The 17th hole of the Stadium course at Sawgrass, that pesky island par-three so adored by the baying ghouls in the galleries who whoop and holler as countless balls gurgle their last in a watery grave, has always caused something of splash.

Short and full of mischief, it's the golfing equivalent of wee Jimmy Krankie and it will be in the spotlight this week as The Players' Championship – the so-called "fifth major" – gets underway at Ponte Vedra in Florida tomorrow.

Course architect Pete Dye's tricky, treacherous 137-yarder, which is surrounded by the water and has a sloping green some 70 feet long with a bunker dug in at its front, has the ability to turn even the most hardened competitors into quivering wrecks.

Even those who hold their nerve and manage to plonk their tee-shot on to the putting surface are not clear from danger. In the 1998 championship, Steve Lowery found the safety of the green but watched on as a seagull gobbled up his ball, flapped off into the sky and dropped it in the lake. It wasn't the kind of birdie he was looking for.

A quarter of a century ago, it was Scotland's very own Sandy Lyle who took flight at Sawgrass. His victory in that year's championship, which was still called the Tournament Players' Championship then, was a pioneering moment.

The celebrated Scot, who won the Open at Sandwich two years earlier and would go on to plunder the Masters in 1988, ended the US stranglehold of the PGA Tour's flagship event as he became its first overseas winner. Since then, the invaders have prospered. Last year, Korea's KJ Choi became the fourth successive non-US champion while only Phil Mickelson, Fred Funk and Davis Love III have managed to throw a star spangled spanner into the works over the past decade.

It was Lyle who would help to tee-off this profitable spell with that memorable triumph of 1987. While he laughed in the face of the menace posed by the Sawgrass 17th – he birdied it twice and parred it twice during the four rounds that week – the famous island green would play a significant part in his triumph.

Having finished in a tie at the top of the leaderboard with Jeff Sluman on 14-under, the sparring duo went on to fight it out in a play-off. It was Sluman who had the chance to land the decisive blow with a birdie opportunity on 17. What followed is still recalled vividly by Lyle.

"It was starting to get dark and Jeff hit a nice shot to about six to eight feet with about a foot and a half of break to the putt, it wasn't a pushover," said the Scot.

"I had made a solid par and it was really up to Jeff to make the putt if he wanted to win the tournament right there. Just as he was getting prepared to hit the putt, a local jumped in the water which created a bit of havoc and I think he was whisked off quite quickly. Sluman sort of withdrew from his putt and then went back down to it again, and then as we know, he missed the putt. He might have missed it anyway, we'll never know but it was a distraction. I'm not sure what spurred the fan to jump in the water right at that time."

Lyle was certainly spurred on. In the rapidly fading light, he launched a five-iron to the back of the 18th green and got up-and-down for par while Sluman, in a similar position, stumbled to a bogey. The glory belonged to the Scot.

"I can remember trying to hit my second shot into virtual darkness and I couldn't really see the green or even the flag," he added. "It was probably the most horrendous feeling of doubt in my mind, of not knowing where the ball's going with a 5-iron in my hand. People always think that bunker shot at the 72nd hole at Augusta was my toughest moment. But the one that really gave me the heebie-jeebies was the third extra hole to win the Players'."

This week, Lyle, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame at St Augustine in Florida on Monday night, will take a back seat and watch the action unfold over the Sawgrass estate where he has his American base.

With its colossal purse of $9.5m, The Players' Championship, which has been played at the Stadium course since 1982, is the richest in the game and boasts one of the strongest fields of the year.

From its inception in 1974, when Jack Nicklaus won the inaugural staging, some of the golfing greats have triumphed. The moniker, "the fifth major" is fully justified, but that official status remains some way off. The absence this year, for instance, of Open champion Darren Clarke, last season's Masters winner Charl Schwartzel and Bubba Watson, the latest player to slip on the Green Jacket, lends telling emphasis to the old belief that majors don't just happen, they evolve.

As Lyle remarked, when asked at the time of his 1987 triumph what the difference was between it and the Open . . . "about 150 years."