Unlikely as that seems, we all have our head canon, and that\u2019s mine. The point is, don\u2019t trouble yourself with reality here \u2013 let\u2019s skip right to a world where not only was the Players added as the fifth major from its inception 52 years ago, but all the same people won.<\/p>\n
Here are 11 ways we\u2019d view golf differently in that strange new world.<\/p>\n
1. Rickie Fowler and Matt Kuchar are major champions<\/p>\n
![\"https:\/\/www.golfdigest.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2025\/11\/fowler_kuchar.jpg\"\/](\"https:\/\/golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2025\/11\/fowler_kuchar.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.966.644.suffix\/1772737908695.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
There are a lot of guys we could have led with here, but Fowler and Kuchar are head and shoulders above anyone else in their status as \u201calmost\u201d men. Fowler\u2019s 13 major top-10s, and Kuchar\u2019s 11, would no longer be the headline of a story about disappointment, but a footnote. It would have been especially poignant for Fowler, who won in 2015 after finishing top five in the other four majors in \u201914 and suffering a series of heartbreaks. For \u201cKuch\u201d, having that win in 2012 would have taken the sting out of the bizarre events with Jordan Spieth at Royal Birkdale five years later. Everything we know about these two would be different.<\/p>\n
2. Calvin Peete is the first African-American major winner, and somehow even more legendary<\/p>\n
Peete is already one of the lesser-sung heroes of the game, both for his pioneering career (12 PGA Tour wins) and the almost ridiculous driving accuracy that earned him nicknames like \u201cXerox\u201d and \u201cThe Machine\u201d. But he also won the 1985 Players, which in our fantasy world would have made him the first African-American major champion, beating Tiger\u2019s Augusta win by 12 years.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Behind the scenes of the PGA Tour\u2019s renewed pursuit of major status for the Players Championship<\/a><\/p>\n 3. Craig Perks joins the fluky major winners list<\/p>\n There\u2019s a shocking scarcity of truly fluky winners in Players Championship history \u2013 almost everyone has at least a couple other professional wins on the r\u00e9sum\u00e9. The only real exception is Craig Perks, who bagged his one and only PGA Tour win at the 2002 Players. The Kiwi was extremely shaky that day, barely hitting any fairways and missing two very short par putts, but he chipped in twice in the last three holes and rolled in a long birdie putt to win by two shots. He\u2019d join the likes of Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel and Todd Hamilton as the most unexpected majors winners in golf history. (Tim Clark is probably the only other name here that comes close to fluke status, with just one other tour title, but the 2010 Players winner was around long enough that he avoids that label for us.)<\/p>\n 4. The overall career majors list is pretty much the same\u2026 with a couple exceptions<\/p>\n Or I should say, the order of the career majors list would be the same, at least at the top. Jack would have 21 instead of 18 (this new world still is only counting pro majors), Tiger would have 17 instead of 15. They\u2019d still be 1-2, and because Tom Watson never won the event, positions three to T-7 (a large group of men with seven majors) would look exactly the same. The only real change in the top 10 is that Phil Mickelson and Lee Trevino would have one more each, bringing them up into that T-7 group with seven majors instead of six. They\u2019d be joined there by Rory McIlroy, who would go from five to seven, while Scheffler would jump from four to six, joining Nick Faldo in the new T-15 category.<\/p>\n 5. We probably think of Greg Norman at least a little differently<\/p>\n Photo: J.D. Cuban<\/p>\n Maybe he\u2019d still be, first and foremost, the most infamous \u2018lead-throw-awayer\u2019 in the game, but in 1994, he shot an aggregate 24-under 264, which continues to be the 72-hole tournament record. It would go down as one of the most dominant performances in major-championship history, and might take the sting out of\u2026 well, everything else. (Also, the one thing we kind of ignore here is, would a win like this have made everything else easier? Alternatively, would its existence as a major have made everything harder for Norman, Fowler, Kuchar, et al?)<\/p>\n 6. Xander Schauffele no longer holds this major record<\/p>\n Speaking of Norman, remember Schauffele\u2019s 21-under performance two years at Valhalla, setting the major scoring record in relation to par? That\u2019s now up in smoke, because Norman\u2019s 24-under still beats it by three shots. The good news for Schauffele is that his 263 total still beats Norman by a shot for lowest 72-hole major score. Elsewhere on the records front, Tom Hoge (2023) would join Xander (twice), Shane Lowry, Rickie Fowler and Branden Grace as the only players to shoot a 62 in major-championship history.<\/p>\n![\"232691\"\/](\"https:\/\/golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2025\/11\/norman_94players.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.966.644.suffix\/1772737908798.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"86410368\"\/](\"https:\/\/golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2025\/11\/tiger_2001players.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.966.644.suffix\/1772737909036.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n