"Besides, there is nothing wrong with being the most important event in the world that is not a major."
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Greetings from Ponte Vedra, home to the fifth of four majors one of the four best events on the globe!
That's right, the tournament kicking off Thursday is a better event than the PGA Championship. My reasoning:
-Better course than anything PGA has played in years or will play.
-Better weather (barely...)
-Better television presentation (this one's not even close...and that's not a statement about CBS v. NBC, that's a statement about the PGA becoming a preview show for the CBS fall television schedule while The Players limits commercial time and gulp, delivers value to sponsors PWC and Jeld-Wen).
-Better course setup. The PGA's Kerry Haigh does an outstanding job most of the time, but has also made a few odd moves and is stretched thin handling other duties. The PGA Tour wins on consistency at a course that is not easy to set up. (Though the TPC Sawgrass would be way better with no rough...more on that in a moment).
Besides, there is nothing wrong with being the most important event in the world that is not a major. I certainly can't think of one that is more important than the Players, whether Lee and Rory turn up or not. It's certainly a bigger deal than the World Golf Championships. In fact -- although the last thing golf needs is another major in the U.S. -- if we were starting over tomorrow, the Players, as the biggest event on the world's biggest tour, would surely be a major.
Though I never experienced the event in person in March, most feel the tour needs to shift away from the May date now that the NCAA has moved games to night and more fans were around in March. Personally, I like where The Players sits on the schedule now and hope they stick to their guns, but I'm definitely in the minority on this one. John Feinstein, courtesy of reader Lee:
Okay, here’s why May is a bad idea. First, the weather is almost always hot and humid in north Florida in May and that’s the weather report for this week. The crowds last year looked sparse compared with the old days in March when snowbirds were still around and others came down to combine spring training trips with a couple days of watching golf.
But the March date was better. Sure, it rained sometimes, but overall it was cooler and more comfortable for everyone. It fit right in at the end of the Florida Swing on Tour. Maybe it was a warm-up for the Masters but now, well, it’s an early warm-up for the U.S. Open. The always politically correct Phil Mickelson slipped for a second Sunday afternoon on TV when he said he was trying to make progress, “going forward towards the Open,” before catching himself and saying, “and of course The Players next week.”
More and more of the NCAA basketball tournament is played at night these days so there is less TV competition from basketball and in May there are still the NBA playoffs to deal with; baseball in full swing and good weather in most of the country that has people outdoors on the weekend.
The Players should move back to March. It still won’t be a major but it will be a better golf tournament. That should matter.
May only quibble with this event is one key element to the golf course: the rough. Adam Scott made these comments to Doug Ferguson:
"In my personal opinion, I don't think they've got the setup quite right yet for the May date," said Adam Scott, who won The Players in 2004 when it was in March. "With the different grass, I'd like to see them set it up a little differently. I'd like to see the rough cut down a lot more with the different grass here, get the ball running through. And we could do away with the thick rough."
Here's why the Bermuda grass rough stinks: (A) it keeps errant balls in play, as Scott notes and (B) the rough strips the course of much needed aesthetic punch that it once had (think Pinehurst #2 restoration).
Either way, The Players is here. I'll be out on the course quite a bit and will try to do my best to issue some reports, but with the PGA Tour clamping down on any kind of photo or video sharing, I'll be limited in what I can share! Enjoy!
