Majors Format

I learned a little more about how the Majors go down last summer and one thing that immediately occurred to me is how the format seems to be completely backwards from what would be the most fun to watch.  As I understand it they play these tournaments on a small circuit (or maybe even the same course year after year) of courses and many of the players have played them multiple times and are extremely familiar with them.

This seems lame to me.  What I would like to see are majors being held on courses that NONE of the players have played before and wouldn't be allowed to play until the first day of the tournament.  I think this would be completely epic and show which players are best able to adapt and win, and ultimately show who the overall best player in the world is.

I understand there might be some logistics problems with tracking who has played where and finding new courses to play every year but honestly I think there are enough quality clubs (plus whatever courses are currently being built) around the country to make this happen.  Anyway, I'm curious to see what other players think of the idea.  Wouldn't you be more entertained watching these guys roll into a course they haven't already mapped every square inch of?  Wouldn't it continually level the playing field instead of always favoring veteran players?

As a PGA player I think this would help keep the game fresh and exciting for me but who knows... maybe they enjoy grinding the same boring thing year after year.  Anyway, what do you think?

I like them the way they are.

The Masters is played on the same course every year. Still, it remains the favorite of many, both player and spectator. The course has been changed some over the years largely because of longer tee balls, but even with no changes from year to year it can be a different course because of weather conditions. The Masters is an invitational tournament; there is no qualifying per se other than the stature of the golfer.

The U.S. Open is run by the USGA, and while it has a core rota, new courses are added and old ones are sometimes dropped. If you believe what the USGA says, and mostly I do, it is designed to be a test of all the skills of a golfer. They sometimes monkey with pars and so forth which some feel is "protecting par". Actually, I think for the past several years they have done a good job. I don't feel they are "protecting par", but defining par in that this is the number of shots an expert would take to complete this hole.

The British Open, or THE Open in other parts of the world, is what it is. They monkey with the courses less, although they have lengthened some holes. The course is there and what you see is what you get. The rough is the rough, the natural bounces are there. They also have a core rota, but it does change.

The PGA is the championship of professional golfers, including club pros who are able to qualify. It has its own character, similar in some respects to the U.S. Open, but different.

So we have four majors, each with somewhat unique characteristics. Usually someone who wins more than one, and especially more than one different one, winds up being someone who has a pretty good career.

Finding a course that none of the players have ever played would be pretty tough, and I would think it would not be a top tier course. These guys have played for years, hell decades; they have individually played hundreds, if not thousands of courses.

I'm not sure what it would prove, after playing the first round then they would have seen the course. And then you would never have the history related to courses being played.

Cream rises to the top, I don't think it would change much.

You just figured out how something that as existed for decades works and immediately you want to change it?

I think if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

OTOH I watched a cricket match the other night and finally figured out how the rules work and I have a long list of changes they should make so it would be more fun to watch.

This sport isn't played on a particular court like football or basketball, in fact, the huge variety of courses is one of the things that makes it interesting imo.  Playing the exact same course year after year seems strangely contrary to that.  I'm not necessarily saying it's broke the way it is but I think tournaments would be much, much more entertaining to watch if they were played the way I described.

First of all, only the Masters plays the same course every year.  And it is regularly one of the most entertaining and watched events.

But the real problem is that you want to make majors different than every other event they play.  Learning how to play a course is an important part of golf skill.  Nicklaus and Woods were renowned for their course management.  Yet you want to eliminate it from your "entertaining" major by not letting the players even see the course before having to play it.  Why in the world would you want to eliminate an important skill like course management?

It smacks a little of those who always want to make the finals in the Fedex Cup a match play match or otherwise introduce match play into the Fedex Cup.

It is a major, not a novelty event.