The PLAYERS: A “Major” Debate

The PLAYERS Championship starts today and if the finish can compare to last year’s Rickie Fowler coming out party we are in for a treat.

But the debate still rages: Is The PLAYERS the fifth major?

The PGA Tour’s marquee event has struggled to be held in major championship status to the consternation of Commissioner Tim Finchem. He has tried everything he could.

The PLAYERS has the biggest purse in all of golf, $10.5 million with a cool $1.89 mil to the winner.

He assembles the strongest field of the year, including all the majors.

And he has established the venue, TPC Sawgrass as a major championship quality layout. Although some will debate that point. But who doesn’t debate some of the Open Championship courses… or the fact that the U.S. Open is played on courses that players call “tricked up.”

The Ol’ Commish just can’t catch a break it seems.

Gary Van Sickle at Golf.com offers a myriad of reasons why The Players is not a major, one of which is that the players themselves don’t treat it like a major. Rory McIlroy didn’t show up until Wednesday. And few golfers go in early long before the tournament to get in some practice rounds as they do with The Masters or U.S. Open.

He’s right…while any player would love the paycheck and generous exemptions offered a PLAYERS champion few put it on the same level as the four traditional majors.

But none other than the dean of golf writers, Dan Jenkins has a more evolved opinion of The PLAYERS Championship.

In his Unplayable Lies tome, the Great One says that the four majors is a relatively new concept and back in the day…even long before his day, there were other tournaments that were held in the same regard as the U.S Open and the Open Championship and eventually the PGA Championship.

Long before Bobby Jones crafted Augusta National and The Masters caught on as a must play tournament the Western Open, North & South Open and the Metropolitan Open were considered must play tournaments and paid big dollars. As did the Tam O’Shanter Country Clubs’s Tam’s World Championship and All American Open were frequented by the worlds best players.

And let’s remember that long before the PGA Tour the National Amateurs were considered majors.

In Jenkins’s piece, Thinning the Herd, he uses his own special logic to try and equate the careers of the early golfers with those of today by including those “older” majors and the amateur championships in the players total.

For example: Jack Nicklaus would have 23 majors- 6 Masters, 5 PGA’s, 4 U.S Opens, 3 British Opens, 3 Players, 2 U.S.Amateurs.

Oh, you see he included The PLAYERS as a major. His reasoning, “… I’m removing the quote marks from ‘the fifth major’ The Players in Ponte Verdra Beach offers the biggest paycheck on tour for the winner, and annually attracts the strongest field. Guys would trade a lot of Greensboros for one Players.”

Using his logic, Walter Hagen who is normally credited with 11 majors would see his total jump to 22: 5 PGA’s, 5 Western Opens, 4 British Opens, 2 U.S. Opens, 3 North-South Opens and 3 Metropolitan Opens.

Tiger Woods would now have 19…4 Masters, 4 PGA’s, 3 U.S. Opens, 3 British Opens, 2 Players, 3 U.S. Amateurs.

Certainly those older tournaments were majors of their day and it’s interesting to see the totals for golfers like Hagen and Hogan whose new number is 16 up from 10 or Snead 12/7 and Nelson 10/5.

I enjoyed Jenkins’ exercise after all before this game grew into what it is today there were plenty of great tournaments won by a real cast of characters.

Far be it from me to disagree with the wisest of the wise, but I do. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Van Sickle both offer good arguments for their respective cases.

But I have to add one more for my own.

Being the “old school” traditionalist that I am for me to reorganize a tournament as a major there is one criteria that both gentleman lack.

It had to be around before I was born, hopefully long before I was born.

The PLAYERS was first played in 1974 and won by Jack Nicklaus. I graduated high school in 1974.

Sorry Commish, The PLAYERS is great but it’s the PLAYERS and that’s not a major.