Martin Kaymer drains one of the clutch putts of the season to win the Players Championship

The 17th at TPC Sawgrass is meant to be evil. Sitting out there just 130 or so yards, it’s a fairly easy shot if you get past the fact that any miss means doom. When you’re playing for the biggest check in golf, and a career achievement, the hole looks like someone is joking with you.

That’s why the tee shot of Martin Kaymer on the 17th as he barely held on to a one-shot lead was so mystifying. The shot wasn’t lucky or unlucky, good or bad, it was just, the one place on that green where you’re really leaving it up to a favorable bounce if you want to walk away with a par.

Kaymer’s bounced, spun, rolled and nearly went in the hazard he already cleared, but the ball stayed up, and there was life in the young man again. That was where the man that finally sunk the Americans at the 2012 Ryder Cup pulled off his usual antics when it’s a life-changing putt, burying a 30-footer for a par and that all-important one-shot lead.

The 29-year-old went on to make a great par on the 18th, and lock up his first PGA Tour win since 2011.

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Kaymer is now part of an elite club of men that include Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson that have won a major championship, a WGC event and the Players, and he a career that once seemed lost is now very much on the rise.

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Shane Bacon is the editor of Devil Ball Golf and Busted Racquet on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shanebaconblogs@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter at @ShaneBacon!