Welcome to the biggest non-major of the rest of 2018 this week at the Players Championship. A completely loaded field (more on this momentarily) will tee it up at one of the most recognizable courses in the world to see who grabs the second-most important event of the season thus far.

There are gobs of storylines this week with stars and superstars all over the board, but I picked nine to focus in on as the PGA Tour's premiere event gets going on Thursday.

1. Tiger Woods returns: A two-time winner of this event, Tiger will tee it up for the first time since 2015 at TPC Sawgrass. The good news for him, despite a T54 finish at the Wells Fargo Championship, is that he finished in the top eight in strokes gained tee to green, which is paramount at Sawgrass. "I hit the ball great [when I won twice there]," said Woods on Sunday. "That's a golf course you can't fake it around there and you have to hit the ball well. The putts are very simple there if you hit the ball in the correct spots. If you're hitting it well, it seems like that golf course is pretty easy, you're always funneling the golf ball in there. But if you're not hitting it well, man, you're in some tough spots."

2. Top 50 shine: Every single player from the Official World Golf Rankings top 50 will be in the field this week. All of them. This might not seem unusual, but it is. Normally, at least one player is injured or unable to attend or something happens to disrupt this from happening. This year, though, this year we get a clean test of who the best golfer in the world this week is in possibly the most difficult tournament on the planet to win.

3. Rory McIlroy's quest: August isn't the only puzzle McIlroy hasn't solved. McIlroy has multiple top 10s on this course, but his final position on the leaderboard has gotten progressively worse every year since 2014. Still, he said his affinity for the placed has been in inverse relationship to his finishes. "I've learned to love it," said McIlroy this week. "I hated it the first. I felt like it handcuffed me. I felt like I was just being stubborn and ... trying to hit driver where there's no point in hitting driver. So I've learned to take it for what it is, very positional golf course. You've just got to plot your way around, and pars aren't so bad around there most of the time. Just got to get yourself in the right frame of mind to go out and do that."

4. All the No. 1s: This time next week, the No. 1 player in the world could be Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth or Justin Rose. Good luck figuring out those permutations (hopefully Bryson DeChambeau brings his TI-83).

5. Jason Day is hot: The Australian is coming off a big win at Quail Hollow and took this tournament in 2016. Day likely won't be the favorite come Thursday morning, but I'm at least concerned if I'm going against him this week that he just won a tournament in which he could not find the planet in the final round and still shot a 2-under 69 for the victory. Very concerned.

6. About that 17th hole: I'm sorry, but it's overrated. However, it's almost become so overrated that it's now underrated. Like, it's so hyped and so many people are out on it, that I kind of want to double back and be in on it. Regardless of where or how it is rated, come Sunday afternoon somebody with a one-shot lead is going to get woozy during that walk from the 16th green to the 17th tee box.

7. Wild finishes ahead: According to the PGA Tour, only two winners in the last 11 Players Championships have led after 54 holes. The course is so demanding and so quirky that it can eject you in a hurry on a Sunday with a little heat applied. Martin Kaymer (2014) and Jason Day (2016) were able to withstand the pressure, but I certainly wouldn't take a third-round leader to the bank this time around.

8. Monster groups set: Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler headline one of the featured groups, and Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy the other. There will certainly be other big trios, but none will be bigger than those two. "I do enjoy [being paired with Phil] because we don't get to do it very often," said Woods. "We are normally paired up on the weekend if we are both playing well, and even that's a rarity. We've been going at it for the better part of over 20 years and it's fun for both of us to be able to do that."

9. Jordan Spieth can roll: Of the top 15 players in the world, the only one who doesn't have a win somewhere worldwide since last year's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational is Spieth. His history here has been wonky. He nearly won it in 2014, but he's now missed his last three cuts. It certainly feels like we're going to hear from him sometime soon, and maybe this is the week he raises PGA Tour trophy No. 12.