In honor of this weekend's The Players Championship, or simply The Players as it now prefers to be called, here's a completely irrelevant although politically resonant Lee Trevino anecdote that appeared in the latest issue of Golf Digest:
Speaking of fistfights, the last one I had was in 1978 with the mayor of El Paso. We had a $200 bet on who had won the last El Paso Open held in 1959. He guessed it was one of the Herbert brothers, but I knew it was Marty Furgol. When I came to collect, there was a TV crew waiting , and here came the mayor with huge bags full of pennies, $100 worth. He poured one bag of pennies over my head, which I didn't think was one bit funny. I warned him not to pour the other bag over my head, but he just laughed and started to pour anyway. So I cold-cocked him. And I got a lot of phone calls, all of them congratulating me. People didn't like that mayor.
Probably apocryphal, but amusing. And what a lesson! Cold-cocking a politician will always boost your popularity.
Now, on to the matter at hand: Has The Players achieved fifth major status?
Obviously, The Players is the fifth most prestigious crown in golf trailing only the four established majors. But has it racked up enough prestige that it can officially be considered a major itself? And if it becomes a major, does that mean one of the other four has to drop out of the major rotation?
The answer to the last question is yes. There can only be four majors. Why? Because that's just the way it is. When a Grand Slam plates five runs, maybe I'll revisit the topic, but not until then. So for The Players to become a major, it will have to supplant one of the existing four majors. The U.S. Open and the British Open are both unassailable. They're the national championships of the games two main homes. So the vulnerable majors would have to be the Masters and the PGA.
Particularly when paired against the Masters, The Players shows some strength. The field of competitors is stronger at The Players; indeed, it's the strongest field in golf on an annual basis.
The Masters' history also has to give The Players some encouragement. The Masters is a relatively new tournament, ostentatiously and boldly designed to achieve major status some 70 years ago. And the plan worked. The Players has the same sort of dynamic, plus the additional benefit that the venue and the tournament belong to the PGA Tour. In other words, The Players truly is the players' tournament. In a manner of speaking, they own it.
Where The Players actually belongs to the players, the Masters and Augusta National belong to a bunch of weird guys who are prone to despotism. Additionally, the Masters has looked a bit long in the tooth in recent years. In a misguided effort to modernize the course, Augusta National unleashed a supremely mediocre architect to modify one of the best and most original golf designs ever.
The changes to the course have been horrendous on a number of levels. The most damaging has been the fact that the changes sucked the drama out of the tournament in the name of "defending par." Augusta is now so long and difficult, there are few birdie opportunities and the players take over five hours to make their way around the course in twosomes. If the lords of Augusta National were capable of embarrassment (which they almost surely are not), this last fact would shame them no end. The course is now harder (and more boring), but is it a better and fairer test of golf? Does it effectively identify the world's best golfers? Leader boards the last couple of years populated almost exclusively by no-names and an angry Tiger Woods suggest otherwise.
Meanwhile, The Players takes place at the Tournament Players Club (TPC), a course that is also very difficult, but still manages to identify the best golfers and be fun. The trademark short 17th hole with its island green is pure fun and excitement. (Journalistic integrity compels me to confess to playing the Tournament Players Club this winter and effortlessly parring the 17th by hitting a nice easy nine iron to the center to the green. I'm not sure why the pros have so much trouble with the hole. Maybe it has something to do with having hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line.)
Annually, The Players produces drama, while the Masters has produced nothing but snores the past couple of years. If the odd cabal that runs Augusta National insists on draining the drama from its tournament in subsequent years and the champions it identifies continues to be a bunch of Zach Johnsons (no offense, Zach), golf fans will stop caring about this weird tournament with its five-and-a-half hour rounds and a paucity of birdies.
Even when golf is challenging, it's still supposed to be fun. That's one thing they haven't forgotten at The Players. Although a fiendishly difficult course and virtually unplayable for a high handicap, the TPC is a great venue for the world's greatest players; it defends par but it also presents birdie opportunities. Those of you who remember that my taste in golf courses runs to the minimalist side of things might be surprised that I have kind words for TPC which could best be described as maximalist, but TPC is an excellent and fun venue for excellent golfers. It creates stirring memories.
Although it''s almost unimaginable that The Players will supplant the Masters, each year it seems The Players is acquiring luster while the Masters is losing some. Both tournaments are approaching tipping points. If the Masters gets any more boring, people will eventually lose interest. And by people, I mean both players and fans. If a few players were to announce that the Masters has become a bad joke and that they are henceforth going to spend the second weekend in April with their families, the Masters as a major championship would face an existential crisis. If one of those players were named Tiger, the situation would be especially dire.
Additionally, Augusta National's anachronistic antics lost their charm years ago. Yes, it was hideous to see the club pressured by the New York Times to accept female members a few years ago, but Augusta practices like excluding half the human race from its membership do not endear the club to younger generations. With a course whose original brilliance has been virtually erased by a mediocre architect, an eccentric club and a boring tournament, you have to wonder how long the Masters can endure as an institution.
And if it doesn't endure, The Players will be ready to take its place. Changes of this sort usually happen gradually in the sports world. I would submit that it's happening right now.
