The Players Championship

[BASHERBAKER69]

this debate always comes up.

Should we regard The Players as a major or not?....theres not much hype surrounding this tournament at the moment but im looking forward to seeing it- my money is on Phil M at the moment although i would like to think that Casey or Poulter might clinch it.

Rank of Major importance, in my view:

British Open (10/10 rating)
US Open (9/10)
The Masters (8.8/10)
PGA Championship (6.5/10)

The Players Championship (6.4/10)

So really, im saying that The Players is a very important tournament and could be considered a 'Major'. Its o a tough course and all the best players are there.

[Undr Par]

it may not be a Major but it's highly regarded by the Players to win this Tourney.......heard yesterday on the PGA channel on XMradio where Garcia stated how all the players want to win it.....and how's it's the their tourney.......

[Big_M]

Rank of Major importance, in my view:

How surprising that an English chap like yourself would view the Open as the most important major. I don't think any ONE is necessarily better, they are all different, which is great. I would say all 4 majors get a 10 and the players might get an 8.5 while other big tournaments WGC's, playoffs, Memorial, etc. might get a 7.5 or so... Fall series a -1.

It is definately NOT a major (there are 4, and it should stay that way). It IS the biggest tournament outside the majors, unless you consider the 10mill that the FedEx cup is worth to take precedent.

[BASHERBAKER69]

I don't think that anyone cares about the FedEx Cup- it is a gimmick in my view. The top players have enough money anyway and i don't think that an extra $10mn means anything to them, just more money.

[Shindig]

The 15 most important individual golf tournaments to me, as a fan:

1. Majors
2. WGCs
3. The Memorial as well as the Palmer and Woods invitationals
4. The Tour Championship
5. The Players
6. The rest of the FedEx Cup playoffs

It's not a major, but ever since I started following golf, I've made it a point to watch at least one day of the Players.

[Cizzle]

It's like the Cotton Bowl. It is like the 5th major, but will never be considered one of the 4.

[Left Is Right]

A lot of people refer to it as a "Minor" "Major"

[JaY_B]

How surprising that an English chap like yourself would view the Open as the most important major

Why say a thing like that? are you of the opinion of "How dare he possibly think an English event would EVER be more important than an American event"

[Lefty731PM]

How surprising that an English chap like yourself would view the Open as the most important major. I don't think any ONE is necessarily better, they are all different, which is great. I

There would not be a single professional who would rate the PGA as being the equal of the other three majors. they may say this and that if that was their one major, but how many PNTHWAM would nominate it as the one they would like to win?

There are many who rate the British Open as being more prestigious than both the Masters and the U.S. Open. No players rate The Players as "the 5th Major" certainly none who have won one of the four which ARE majors. The fact that The Players would be the win of choice outside the big four for virtually every player does not make it a major. Nicklaus and Woods rate the U.S. Amateur above it. As for Nicklaus' tournament and that of Palmer. I don't believe so. Witness the quality field in Byron Nelson's tournament. Adam Scott was the only player in the top 10 there and he wasn't even going to play until the last moment. Call it scheduling if you like, but clearly the Wachovia ranks higher in the minds of the players themselves. Does anyone know how many top 10 players played in the Byron Nelson in the last few years when he was actually there? Hmmmm - food for thought, if you know what I mean.

[Lefty731PM]

A lot of people refer to it as a "Minor" "Major"

Who does? It's a very prestigious tournament with an extremely high quality field which carries a 5 year (I think, unless it's 10) exemption. That is enough. It doesn't need some meaningless nickname. The fact that everyone rates it as perhaps the fifth most important tournament does not make it a "minor major" and I've certainly never heard that term before.

[AmenCorner]

Isn't this the reason they moved the Players from March to May? I thought they moved it in between the Masters and the U.S. Open to fall in line more with the majors.

It is my personal belief that the Players borders on the importance of the PGA in terms of its significance. Of course the PGA is officially a major and hard to believe they will ever change that. Especially since Tennis has 4 majors as well, it just seems to me that is an acceptable number in sports for majors. Don't the LPGA and Champion's Tour have the same number of majors? If they want the Players to be in, they would have to make it 5, or drop the PGA which seems highly unlikely.

[iacas]

Don't the LPGA and Champion's Tour have the same number of majors?

Champions Tour has five.

I've outlined reasons why I think the Players is not a major before already .

[Elsfan]

Whatever. I couldn't care if it is or is not considered a major. All I know is on Sunday if two great players are battling coming down the back 9 it will be as enjoyable as any golf tourney gets on TV. Just because it was called the Masters, doesn't make it a great tourney, as we learned this year. It was a snoozefest. The Players has the potential and probability to be better. That is all that is important to me as someone who enjoys watching golf.

[AmenCorner]

Whatever. I couldn't care if it is or is not considered a major. All I know is on Sunday if two great players are battling coming down the back 9 it will be as enjoyable as any golf tourney gets on TV. Just because it was called the Masters, doesn't make it a great tourney, as we learned this year. It was a snoozefest. The Players has the potential and probability to be better. That is all that is important to me as someone who enjoys watching golf.

Interesting, so you are correlating the greatness of a tournament by how close the players are during the back nine? Of course we all like to see a close match, but relating that to the actual greatness of a tournament makes no sense. Close matches are basically an arbitrary event. Heck, I remember Greg Norman beating everyone at the Players by like 12 shots one year. 96?

[Big_M]

Why say a thing like that? are you of the opinion of "How dare he possibly think an English event would EVER be more important than an American event"

if you've ever read my other posts where people try to do stupid things like compare the Nationwide and Euro tour... then you would KNOW I give plenty of credit to European players, events, etc. I was mostly just making a little joke... all the Majors mean different things to different players, so I think it is real difficult to put a prestige label on them. For many of the Europeans winning the Open has the greatest significance. I think the same is true for the Masters in relation to many American and non-European players. My point is... growing up in Europe, it's no surprise he would say the Open, just like most Americans will probably say the Masters... I think you might be a little over sensative about the whole thing. Also, if you read my response you would see that I didn't say the Open should be an 8 and the others a 10... NO, I said they all are equal in my eyes.

There would not be a single professional who would rate the PGA as being the equal of the other three majors. they may say this and that if that was their one major, but how many PNTHWAM would nominate it as the one they would like to win?

OK... as I said above the Masters and Open probably have the most significance in the player's eyes for various reasons. However, I feel that to say one carrys more prestige than the others is kind of insignificant since they likely all mean different things to different people. I have always felt that the 4 majors are basically on the same level, you have to beat the best players in the world on some truly great golf courses. This is just my opinion... if someone wants to view one major as more important, then that's fine with me... you just won't convince me with such semantics.

[Elsfan]

Interesting, so you are correlating the greatness of a tournament by how close the players are during the back nine? Of course we all like to see a close match, but relating that to the actual greatness of a tournament makes no sense. Close matches are basically an arbitrary event. Heck, I remember Greg Norman beating everyone at the Players by like 12 shots one year. 96?

Do we all wish for greatness in official major events. Absolutely. Unfortunately that is not the norm. When it does happen it becomes more special then any regular season event could. However just because an event is a major does not automatically make it better then all other tournaments. As a fan of sports, not just golf I look for more then tradition to make me interested. That is why you have 1 good superbowl out of 10, 1 good World Series out of 10 and so on. All I know is the Players is a great event, on a great course, and I hope for a great ending. I am not saying the event itself is better then a major cause it is not, but it has the ability to be better then some Masters.

[Shindig]

There would not be a single professional who would rate the PGA as being the equal of the other three majors. they may say this and that if that was their one major, but how many PNTHWAM would nominate it as the one they would like to win?

Arnold Palmer really wanted to win the PGA Championship, not just for completeness of majors. His father was a club pro, and this was a very important major to him.

Despite that it's the only one he didn't win, I doubt Palmer would rate the PGA lower than the other three majors.

[gogolfing]

Major or not, it's a great course and tournament that I always love to watch. Obviously I don't miss the majors, but this is one with a few others that I make sure I see.