 17th sits, the point at which it is played and the offer of no margin for error. “It is just the intimidation factor of water all around,” says Westwood. “You have to have your wits about you, total concentration. You cannot let your mind wander. You must be totally committed to the shot.”

Westwood, who tied for fifth at The Players in 1998, and for sixth in 1999, admits he starts thinking about the 17th not long after the turn. Others, such as Mark Calcavecchia, wake up worrying about the prospect. “It’s like having a three o’clock appointment for a root canal,” he said. “You think about it all morning and you feel bad all day. You kind of know sooner or later you’ve got to get it.”

Pete Dye, designer of the Stadium Course, says its signature hole came about by accident. The most useful soil with which to build up what was a swampy Sawgrass site was to be found at the 17th, and after digging out so much of it, his wife suggested an island green. She, then, must be credited with - or should that be blamed for? - what may not the best hole in golf, but is surely the best known.

The Players Championship, Thursday, Setanta Sports 1, 10pm

Hole of horrors: Lee Westwood

‘When you get around to 13 and 14 you are thinking about it, checking the wind to see what it will mean for 17. It’s that kind of hole. There is no margin for error, other than the trap front right. It is probably one of the biggest greens on the course but there is the intimidation factor of water all around. It is never the quietest spot on the course either. You have to have your wits about you’