{"id":527458,"date":"2026-03-10T19:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T19:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/527458\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T19:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T19:34:08","slug":"should-the-player-championship-be-a-major","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/527458\/","title":{"rendered":"Should The Player Championship be a major?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Established in 1974, The Players Championship has often been labelled \u201cgolf\u2019s fifth major\u201d despite never having that designation. Whether it should has long been debated and with the PGA Tour pushing a \u201cMarch is going to be major\u201d<\/a> slogan for its flagship event ahead of this year\u2019s event, the conversation has been reignited. Here, SCOREGolf writers offer their takes.<\/p>\n

Lorne Rubenstein<\/p>\n

When it comes to an embarrassing tagline for a PGA Tour event, \u201cMarch is going to be major\u201d for The Players ranks at the top. The forced march to trying to make the PGA Tour\u2019s flagship and most important event demeans it. The Players \u2014 and note the caps that the PGA Tour wants to force upon anyone who writes its name, another ram it down our collective throat \u2014 is already huge. But it\u2019s not a major.<\/p>\n

The tournament has been around since 1974. It\u2019s at a fantastic course and annually has the game\u2019s strongest field. To step on the grounds of the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass<\/a> is to feel the vibe of a tremendous tournament that any player would love to win. Jack Nicklaus has won it. Greg Norman, Nick Price, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are a few of the bigger-than-big names who have nabbed the title.<\/p>\n

But they know it\u2019s not a major. Majors aren\u2019t made in men\u2019s pro golf. They develop. There are four majors and while it\u2019s a shame none is a PGA Tour event, so be it. The fact The Players isn\u2019t a major doesn\u2019t lessen its significance. If anything, it sets it out from every other tournament that much more. It\u2019s in a class and category all its own. It\u2019s a major event, sure, but sorry, it\u2019s not a Major.<\/p>\n

Read all of Lorne\u2019s work here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rick Young<\/p>\n

The Players is not a major.\u00a0I\u2019ll\u00a0die\u00a0on that hill\u00a0today,\u00a0tomorrow\u00a0and as long as\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0on the right side of the grass\u00a0because five is an odd number,\u00a0five majors\u00a0is\u00a0one too many\u00a0and four majors in the United States\u00a0would be\u00a0ludicrous.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sure,\u00a0The Players deserves its flowers.\u00a0Best field in golf?\u00a0100 per cent.\u00a0Best tournament after the\u00a0four majors?\u00a0No question.\u00a0Great golf course,\u00a0top\u00a0purse, incredible fan engagement?\u00a0Yes,\u00a0yes\u00a0and yes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But is\u00a0The Players\u00a0a more prestigious\u00a0tournament\u00a0than the PGA Championship?\u00a0It might\u00a0be a better event, but\u00a0I\u2019ll\u00a0take the major every day of the week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem\u00a0is\u00a0time and history\u00a0are not on the PGA Tour\u2019s side.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0been 58 years since the\u00a0PGA of America and PGA Tournament Players Division\u00a0went their separate ways. By then\u00a0the Grand Slam\u00a0was\u00a0what\u00a0all\u00a0professional golfers aspired to capature \u2014 see Rory McIlroy at\u00a0the 2025 Masters.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Compare the timelines of the five tournaments in question.\u00a0The PGA Championship has been around since 1916, the\u00a0Masters\u00a0since 1934 and the Open Championship and U.S. Open since 1860 and\u00a01895,\u00a0respectively.\u00a0The PGA Tour\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0anoint The Players as its flagship event until 1977\u00a0and\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0take it to TPC Sawgrass until 1982.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Look, if\u00a0the PGA Tour\u00a0is that desperate to own a major,\u00a0I\u00a0propose the following: The Players takes over for the Open Championship to\u00a0comprise\u00a0four American majors\u00a0and\u00a0the Open joins the Australian Open,\u00a0South African Open and BMW International as four world majors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crazy, right?\u00a0Time\u00a0to put this argument\u00a0to\u00a0bed\u00a0once and for all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read all of Rick\u2019s work here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dalton Finkbeiner<\/p>\n

The Players has all the elements to be a major: a great venue, a loaded field and a rich history \u2026 but it isn\u2019t one.<\/p>\n

It used to be the \u201cdeepest field in golf,\u201d but as soon as LIV Golf formed and the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and others jumped ship, it lost that title. A major has to be open to all the best players in the world and in the current golfing landscape, that is not the case.<\/p>\n

Even if the two tours come back together, you can\u2019t retroactively award major championships.\u00a0Rickie Fowler\u2019s win in 2015 was electric, but does he play tighter if it\u2019s a major championship? It would be rewriting history for no valid reason.<\/p>\n

\"\"The par-5 11th on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is a scoring opportunity, though the hole is fraught with danger.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take a genius to pinpoint the PGA Tour\u2019s motives behind the \u201cMarch is major\u201d campaign. The tour does not own or run any of the four majors and there is no roadmap for it to gain control over any of them. So, they are trying to slap the \u201cmajor\u201d label on one of the events they do control, for what I can only assume are monetary reasons. The motive is disingenuous. I don\u2019t think the leadership group at the tour sat around a boardroom and thoughtfully argued the case for its legitimacy as a major.<\/p>\n

Of all the things people complain about in men\u2019s professional golf, the number of majors has never been one of them. The Players is The Players and it\u2019s great the way it is.<\/p>\n

Read all of Dalton\u2019s work here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jason Logan<\/p>\n

As much as I\u2019d like to zag and disagree with my esteemed colleagues here, I simply cannot get on board with The Players being designated a major.<\/p>\n

Lorne, Rick and Dalton have already laid out the many reasons why that is the right opinion but let me add that one of the most ridiculous things to transpire in golf in my lifetime is the LPGA Tour allowing Evian to buy a major designation to add a fifth major to the women\u2019s game. (There are also five majors on PGA Tour Champions, but the PGA Tour would probably double that if the money was right.) Four majors is the right number for golf, just as four slams is the right number for tennis.<\/p>\n

However, I must also say this: The Players is my third favourite tournament to watch behind the Masters and Open Championship and if I\u2019m being honest, I sometimes prefer it over those other two because no golf course in the world delivers more drama on its final three holes than TPC Sawgrass.<\/p>\n

Last year being an obvious exception, the Masters can be a dud on Sunday. Before Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose duelled under cloudless skies last April<\/a>, the winning margin in four of the last Masters was three shots or more. And with full respect to the Open and the great links upon which it is played, it also doesn\u2019t produce dramatic finishes regularly. The last riveting Open was Cam Smith beating Cam Young by a shot at the Old Course in 2022 when McIlroy coughed his chances up on the closing holes.<\/p>\n

Conversely, five of the past six Players Championship have been decided by one shot, with McIlroy and J.J. Spaun needing extra holes last year. TPC Sawgrass isn\u2019t Augusta or the Old Course or Royal Portrush, but watching contenders hit shots into its 16th, 17th and 18th greens \u2014 not to mention the tee shot on the home hole \u2014 is must-see TV.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t make it a major and the PGA Tour doesn\u2019t need to make that designation so. Any other marketing campaign will do.<\/p>\n

Read all of Jason\u2019s work here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Established in 1974, The Players Championship has often been labelled \u201cgolf\u2019s fifth major\u201d despite never having that designation.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,3747,82,33605],"class_list":["post-527458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-pga-tour","tag-sports","tag-the-players-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}