The Players Championship has been elevated in pantheon of tournaments as purse and prestige grow

Though it is the premier golf tour in the world, the PGA Tour has long been left out of some of the biggest events in the sport.

And it has been trying to catch up for a few decades.

The historic and hotly contested Ryder Cup is overseen by the PGA of America and Royal & Ancient Golf Club.

In 1994, the PGA Tour was the driving force behind the creation of the Presidents Cup and continues to operate the biennial event pitting United States and International teams. The tournament still lags behind the popularity, intrigue and contentiousness of the U.S.-Europe Ryder Cup matches.

Though the bulk of the players who participate in the four major championships are PGA Tour members, those events are owned and operated by Augusta National Golf Club, the United States Golf Association, the R&A and PGA of America.

In 1974, the tour staged the inaugural Players Championship, and for the past 41 years it has been throwing money, resources and publicity into the event in an effort to give the tournament more prestige.

“I think you could probably honestly say that it’s the tour that probably runs it, so that’s what they’re trying to elevate,” said two-time Players champion Tiger Woods.

Though it still lacks the recognition the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship receive, it just might be gaining ground.

“In 20 or 30 years time if we keep doing the same thing, it will kind of have to be acknowledged as kind of an equal of the others,” said Australian Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion. “If you started golf again now, blank slate started now, it would be a major. But can you beat history? It might get there.”

The term “fifth major” has become part of pro golf’s lexicon because of The Players, and some feel the moniker is becoming increasingly warranted.

“I think it definitely has the caliber to be a major. I think the players consider it to be a major,” said two-time Masters winner Bernhard Langer, 57, who has seen the tournament rise in his long career and believes it could and maybe should eventually become the fifth major. “It’s the strongest field in golf, at least one of the strongest guaranteed, and it’s been that year after year. It’s a great golf course. It’s a fantastic venue, and everything they do is just top class.”

The tour wants to continue pushing the event and let the official and unofficial titles take care of themselves.

“Our overall game plan is to make it as good as it can be,” said 28-year PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem. “Other people can describe it however they want, we just want to make it as good as it can be. We’re very pleased. As long as we’re getting better every year in every aspect then we’re very comfortable.”

Building a brand

The PGA Tour has done just about all it can to elevate The Players Championship, aided by the fact the event is held at its headquarters at TPC Sawgrass, and it has some things going for it.

“Everything about it is just unbelievable: the people, the golf course, the venue, plus the weather is just great,” said four-time major champion Ernie Els. “It’s always kind of been the next best one, and that has kind of continued. I think the scale of the tournament has gotten bigger.”

The tour has provided the tournament with essentially the largest purse in golf since its inception. If it wasn’t the largest, it was an accident. It has tried to stay a step ahead of the majors and has generally managed to do so despite the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open not announcing their purses until the week of their events.

Last year’s purse of $10 million was more than any major, and this year’s $10 million purse matches this year’s Masters and PGA Championship, while the Opens had purses around $9 million in 2014. The Players and PGA have agreed to offer the same purse moving forward.

The Players purse has been at least $9.5 million since 2008.

The field is the best of any event in the world, and as such it offers the most amount of Official World Golf Ranking points. Nearly all of the top players in the world are entered, and all 144 players in the event are candidates to win.

All other fields are smaller or watered down. The Masters is 100 players or less and includes amateurs and older past champions, the Opens have open qualifiers with lesser credentials, and the PGA has 20 club professionals who rarely make the cut. World Golf Championship events have limited fields and no cuts.

The tournament does as much for its namesake – the players – as any event, and they way they’re treated may help elevate their consideration of the event’s status.

The course doesn’t open to the public tournament week until Tuesday, and there isn’t a pro-am. Only the four majors, season-ending Tour Championship and generally World Golf Championships forego pro-ams on tour, though last week’s WGC-Cadillac Match Play did have one. The Tour Championship requires its 30 players to participate in a breakfast and clinic.

Players and their families are pampered. The player food is among the best on tour, and a grand 77,000-square-foot clubhouse has a large locker room and separate champions locker room, and a spa offering free services reserved for players, their families and media members. The services include manicures, pedicures and shaves.

The demanding Pete Dye-designed course is lauded and doesn’t appear to discriminate against any style of play, as winners range from the short, accurate and steady Fred Funk to the long and explosive Woods.

“I would describe the golf course as perfectly unbalanced. That is its genius,” said Golf Channel analyst Frank Nobilo.

Purposely designed amphitheater- and stadium-like backdrops and seating benefit spectators and create more drama both at the venue and on television, and the course features one of the most dramatic holes in golf in the 137-yard par-3 island-green 17th hole.

The tour gives the tournament plenty of air time – 26 hours live this year. It had six hours of live coverage on Golf Channel for both the first and second rounds, and that expanded to seven hours on both weekend days, consisting of two hours on Golf Channel and five hours on NBC each day.

A highly impressive list of winners includes Lee Trevino, Ray Floyd, Tom Kite, Nick Price, Greg Norman, Lanny Wadkins, David Duval, Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson, and is even more impressive when considering the event’s only multiple winners: Jack Nicklaus, Steve Elkington, Hal Sutton, Fred Couples, Davis Love III and Woods.

Ogilvy believes that in order to continue its ascent, it needs more years of great players doing great things to win, such as Woods’ long winding putt on the 17th hole in 2001 that was “better than most.”

“It’s developing history every year,” Ogilvy said. “Everyone who was supposed to have won here generally has won here. If you look at all the biggest trophies in golf, the trophy is always covered in big names, and this trophy is covered in big names. Maybe it’s only history that suggests that it’s not one of the top four.”

Shrewd moves

Venue and date changes have helped The Players over the years.

The Players first moved around, from Atlanta Country Club to Colonial Country Club to Inverrary Golf & Country Club in its first three years. The tour gave it a home near its headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach at Sawgrass Country Club from 1977-81 before building TPC Sawgrass across the street to host the event beginning in 1982.

Then PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman hired Pete Dye to design the stadium course largely because Dye had designed the highly-regarded Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island, which was popular with players, on a similar piece of relatively flat, Lowcountry-like property rife with live oak trees.

The tournament was played late in the summer its first two years, it moved to early March in 1976 and was played in mid-March or late March from 1977-2006. It has been the second week in May since 2007. “It related primarily to a philosophical question of where would The Players best be positioned in the schedule in relation to other significant championships?” said Ty Votaw, the tour’s chief marketing officer. “It started there.”

Tour leaders figured having it sandwiched in May between the Masters in April and U.S. Open in June could boost the event’s importance, thus giving the tour schedule one significant golf event for five consecutive months factoring in the British Open in July and PGA Championship in August.

“It’s five months of significant events, versus having the March situation and having that gap of two months between the Masters and U.S. Open,” Votaw said. “We feel very good about [it’s dates].”

The tour also had to consider agronomics and whether playing conditions would be ideal in May. In March, the tournament was played on winter overseed grasses including poa trivialis on greens, and in May it is played on Bermudagrass that the tour hopes each year has been fully out of dormancy for a month or so. Last year, for instance, TPC’s greens struggled coming out of a cold winter and weren’t in great shape for the event.

This year, however, the course is pristine.

The course is scheduled to receive a soil and grass makeover following next year’s tournament.

“We want excellent conditions regardless of what the winter looks like, and we think the things we’ll be doing over the next couple years will give us the best chance to do that,” Votaw said.

Legacy continuing

In some instances the tour can appear to try too hard.

The name is in all caps – THE PLAYERS – in all press releases.

The criteria to be considered for the World Golf Hall of Fame now requires players to have at least 15 wins on any of the six major tours around the world or a win in at least two of the following tournaments: The Masters, U.S. Open, British Open, PGA Championship and The Players Championship.

The tour has created pomp and circumstance for the event including a lavish annual Military Appreciation Ceremony on Tuesday complete with a performance from a big-name band at the clubhouse.

Some pre-tournament happenings mirror Masters events. While Augusta National has a Wednesday Par 3 Contest and players skipping balls onto the 16th green in practice rounds, TPC Sawgrass has a proximity-to-the-pin contest for caddies on the 17th hole Wednesday, with money provided by players and a premier parking spot for the week at stake.

This year, Augusta National encased a center cut of the fabled Eisenhower Tree in a display. The Players countered with a press release that a limb of its oak tree overhanging the sixth tee that was removed because of decay had been converted into a bench.

Will The Players Championship always be the fifth-best event on the schedule, one notch below the four majors?

“There are four majors in golf and that’s not going to change, so that shouldn’t even be a discussion, but for a tour event that world players play in, this is as good as it comes,” Els said.

Others believe a fifth major – as there are on the LPGA and Champions tours – is a distinct possibility.

“To me it is at a major level. It’s just a matter of time until it will be a major,” Langer said. “Why do you have to have four? There weren’t always four. It had to start somewhere. There wasn’t always a Masters. We have five majors [on the Champions Tour], why’s the number four so important?”

This story was originally published May 10, 2015 at 5:31 AM with the headline "The Players Championship has been elevated in pantheon of tournaments as purse and prestige grow."