Discover Jacksonville 2017

SPORTS
Left: Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver
Marqise Lee (11) high fives fans after the
Jacksonville Jaguars played the Green
Bay Packers at EverBank Field on Sunday,
September 11, 2016. (Will Dickey/Florida
Times-Union)
Let the games begin
With football, golf, soccer, basketball
and more — there’s plenty to cheer for.
At the heart of Jacksonville's sports
atmosphere is the National
Football League's Jacksonville
Jaguars, the city's first franchise in
one of the traditional major leagues of
American sports. In their 22nd season
of competition, the Jaguars were
founded on Nov. 30, 1993, and play their
games at EverBank Field in downtown
Jacksonville. The team is part of the AFC
South divison.
The Jaguars' most success occurred
the 1996 and 1999 seasons, when
the franchise reached the AFC
Championship game. Since then, they
have also made playoff appearances in
2007 and 2008, although the team has
struggled since. In 2016, head coach
Gus Bradley and general manager Dave
Caldwell entered the fourth year of their
plan to return the Jaguars to contention
and end the team's playoff drought.
The 2016 team started its preparation
for the year by drafting former Florida
State cornerback Jalen Ramsey with
the fifth overall pick, followed by the
selection of linebacker Myles Jack of
UCLA. With 2015 first-rounder Dante
Fowler also recovered from a knee injury
that cost him the entire 2015 season,
and free agent Malik Jackson arriving
from the Super Bowl 50 champion
Denver Broncos, the Jaguars expected to
have the pieces in place for a defensive
upgrade.
The most widely attended sporting
event in the Jacksonville area each year
is THE PLAYERS Championship, held
at the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course in
Ponte Vedra Beach. Often called golf's
"fifth major" by fans, the tournament
regularly attracts a field considered the
deepest and strongest in professional
golf, all gathering to negotiate challenges
like the Island Green at the 17th hole on
the Pete Dye-designed course in pursuit
of the richest purse on the PGA Tour.
THE PLAYERS also draws enormous
crowds. In recent years, that has meant
a combined attendance of more than
180,000 during the course of the four-day
competition.
The 2016 tournament featured a
wire-to-wire victory by defending PGA
Championship-winner Jason Day of
Australia. Day, who held first place in
the World Golf Ranking at the time, led
all four rounds to finish at 15-under,
four strokes ahead of American Kevin
Chappell. He joined a list of winners at
THE PLAYERS that also includes golf
legends Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Phil
Mickelson and Tiger Woods.
The city's oldest professional team
is the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp,
founded in 1962 as the Jacksonville Suns.
The club competes in the Double-A
Southern League, two steps below Major
League Baseball, and is affiliated with
the Miami Marlins. Its home has been
the Baseball Grounds in downtown
Jacksonville, one block west of EverBank
Field, since the ballpark's completion
for the 2003 season. Over the years, the
team has fielded hundreds of future
MLB players, including Hall of Fame
pitcher Randy Johnson, 14-time All-Star
infielder Alex Rodriguez and current
Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton.
Following a 2016 campaign in which the
team missed out on the postseason, the
franchise launched a major rebranding
to the Jumbo Shrimp in November. The
team said the new name is designed to
celebrate Jacksonville amid the water
that is the natural geography of the River
City.
The Jaguars aren't the only football
team in town. In the indoor game, the
Jacksonville Sharks compete in arena
football, playing their games at the
Veterans Memorial Arena. Founded
110 | 2017 DISCOVER JACKSONVILLE