Trending around the Internet - is the PGA "easiest" to win?

[nevets88]

This was a topic in a couple of places recently. Some of reasoning is the PGA is most "like" a regular season event. 

I'm thinking it's about the same but that's just a guess without looking at the numbers. You have your Rich Beems sure but you have your Todd Hamiltons and Campbells and Weirs. It does look like the Masters has the strongest group of winners though.

Thoughts?

[DaveP043]

To me, "easy to win" has to be based more on the quality of the field than on the set-up of the golf course.  I haven't done the research to say for sure, but I remember hearing that the PGA often has one of the strongest fields.  The Masters has a relatively small field, and seems to include a number of past champions who have little or no chance to actually contend.  The Opens, British and US, have a significant portion of the field consisting of qualifiers, who may not have much actual chance to contend.  Of course the PGA includes a number of club pros, who again probably won't contend.  I'd hesitate to say for sure, but I'm leaning toward saying that maybe the Masters has the weakest field, so could be the easiest to win.

This is different from saying that the Masters, or any of the majors for that matter, is easy to play.  Certainly, many of the greens at Augusta look completely terrifying.  The US Open, with its traditional club-grabbing rough, seems nearly impossible.  The weather at the Open Championship makes it look like torture.  And then you come to Baltusrol, where the rains have softened the greens, and it's possible to advance the ball a little from the rough, and playing golf looks comparatively easy.  But its not, golf is hard.

[billchao]

The Masters is the easiest of the majors to win. Smaller, weaker field, same course every year.

Are they basing this on the number of one time major winners? And the PGA Championship is easier simply because there are more one time winners of that than any other major?

I feel that it demonstrates the opposite: the PGA Championship has higher quality competitors therefore more parity, whereas the Masters is easier for the top players to win year after year.

[Patch]

I look at the course set up as how tough or easy a contest is to win. I rank the majors that way.

From toughest to easiest : 1. USO 2. TO, 3. Masters, 4.PGA. I will make time to watch the first three for different reasons. The PGA is not a big deal to me. To me the PGA is more for the players wants and/or desired set up. 

Now the problem with my order of toughness is of course that a golfer coming out of the field with a hot bag of shots has the favorites playing for something less than a win. Some might call this parity. I call it a a lucky 4 days of golf. It could also be an unlucky 4 days of golf if a highly regarded favorite fails to play winning golf. 

The tougher courses brings out the best of best, most of the time. Where as a birdyfest course set up allows more possible winners. The best of the best have less of an advantage against the not so best of the best. It's easier for a non favorite to win. It's a crap shoot. 

[JetFan1983]

To me, I would think it's the easiest one to win yea, relative to each other (because they're all nearly impossible to win in a vacuum). But I think the effect of nerves would be the least intense at the PGA.

The Masters everyone dreams about. The US Open is tricked out to the max, and everyone also dreams about that one, particularly if you're an American. The British, we all dream about winning too, particularly if you're European. Who dreams about winning the PGA? It doesn't have that aura or mystique around it that the other three have, and I think that makes it "easier" to keep it together down the stretch than it might, say, at Augusta, where you know all your dreams are coming true if you win that green jacket. 

But yea, in the end, they're all one nanometer below impossible to win, just in general. 

[Shindig]

It can't be that much easier than the others.  It produces the same number of annual winners as any other major.

[Golfingdad]

This probably goes hand-in-hand with the idea that it's less important than the others.  Unlike the other three, the PGA doesn't have a signature.  The Masters has Augusta, The British has links golf and everything that accompanies it, the US Open has difficult set-ups and a winner near par nearly every year.  The PGA winner seemingly scores as well as a winner of your average tournament at a myriad of lush green courses around the country, so it really doesn't seem that special.

Add to that your Beems, Micheels, Yangs, and it just doesn't have the luster.  Somebody said it in one of the other threads that if somebody has one major win and that one win is a PGA, they don't quite feel like a real major winner.  Even though I acknowledge that as patently unfair, I completely agree with it.

Difficulty in winning is something else entirely, but my guess is that the above reasons have something to do with some people thinking it's easier.

[Yukari]

1 hour ago, billchao said:

The Masters is the easiest of the majors to win. Smaller, weaker field, same course every year.

Are they basing this on the number of one time major winners? And the PGA Championship is easier simply because there are more one time winners of that than any other major?

I feel that it demonstrates the opposite: the PGA Championship has higher quality competitors therefore more parity, whereas the Masters is easier for the top players to win year after year.

I would have to agree with @billchao.  If you look at the strength of the field, PGA is the hardest to win whereas Masters is easiest due to a much larger percentage of "non-contenders".

In fact, if you look at the diversity of the winners (like Beems, Micheels, Yangs, etc.) it show how difficult it is for the "top" players to win the PGA.  This seems to validate the fact that there are a lot more actual contenders than any other major.

[ChrisP]

1 hour ago, Golfingdad said:

This probably goes hand-in-hand with the idea that it's less important than the others.  Unlike the other three, the PGA doesn't have a signature.  The Masters has Augusta, The British has links golf and everything that accompanies it, the US Open has difficult set-ups and a winner near par nearly every year.  The PGA winner seemingly scores as well as a winner of your average tournament at a myriad of lush green courses around the country, so it really doesn't seem that special.

Add to that your Beems, Micheels, Yangs, and it just doesn't have the luster.  Somebody said it in one of the other threads that if somebody has one major win and that one win is a PGA, they don't quite feel like a real major winner.  Even though I acknowledge that as patently unfair, I completely agree with it.

Difficulty in winning is something else entirely, but my guess is that the above reasons have something to do with some people thinking it's easier.

Agree. The PGA is missing that identity. I've always said I would like to see the PGA move to a match play similar to what they have in June where it's round robin and maybe the top 2 from each group instead of top one gets into elimination round. If you look at the match play history, it has a history of strong champions. And it would give the PGA that identity they're missing right now.

[natureboy]

3 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

To me, "easy to win" has to be based more on the quality of the field than on the set-up of the golf course.  I haven't done the research to say for sure, but I remember hearing that the PGA often has one of the strongest fields.  The Masters has a relatively small field, and seems to include a number of past champions who have little or no chance to actually contend.  The Opens, British and US, have a significant portion of the field consisting of qualifiers, who may not have much actual chance to contend.  Of course the PGA includes a number of club pros, who again probably won't contend.  I'd hesitate to say for sure, but I'm leaning toward saying that maybe the Masters has the weakest field, so could be the easiest to win.

This is different from saying that the Masters, or any of the majors for that matter, is easy to play.  Certainly, many of the greens at Augusta look completely terrifying.  The US Open, with its traditional club-grabbing rough, seems nearly impossible.  The weather at the Open Championship makes it look like torture.  And then you come to Baltusrol, where the rains have softened the greens, and it's possible to advance the ball a little from the rough, and playing golf looks comparatively easy.  But its not, golf is hard.

 

2 hours ago, billchao said:

The Masters is the easiest of the majors to win. Smaller, weaker field, same course every year.

Are they basing this on the number of one time major winners? And the PGA Championship is easier simply because there are more one time winners of that than any other major?

I feel that it demonstrates the opposite: the PGA Championship has higher quality competitors therefore more parity, whereas the Masters is easier for the top players to win year after year.

 

1 hour ago, Yukari said:

I would have to agree with @billchao.  If you look at the strength of the field, PGA is the hardest to win whereas Masters is easiest due to a much larger percentage of "non-contenders".

In fact, if you look at the diversity of the winners (like Beems, Micheels, Yangs, etc.) it show how difficult it is for the "top" players to win the PGA.  This seems to validate the fact that there are a lot more actual contenders than any other major.

 

I agree wich all o' youse. Field's percentage of OWGR this year:

% Top 75      98.7%
% Top 100    97.0%
% Top 125    92.8%
% Top 144    81.3%
% Top 150    79.3%

While these numbers might be stronger than normal due to the Olympic schedule shift, I expect they are roughly typical of the difference to the other Majors in a regular schedule year.

There is a larger percent of each of these 'tiers' represented at the PGA than any other Major, a WGC, or the Players'. It's certainly stronger than a regular season tour event.

If it was really a 'lesser' tournament, the top players just wouldn't show, right? Despite soft conditions, it wasn't really a birdie fest because the cut line was +2. The final top 20 was a mix of known strong players with some lesser known guys who got hot / played well as happens with any Major.

It seems that what the PGA lacks is some kind of course setup 'identity' or 'mystique' for fans to hang a distinctive / familiar 'narrative' for the history of the competitions. With the old match play format, it had a bit more of that distinctive identity among the Majors that way.

 

20 minutes ago, ChrisP said:

Agree. The PGA is missing that identity. I've always said I would like to see the PGA move to a match play similar to what they have in June where it's round robin and maybe the top 2 from each group instead of top one gets into elimination round. If you look at the match play history, it has a history of strong champions. And it would give the PGA that identity they're missing right now.

Interesting. How to do it so it remains engaging for TV with enough air time of top players? I would think that a duel between a big hitter like Sam Snead and a 'pea shooter' like Paul Runyan (more like the average golfer in power) would have made for great TV. It's just hard to guarantee such a finish, and I don't know if they could have as large a share of the top 150 and fit it in 4 rounds as the old PGA had smaller fields, I think. To me, adding a round of competition would be worth it to maintain the 'biggest, baddest player showdown'.

Edited August 2, 2016 by natureboy

[SavvySwede]

2 hours ago, Patch said:

I look at the course set up as how tough or easy a contest is to win. I rank the majors that way.

From toughest to easiest : 1. USO 2. TO, 3. Masters, 4.PGA. I will make time to watch the first three for different reasons. The PGA is not a big deal to me. To me the PGA is more for the players wants and/or desired set up. 

Now the problem with my order of toughness is of course that a golfer coming out of the field with a hot bag of shots has the favorites playing for something less than a win. Some might call this parity. I call it a a lucky 4 days of golf. It could also be an unlucky 4 days of golf if a highly regarded favorite fails to play winning golf. 

The tougher courses brings out the best of best, most of the time. Where as a birdyfest course set up allows more possible winners. The best of the best have less of an advantage against the not so best of the best. It's easier for a non favorite to win. It's a crap shoot. 

Definitely agree with the logic here, just not the rankings. Tougher course set ups weed out more of the lower ranked players as the potential winner and rewards only the very most skilled. I wouldn't ranked the Open championship as #2 though; it has had it's share of birdie fests and the volatile weather brings more luck into the equation. I would go USO, Masters, PGA, OC.

[No Mulligans]

I don't like looking at the variance in the difficulty of courses.  They're all difficult but each may favor different golfers.  A course may play into Zach Johnson's game another course may favor Dustin Johnson's game.  Which course is more difficult to win on?  It depends on who you are.

Strength of field has to be the over-riding factor.

38 minutes ago, SavvySwede said:

Definitely agree with the logic here, just not the rankings. Tougher course set ups weed out more of the lower ranked players as the potential winner and rewards only the very most skilled. I wouldn't ranked the Open championship as #2 though; it has had it's share of birdie fests and the volatile weather brings more luck into the equation. I would go USO, Masters, PGA, OC.

The very most skilled at what?  Favoring #1 in fairways hit? Or favoring longest driving distance?  Or favoring the #1 putter? Approach shots? Proximity to the hole?

No one is most skilled in all categories.  The world rankings are the best measure of overall skill that I can think of.  Again, I come back to strength of field.

[JetFan1983]

3 hours ago, billchao said:

The Masters is the easiest of the majors to win. Smaller, weaker field, same course every year.

Just to play devil's advocate because the Masters field technically is the weakest of the four, there is an aspect of this that makes it more difficult to win at Augusta. If you're a newb, you're dealing with not just the top players, but the course knowledge they've acquired over years and years of playing there. Therefore, Jimmy Walker/Todd Hamilton/Rich Beem is probably going to have a better shot at a PGA than a Masters perhaps. 

And just a general question/observation: I feel like there haven't been a whole lot of PGA collapses over the years, but I can recall several Masters/US Open/British open ones off the top of my head. Not sure why that is exactly, but it could be in part due the PGA's lack of mystique. Guys tend to close out when ahead at the PGA for whatever reason. 

Good point though that the PGA has more parity because of its depth. 

But yea, the Masters is a weird beast. There are guys like Bubba, Jordan, Phil, and Angel Cabrera who thrive at Augusta because it really fits their eye or something. For them, it's easier relative to all the others probably. Kaymer, Lee Trevino, Westwood, etc. are the opposite type players, so I guess it depends on several factors whether it should be considered the easiest or not. For them, it perhaps is/was impossible to win there just based on how the place is designed. 

[Piz]

Would the PGA be better if it had a home?  If, four egg sample, it was contested every year at Scioto, or Plum Hollow, or Cherry Hills...or Bandon Dunes?  In its present incarnation; it seems rather like the U.S. Open...Take two.  The Masters is the only tournament at Augusta.  The Open Championship is the only major played on the east side of the pond.  The PGA is the second of two events held at one of several venues within the continental U.S. of A.  Is that lack of distinction it's distinctive quality?  

[billchao]

2 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

Add to that your Beems, Micheels, Yangs, and it just doesn't have the luster.

You can go through Masters champions and pick out "fluke" winners, too. It doesn't really prove anything, though I agree with your point that it seems like people consider the PGA Championship to be a "lesser" major.

And don't diminish Y.E. Yang's major championship win. Just ask @colin007 how hard it was. 

23 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

Just to play devil's advocate because the Masters field technically is the weakest of the four, there is an aspect of this that makes it more difficult to win at Augusta. If you're a newb, you're dealing with not just the top players, but the course knowledge they've acquired over years and years of playing there. Therefore, Jimmy Walker/Todd Hamilton/Rich Beem is probably going to have a better shot at a PGA than a Masters perhaps. 

Well part of it is that there are people who are good enough to compete at a major who aren't even invited to the Masters, so the pool of Masters rookies is thinner, too. If you are a lesser known pro and you happen to have a career week at a major tournament, it's more likely to be at the PGA than the Masters simply because you probably weren't playing at Augusta in the first place.

But yea, perspective is important. I don't think either Tom Watson or Arnold Palmer think the PGA Championship is easy to win, but Trevino and Rory probably will tell you the Masters is the hardest.

[natureboy]

Would rescheduling help the 'brand'?

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/john-feinstein/time-move-pga-championship-may

[ScouseJohnny]

2 hours ago, billchao said:

You can go through Masters champions and pick out "fluke" winners, too.

 

And Ian Baker Finch won an Open Championship, yet Colin Montgomerie never could.

[iacas]

The PGA is the toughest to win. Strongest field by far. That simple (to me).