PLAYERS Championship: Experts coming around to major status

THE PLAYERS Championship – is it actually worthy of major status? While the debate renews this time each year, experts are starting to come around. And the case they make is strong.

THE PLAYERS Championship “is tacitly a major championship already,” said Brandel Chamblee on Live from The Players on the May 8 Golf Channel early evening roundtable with Rich Lerner, Frank Nobilo and David Duval.

One reason, Chamblee argued, is because winning The Players affects qualifications for the World Golf Hall of Fame. In addition, he added, several inductees have entered the Hall of Fame based on their careers including winning The Players. He cited Davis Love III, Fred Couples, Tom Kite, and Lanny Wadkins as four who entered the hall bolstered by the PGA Tour’s premier event.

Duval, winner of the 1999 Players and the 2001 British Open, said “The PGA Tour and the world of golf should just recognize it for what it is. I don’t think you can argue the fact that it is a major championship.”

He went a few steps farther saying that past champions of The Players should receive retroactive status.

“They did it with The Masters,” he pointed out.

THE PLAYERS Championship wouldn’t be the first major to be designated years too late

He is correct about that. The Masters wasn’t a major until Arnold Palmer decreed it to be one in 1960. Yet every golfer who won it since 1934 has had it added to their major championship total all he way back to 1934.

In days of Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, majors were the U.S and British Opens. When the PGA was founded, perhaps it also fell into a similar category. It is the third oldest of the most important tournaments today. However, in those times, the Western Open, founded in 1899, was considered a major tournament, and that designation lasted at least into the 1940s.

Bobby Jones’ victories in 1930 in the U.S. Open, British Open, U.S. Amateur and British Amateur became known as the first grand slam, and that changed the landscape somewhat. However, no one else would win the Jones Grand Slam because golfers who were proficient played golf professionally and did not remain amateurs.

Jones’ victories did upgrade the U.S. Amateur and British Amateurs to make them majors of one kind or another. No one has yet decided where they fall today except that they are important.

Then, in 1960, Arnold Palmer decided that the modern grand slam would be The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA. Because Palmer was such a force in golf, no one argued. They instantly became the four majors and have continued until the recent is it or isn’t it status of The Players.

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Fourteen years after Palmer decreed the 1960 version of the grand slam, the PGA Tour invented their own major, the TPC or Tournament Players Championship, which has now been shortened to The Players.

“We look at this tournament up there in about equal value with the major championships. The only thing that holds it away from being a major is simply people jotting down how many majors people won,” said Jordan Spieth in his pre-tournament interview at The Players.

"“It’s not like it’s another event, and it’s no disrespect to the other events, but this is our championship, this is The Players Championship,” Justin Thomas said about it. “This has a very major-like field, has a very major-like feel, air to it. The roars are very similar. So, it’ll be cool to kind of have a major tournament, one a month there, starting in March.”(The Players moves to March in 2019.)"

Next: Don't overreact to Jordan Spieth's PLAYERS struggles

“I’ve heard Phil say many times, he looked back at this win as the same category as the majors,” said Jon Rahm in his pre-tournament interview, “so I mean, that says it all for all of us. I think we would all look at it as a major championship.”

In other words, players on the PGA Tour are waiting for the rest of the planet to get on board. Many of them consider it a major already.

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