This week, golf fans are getting an earful about “The Players.” They’re hearing what a great course it’s played at, what a great field it has, and how it’s just the teeniest bit shorter in stature than those “other” majors: The Masters, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and the PGA Championship.
This week we’re going to investigate the top five reasons why “The Players” is not (and likely never will be) a major.
Number Five: It’s Just Too New
The Players (errr, Championship) began in Atlanta in 1974. The modern-day version – the one played at the TPC at Sawgrass – began in 1982. The U.S. Open began in 1896. The PGA Championship began in 1916 (and converted to stroke play way back in 1958). The Masters was first played in 1934.
The Players began in the same era as slap bracelets, fluorescent “jams,” Debbie Gibson, and Miami Vice. Heck, it began four years after I was born, and I ain’t that old. For that matter, the tournament is younger than even Tiger Woods.
Number Four: Finchem and Beman are no Bobby Jones, Pete Dye is no Alistair MacKenzie
Do I really need to explain this one? The USGA and the R&A each have their own championships. Earlier in the 1900s, their amateur championships were also considered majors. The Professional Golfers of America created a tournament, and then the greatest amateur golfer of all time created his own tournament, making four majors.
Tim Finchem and Deane Beman (despite the latter actually having been a professional golfer and an accomplished amateur) are no Bobby Jones, and as much as I like playing the occasional Pete Dye course, he’s no Alister MacKenzie. There is no mystical awe to railroad ties, and Tim Finchem’s obituary might read “He was great at riding Tiger’s coat tails.” As much good as Deane Beman did for the PGA Tour, putting him anywhere near Bobby Jones’ level is just silly.
Number Three: A Large Purse does not a Major Make
Tim Finchem, the players, and the ink slingers worldwide routinely comment that The Players has the strongest field in golf. The field is large and there are no 67-year-old former champions, there are no amateurs, and there are no club professionals like we see in other majors.
However, there are a lot of reasons top-ranked players show up for The Players. It could be the $9M purse – the largest official purse in all of golf. It could be the five-year PGA Tour exemption earned by the winner. This year, the winner will also earn the same number of FedExCup points as the winners of the actual majors. On the World Golf Hall of Fame ballots, The Players is listed in bold print alongside those same four majors.
Suffice to say, it’s not the history that’s drawing a strong field – it’s the perks that come with winning (or even finishing T10). While The Masters could probably do away with prize money altogether and still pull the same field, The Players could not.
Number Two: Grand Slam = Four Runs
When Bobby Jones captured his four majors – “the grand slam” (or the “impregnable quadrilateral”) – he set a bar that’s never again been reached as the ultimate achievement. Even Tiger acknowledges that his “Tiger Slam” of 2000-2001 is not the same thing as a true “grand slam.”
Grand slams, of course, produce four runs. A home run with the bases loaded doesn’t increase a team’s score by five. Or, put another way, courtesy of Jeff Sluman circa 2003: “When you go to Denny’s and order the Grand Slam breakfast, they don’t give you five things, do they?”
Number One: It Can be Fifth Best without Being a Major
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with hosting a top-tier Tour event. Though Finchem and his PGA Tour cronies act coy when asked if they see The Players as a “fifth major,” it’s well understood that if they could simply declare it a major, they would. They’ve all but done so in allotting FedExCup points, awarding massive prize money, and pushing the whole “platform” as hard as possible.
As it is, The Players fails one of the most crucial tests of true major championship golf: that something is widely accepted as being a major without having been rammed down the throats of fans, golfers, and the media. The Players – and even the name attempts to peddle on the fame of “The masters” – is a top-tier tournament, but it ain’t a major. Finchem and company should be content with that.
You are right on. Those other things, amateurs, club pros, the mystique of a legendary founder or course, these things intrique viewers and maybe in a tiny corner of our mind allow us to delude ourselves into imagining ourselves there. 🙄
I agree. It’s very nice that Mr. Finchem and his minions want to create a top-level event for players who are, after all, their employers. But all the self-aggrandizing prize money and points and corporate speak/spin can’t change the fact I remember far less about past Players (Championships) than any of the true majors. The course and the kind of play it engenders just don’t make that much of an impact on me. Heck, I remember more Memorial tournaments that Players.
And any memories I retain from this year’s debacle hopefully won’t last long because watching 50 balls a day land in water on 17 and perhaps as many finish on top of a drain next to a green seems more fodder for a joke than a savored remembrance.
Just like that monster of a clubhouse they built, the event is over-blown, over-done, over-hyped, over-rich, and over-gimmicky (Kenny G to entertain the winner Sunday night? Come on…). It’s just a tacky display of excess all the way around and has nothing to do with the game’s heritage, history, or enduring legacy. Nor maybe will it ever.
I hereby nominate Jack’s comment as Number Zero on the list. 🙂
Here’s “Number Negative One”: The 17th. The hole is as contrived as “The Players” itself. It’s carnival golf, and it’s missing only the windmill and the clown’s mouth. Tiger called it gimmicky – I call it just plain dumb. Though I loved watching Rory Sabbatini make 7 as much as the next guy, nobody can give a good reason why his tee shot found the water yet many far worse shots landed safely top-right. Cink even holed one for birdie. 😛
The Players Championship is a major:
1. Best Quality full field
2. Major level prize money & exemption award
3. Media focus: extended TV coverage, ample newsprint coverage, buzz, buzz!
4. Media discussion why it is or isn’t a major.
5. Tiger Woods plays in it.
6. Certainly the tricked up 17th green is not a reason to discount major status; witness the tricked up greens of the short field Masters.
7. The counting of Majors changes over the years (ex. US Amateur, British Amateur, Western Open)
8. There is sufficient merit to naming the Players a Major.
Oh it must be. George Brooks says so!
See above. Players come for the money. Any field with the top 50 is a great field, and all the majors have that.
This falls under “rammed down our throats.” The PGA Tour controls both of those, and many don’t appreciate the “we just try to put on a good tournament” that comes with the throat-ramming of the above.
Those two are more closely related than you seem to realize. And sorry, but nobody questions whether The Masters is a major.
So… you think we have 15-18 majors? Well heck, if that’s the case, he’s well past Jack Nicklaus’ record!
The greens at Augusta don’t impose a two-stroke penalty for hitting a shot that’s, at times, 95% luck.
And yet, somehow, it’s always been four. The Western was never considered a major. A “big event,” yes, but find me a golfer who has The Western Open on his list of majors, officially.
You can’t list “it is a major” as a reason why something is a major, George! That only works for four tournaments – the majors.
From John Huggan:
Sounds about right to me.
I like John Huggan’s argument. It defintely resonates with me, but even it does not go far enough. Especially now that the PGA Tour has moved the Players to May. It is as if the Tour has calculated that April, June, July, and August have Majors, so then must May. Their own logic for advancing the argument that The Players should be a major argues that there should be a major every month the Tour has an official money event.
Since we have had 4 majors for so long, a fifth major cannot be requested, it must be conveyed upon the event by the entire golf community. Otherwise, a fifth authorizes the slippery slope of a sixth, seventh, and beyond.
Actually, the modern grand slam, consisting of the four recognized majors, isn’t all that old. When Palmer won the Masters and US Open in 1960, then decided to play in the British Open for the first time, sportswriters started to refer to those three and the PGA championship as the four majors that would constitute a Grand Slam. Obviously the PGA wasn’t a major when Jones accomplished his slam, and it’s entirely possible that the PGA might get bumped if any other tournament gets thought of as a major. It’s considered by many, and maybe all, of the pros as the weakest of the four in terms of importance. It and the Masters are majors at the expense of the US and British amateurs, so why not the Players becoming one at the expense of the PGA? None of this is etched in stone.
As for the Mackenzie/Jones and Finchem/Beman/Dye comparison, I’m lost. The Masters isn’t what it is because of the course, it’s a major due to Jones’ association with it. And just who is trying to put Beman and Finchem at Jones’ level, and in what context? How do their paths cross? Did Jones have any direct connection with the running of or the growth of the PGA tour? He was a great golfer and was part of a great golf course but he didn’t even make Augusta National what it is, Clifford Roberts did.
I agree with this and would add that if anything would be next in line it would be the US Am due to the Bobby Jones connection. I can’t imagine they would go back and nominate the Players and change Jack’s total to 21. 4 is a grand slam, not five. If that would be the case, then why not the Tour Championship as well?
More on the Players as a Major:
There is nothing sacred about the number 4 as many seem to think. 5 or 6 (Players, Memorial) majors have a nice ring and would reward the quality of the competitive fields rather than sentiment about Bobby Jones.
If Tiger stopped playing in the PGA and focused on the Players it might influence the press and the populace to accept the Players as a Major.
The Players is getting so much attention that those fighting against it have already ackknowledged it as a Major!
Uhm, yes there is. Nicklaus could only win four majors per year. If Tiger suddenly has eight available to him per year, don’t you think he might reach the magical 18 a little more quickly?
It’s been four for about as long as golf has really existed in the U.S. That alone makes the number sacred.
Tiger isn’t going to stop playing in the PGA. It’s a major. This is like saying… actually, I can’t quite think of anything as wacked-out as this… Basically, you’re claiming that something is something because of something that has not and likely will never happen.
Heck, it’s far more likely that Tiger will stop playing in The Players than it is he’ll stop playing in the PGA. He’s won three PGAs, after all.
So it’s a major because it isn’t a major? George, please, put the crack pipe down. You’re not making any sense.
While I agree Pete Dye isn’t Allister, Tilly, or Mr. Ross, his Ocean Course at Kiawah will host the PGA Championship in 2012, already has a Ryder Cup, and the US Senior Open this year. Whistling Straits has the Sr. PGA this year, the 2004 PGA, and the (2010?) PGA. Crooked Stick hosted a PGA. Bulle Rock annually hosts the McDonalds/Coke LPGA Championship…etc.
While I agree that the Players ain’t a major, I can’t agree with this logic that because it’s designed by Pete Dye it shouldn’t qualify as a major.