Players Championship lacks major focus

Two years ago, Phil Mickelson sat under a tent, took a couple of swigs of water and began talking about the plight of the PGA Tour.

Mickelson was at the Par-3 Shootout in Gaylord, waiting for the arrival of his playing partners after their round at Treetops. Mickelson was alone, so for several minutes reporters got a rare chance to get his candid thoughts on golf.

The thing I remember most about Mickelson’s comments that day was his explanation of the PGA Tour’s identity crisis.

“We’re the only sports league that doesn’t own its own championship,” he said. “It would be like the NFL not owning the Super Bowl or Major League Baseball not owning the World Series.”

It’s true. Augusta National runs the Masters, the U.S. Golf Association runs the U.S. Open, the Royal and Ancient runs the British Open and the PGA of America runs the PGA Championship.

That leaves the PGA Tour with only two marquee events: the unofficial Presidents Cup and The Players Championship. At the time, before the tour concocted its poorly designed plan for the FedEx Cup, Mickelson said something needed to be done. But he stopped short of saying the Players should be considered the fifth major.

He was right. Every year there’s a debate about whether the Players deserves to be the fifth major on the PGA Tour schedule. With this year’s overhaul, the Players was moved from its traditional slot in March to this week in May, which is the only month from April to August without a major. Some thought that was the chronological underpinning needed to hoist the Players into the realm of the major championships.

But it’s apparent that May is the wrong time on the sports calendar for the Players, which has to compete with the NHL and NBA playoffs. Plus, the reason the Players received plenty of attention in the past was that it was held during the Florida swing and was considered the big event leading up to The Masters.

Now, much like its famous 17th hole, the Players finds itself on an island. Do you think – with everything else going on in sports – that all those sports-talk roundtable shows on Monday will devote much attention to the Players?

Yet I still understand and sympathize with Mickelson’s comments. The PGA Tour deserves its own major. The problem with the Players is that it’s fighting an uphill battle against the tradition of golf having only four majors.

Golf’s four majors, however, weren’t always majors. The U.S. Amateur and British Amateur were once considered majors before the Masters and the PGA Championship replaced them. In fact, there’s really no such thing as an official major. It’s just a customary title that gets adopted over time. The Champions Tour has already set the precedent of having five majors, so it wouldn’t be out of the question for the PGA Tour to add another.

The PGA Tour may not want to hear this, but the real thing holding back the Players is its venue. The TPC Sawgrass is at tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and it’s certainly considered a strong course. But there’s only one venue worthy of holding a major every year, and it’s in Augusta, Ga.

If the PGA Tour dreams of owning its own major, it has to move around to the same classic courses in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship rotation. It won’t be easy for the tour to change the traditional site of the Players Championship, but maybe in doing so a new tradition in golf will begin.