Why The Players isn’t, and shouldn’t be, one of golf’s majors
Every year, golf’s biggest tournaments arrive with their own set of guaranteed intrigues: cheap food at the Masters, rough play at the US Open, wind and rain at the Open Championship, vicious reviews of the PGA Championship venue.
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For the Players Championship, which begins later this week, each year brings a new crop of “should the Players be of age?” » stories. So that’s it this year – see: the article you’re currently reading – with the notable difference that this time it was the PGA Tour itself that started the conversation.
On February 5, the Tour released one of those promotional spots that highlight both the players and, of course, the players. Throughout the spot, Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas and more celebrated, alongside stunning shots from TPC Sawgrass that hit home in the doldrums of the gray winter. But in the 28th second of the 30-second spot were six key words that took a perpetual conversation to a new speed:
“March is going to be major.”
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It was a deliberate use of one of the few highly provocative words in the golf world. For example, no one says that the winners of the October and November tournaments are the “Autumn Masters”, and we do not use the word “major” about the Players without ulterior motives.
Over the past 60 years, there have been four majors, and only four majors – the Masters, the US Open, the Open Championship and the PGA Championship – and in all that time, only one entity, The Players, has even hinted at wanting to join that elite group.
“I hope you’ve noticed our use of the word that we’ve somewhat avoided over the last 10 years,” Lee Smith, director of The Players, said in February at the tournament’s media day. (We did.) “It’s a signal of the confidence, momentum and offense that’s coming out of our building these days. We’re confident about qualifying for the Players Championship. We wanted to start a conversation.”
So let’s start this conversation.
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How did the majors become, you know, the Majors?
A good question. Golf, like college football, does not have a single central authority, but rather a consortium of interests that generally act in a common interest. (This is less the case with the arrival of LIV Golf, but that’s not the problem.) Whoever has the loudest microphone or the highest podium tends to make the rules… which is why Arnold Palmer and sports journalist Bob Drum decreed in the 1960s that the Masters, PGA Championship, US Open and Open Championship would henceforth be known as the four majors.
The 1960s? But didn’t the Masters only start in 1934?
Correct. The Masters is the youngest, by several decades, of the four majors, codified by Palmer and Drum. There was a time when the Western Open, Canadian Open and US Amateur were all considered “majors”. But Palmer and Drum, naturally, tipped the scales in Arnie’s favor, hence the prestigious but still relatively young Masters got the nod.
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Ultimately, the idea that the Four Majors are the Four Majors has all the legal authority of a World’s Best Dad coffee mug… but the idea carries the weight of tradition, which in golf supersedes the word of the law.
So why shouldn’t the Players be of age?
A few reasons, starting with aesthetics and moving on to practicality. To begin with, five majors is a heavy and unseemly number. The sports world thrives on times of four: four quarters, four home runs, four days in a golf tournament. A major fifth turns everything upside down.
Additionally, the fifth major agreement has already been attempted, and the results have been less than spectacular. The LPGA has five majors: The Chevron, the US Women’s Open, the Women’s PGA Championship, the Amundi Evian Championship and the AIG Women’s Open. Other tournaments have come in and out of the rotation.
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But here’s the key thing: To be credited with a career LPGA grand slam, you don’t have to win all five tournaments, you just need to win four. If the PGA Tour were to make The Players a major with this rule, guess what: Scheffler and Phil Mickelson would instantly become career Grand Slam winners without taking another shot. McIlroy’s spectacular victory at the Masters last April? Not relevant; he would have already been a “grand slam” winner.
And Mickelson’s name evokes another element of rupture against the Players: it cannot be a major tournament if all the best players are not present. This year’s field includes 47 of the world’s top 50 players, but the three who won’t be in Ponte Vedra this week – Patrick Reed, Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm – are all ineligible due to their association with LIV Golf. The four majors have found a way to integrate LIV players in order to strengthen their fields; Would the PGA Tour agree to this for players?
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Oh, and also, The Players refers to itself as THE PLAYERS in all of its public communications. If the tournament is to be considered a major tournament, this annoying little stylistic tic needs to go. If you have to tell people how important you are…
So what’s the problem if The Players doesn’t go major?
Nothing! There is no problem, from a fan perspective, with things as they are now. A notable tournament during the regular season can have just as much daily interest as a renowned tournament. Duke/Carolina, Ohio State/Michigan and the Iron Bowl remain fantastic regular season games, even if they have no material impact on either school’s seasons. Tens of millions of fans will be tuning in to the next Chiefs/Bills or Packers/Bears game, whether it takes place in September or January.
The key issue here is that a player’s career is defined by the number of majors he has won, not the number of PGA Tour events or FedEx Cup playoffs. As long as the key numbers hovering over Jack, Tiger, Rory, and Scottie are 18, 15, 5 and up, and 4 and up, The Players occupies the status of being the best of the rest.
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And that naturally doesn’t sit well with the PGA Tour and Strategic Sports Group, which have invested a billion and a half dollars in the Tour in hopes of a big return. Prestige guarantees money in golf, and there is nothing more prestigious than the major tournaments. It’s one of the oddities of professional golf that the PGA Tour, the dominant force in the game today, doesn’t actually control any of the majors… a situation the PGA Tour would very much like to change.
TPC Sawgrass, home to the annual Players Championship, has one of golf’s most iconic holes: the island green at 17. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
(Jared C. Tilton via Getty Images)
Alright, so The Players is not major right now. But could it replace one of the existing four?
Ah, now we’re talking. Given that the majors were born from the machinations of a player and a journalist, shouldn’t players and journalists also have a say in their future roster? And if that’s the case… well, the PGA Championship should be more than a little concerned.
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The other three majors have aesthetic and narrative bases that are anchored in the foundation of golf. The PGA Championship is the one that most lacks a coherent identity, the one that is most bogged down by controversial venue choices. If we stick to four majors, maybe everyone should justify themselves from time to time. (Why not bring back the hyper-tense match play format that the PGA Championship used during its first 40 years of existence?)
The players seem pretty cool about making The Players a major. “Look, I would love to have seven majors instead of five, that sounds good,” McIlroy joked in February before noting that he is a traditionalist and that The Players “stands on its own without a label.” Earlier this week, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka dodged the question. Mickelson had a five-word answer for whether he thought The Players was major:
This is surely not a response influenced by his ongoing blood feud with the PGA Tour.
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The Players could one day come of age. But it won’t happen overnight, and it certainly won’t happen just because the PGA Tour wants it to. Like all the best Sunday rounds, no matter the tournament, it’s a long road from the first tee to the trophy, and there are many obstacles along the way.
