The Players Championship, the crown jewel of the PGA Tour, is acting like a major, but it isn’t a major – yet.
Any inspirational coach worthy of guru status will tell you to ‘fake it until you make it’ if you want to achieve your objective. But more than believing, you need to create an experience of success in your mind first, then inspire others. The roadmap for The Players to become a major championship is to build an experience for the players, the media and the consumers with an emotional connection – a feeling of a major championship. It is working for the PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour is using this model in order to make their perception their reality to advance The Players to major championship status. The Players ticks all the boxes in almost every aspect except for the number five. Meaning, there are already four major championships and five seems awkward. The number four is the accepted number of major championships and this may be the biggest barrier of entry to get a seat at the major championship table.
Over the past 100 years major golf championships have gone through some variations. There were always four majors in a calendar year but you may be surprised to find out which tournaments held major championship status. In addition to the US Open, PGA Championship and the Open Championship, the Metropolitan Open, the Western Open, the North and South Open in Pinehurst, as well as the US Amateur and the British Amateur, are all considered major championships by us.
Robert (Bobby) Tyre Jones, an amateur player, was the only player to win the Grand Slam, by winning the 1930 US Open, US Amateur, the Open Championship and British Amateur in the same calendar year. Oh, how times have changed.
The golf environment is forever changing. Is it time again to make some appropriate changes relating to major championships? It only makes sense that the championship that represents the body of the best players in the world be included to the party. After all, the cornerstone of all the majors is the collective group of the contestants in the tournament.
The PGA Tour Players Championship Strong Points:
Strength of field – The Players has held the position of having the strongest field in all of professional golf for decades, and it’s the flagship championship of the PGA Tour.
Governing Body – the PGA Tour is the governing body of the best players in the world, that evolved out of the PGA of America in 1968. The PGA Tour has advanced as the global industry leader. The collective group of PGA Tour players is the most essential part of the major championship system, on which all else depends.
The Purse – this year’s Players Championship held a purse of $11M. This year’s winner, Webb Simpson, earned $1.98M for his efforts in beating the toughest field in the game.
The Perfect Venue – the strength of TPC Sawgrass, from a design/playability perspective, could not be more perfect. Designed by the diabolical Pete Dye, this course is awkward and difficult to play for even the best players in the world. TPC Sawgrass is a masochistic masterpiece. It favours no specific player type, only those players who are playing their best right now. It is a relentless beast. Every single shot on this golf course gets players in parlous fear knowing that any one bad shot can lead to disaster.
TPC Sawgrass is not well liked; it is well feared. Ben Crenshaw, both a Hall of Fame player and renowned golf course designer (Coore & Crenshaw Golf Design), once called Pete Dye the Darth Vader of golf course architects and his TPC Sawgrass, Star Wars on golf. The last three holes at TPC Sawgrass, known as ‘Walking the Gauntlet’ with its iconic 17th island green Par-3, as short as it is, gets players anxious right from the first tee. The whole golf world watches this hole during The Players, as a possible inflection point, anticipating both the outstanding golf shots as well as the calamities.
The Players Champion gains a 10-year exemption on the PGA Tour like other major championship victories. It has developed a rich tradition and history dating back to the first Player Championship in 1974 when Jack Nicklaus won the inaugural event. Nicklaus went on to win three Players Champions and Tiger Woods has won two. If there was a retroactive move to making The Players a major, Nicklaus’ major count would move from eighteen to twenty-one majors and Tiger’s major count would climb to sixteen.
The PGA Tour players do the heavy lifting as it relates to delivering value to these events, but the PGA Tour does not own any of the four major championships. The US Open is the championship of the United States Golf Association, the governing body that controls the Rules of Golf in North America. The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the governing body that controls the Rules of Golf over the rest of the world, conducts the Open Championship. The Masters is a privately held tournament owned and operated by an exclusive private golf club. The PGA Championship, owned and operated by the PGA of America, is the governing body of club professionals in the US. How is it that The Players, the championship of the PGA Tour players, cannot have a seat at this table?
Which brings up the underpinnings of The Masters, which is owned by the most restricted private golf club on the planet: Augusta National Golf Club. Augusta National has a very dark discriminatory history, a past that includes never having atoned for its founder’s deeply racist vision of the club. What is interesting, in the evolution of the Masters, is how its history has never been questioned for its past indiscretions. It is remarkable how it became so coveted by players, media and the golf consumer. The PGA Tour walked away from Butler National and Cypress Point based on their discriminatory practices in the ‘80s, but Augusta National’s practices were never challenged.
The Players is caught in a conundrum. All four major championships profit tremendously given their product/market fit. There is an injustice if The Players cannot get major championship accreditation. There isn’t much of an appetite for five major championships and The Players is getting the short shrift. The PGA Tour’s Players Championship deserves to be major.
