It’s the weekend of the Players Championship on the PGA Tour. The Players has often been called golf’s “fifth major” because of a combination of the caliber of the field and the amount of prize money that is on the line. Rickie Fowler, who looked like the second coming of Jack Nicklaus one year ago at Sawgrass, is the defending champion.
The strength of field is a no-brainer when compared to golf’s four major championships. The Masters is a limited field invitational with past champions and amateur golfers littered throughout the pairings. The United States Open and the British Open are truly open events with exempt players as well as qualifiers. Sometimes the qualifiers are PGA Tour regulars. Sometimes the qualifiers are driving range pros and high school golfers. Getting into the two open majors is wholly dependent upon one’s ability to achieve during 54 holes of qualifying tourneys. The PGA Championship includes the top 20 golfers from the PGA Club Professional Championship. Seldom will one of the club pros make the 36-hole cut and play into the weekend. Not everyone in a major championship can win a major.
The way to get into the Players Championship is through long-term achievement. The top 125 golfers on the PGA Tour are automatically exempt. The top 50 linksters on the World Golf Rankings are also invited to the Players. Major champions from the last five years are in as well. There are no sponsor’s exemptions. There are zero spaces available to Monday qualifiers. There is no argument that the strongest field of the year is teeing it up this week at the TPC Sawgrass Course just outside Jacksonville.
There is a lot of money being thrown around at the Players Championship as well. The total purse is $10 million, the largest in golf. The winner’s share is a gaudy $1.8 million, also the largest amount in the game. On top of that, there are some other added perks that are well worth a victory this weekend. Just like the winners of major championships, the Players victor will receive a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour. He will find himself in the field at the Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open for the next three years. His Fed Ex Cup points and his World Rankings points are second only to the four major championships. There are many advantages to having a hot week and winning the Players Championship, especially if you are an out-of-nowhere winner such as past champions Stephen Ames, Craig Perks and Jodie Mudd. In fact, Craig Perks still has to deal with the nickname, The Fluke.
Yet the greatest conversation starter regarding this tournament is the notion that it could be or should be golf’s fifth major championship. The course and the tournament were the brainchild of then-PGA Tour commissioner, Deane Beman in the early 1970s. Beman was the game’s commissioner who would bring golf into the modern era of corporate sponsorships and TPC courses. He made the PGA Tour a valid sports entity. He made the members of the PGA Tour a whole lot of money.
Beman was frustrated with the fact that the game’s biggest tournaments were run by other entities, namely the Augusta National Golf Club, the United States Golf Association, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, and the PGA of America. He wanted the PGA Tour to have a flagship event that would be the equal of the game’s grand slam championships. Hence, the Players. The concept of five majors wasn’t that far out as well. After all, the LPGA Tour and the Champions Tour currently have five major championships. Why not have the one tournament with the greatest prize fund and the strongest field become the game’s fifth major?
In his book, The Secret of Golf: The Story of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus, author Joe Posnanski reports of an interview he had with Nicklaus regarding the Players. Nicklaus was convinced that Beman would end up prevailing in his wish to make the Players a fifth major championship, and since Nicklaus was in the business of accumulating as many major titles as possible, he prepared for those earliest Players Championships in the same way he prepared for the majors. If the Players would ultimately become a major, he wanted to have some of those titles on his golfing resume. Nicklaus won the inaugural Players in 1974 and went on to win two more in 1976 and 1978. In the end, if golf were to have five majors, then Jack would have 21 grand slam titles to his name. Then again Mark Hayes and Mark McCumber would have one.
Of course, not everyone in the world of golf is convinced that the Players would be or should be the game’s fifth major if things were to ever get to that point. In the most recent edition of SI Golf, the Sports Illustrated editorial team discussed the fifth major concept. One of the SI writers, John Garrity, suggested the British PGA Championship as a likely candidate. It is 19 years older than the Players and its multiple past champions includes Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie, Peter Alliss, Bernhard Langer, Tony Jacklin, Seve Ballesteros and Ian Woosnam. Other past champs are Arnold Palmer, Jose Maria Olazabal and Rory McIlroy.
Alan Shipnuck suggested the Australian Open. Like tennis, it would add another worldwide event to the majors list. It was first contested in 1904, decades ahead of the PGA Championship and the Masters. The Australian has an even more impressive array of past champs, including seven-time winner Gary Player, six-time titlist Jack Nicklaus, and five-time victor and hometown hero Greg Norman. Other past winners are Peter Thomson, Bobby Locke, Arnold Palmer and David Graham, as well as modern era stars Adam Scott, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. Maybe the Australian Open should be the fifth major. Then again, maybe the game and its traditions mean that there is only room for four majors. After all, if we think of the Australian as a major, then Carnegie Clark is a three-time major champion.
They’re teeing it up at the Players Championship this weekend. There is a lot of money on the line and the field is the toughest and the strongest in golf. Someone is going to prevail over that watery graveyard this weekend and hoist the crystal trophy Sunday evening as the 2016 Players champion. He will receive a lot of recognition for his accomplishments as well as a hefty paycheck. It could be a career highlight, as in the case of Craig Perks; the beginning of something big to come, as perhaps in the case of Rickie Fowler; or just one of many wins, as in the case of Jack Nicklaus. However, it won’t be the equal of a green jacket or a claret jug.
