Fifth Major Watch, Vol. 2

We'll go easy on Ron Sirak's fifth major declaration since the Carolyn Bivens-Golf Digest credential form battle is forcing him to avoid LPGA Tour coverage.

Still, we must have our fun...thanks to reader Marty for the heads up.

For at least a decade, the question that has refused to go away concerns whether The Players Championship is the fifth major.

And I bet we're reading articles about the debate in another ten years!

That debate will gain even more momentum next year when the tournament moves to May and it is contested on a rebuilt Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. The new date and the new playing characteristics for the course will focus even more attention on the Players, and will intensify the discussion as to its status.

Perhaps most importantly, the new spot on the schedule will semi-formalize the Players' position as the fifth major.

Yes, key word: semi-formalize.

Enjoy this year's Players Championship, and smile when it is over knowing that next year it will be even better.

Or smile because it'll be 14 months before we resume the annual fifth major debate!

Fifth Major Watch

This Scotsman story says "it is hardly surprising that the Players' Championship is commonly referred to as 'the fifth Major'. Golf's powers-that-be have yet to give it that status but they may as well." 

Meanwhile, Dermot Gilleece reports that Johnny Miller says the status of the event is "getting to be a real issue." 

Please Johnny. It became an issue when won Craig Perks won. That's when I thought, "this is the fifth of four majors!"

Anyway, Gilleece talks to Padraig Harrington who noted a change in the TPC Sawgrass:

"Sawgrass used to be fearsome, but it is now quite a normal test of golf. There's nothing extreme about it anymore. But if they get the greens really firm and fast, which they can in May, now you're talking scary course, especially with the rough up."

Would this strengthen its major aspirations? "Maybe," he said. "But I believe that if there is to be a fifth major, it should be the Australian Open, provided you get the right field. Most of the great players have played it; it's been around for more than 100 years (instituted in 1904) and has a choice of some wonderful courses. So all that's missing is the right field."

Oops.

Fifth of Four Majors Watch

Last year, this site commenced on the 1st annual "fifth of four majors" watch, where our  radar searched for the inevitable Players Championship stories that,

A) Proclaim the 72-holes of swamp golf to be Golf's Fifth Major (sometimes capitalized)

B) Said the Players is deserving of "fifth major status," whatever that means...it could be ninth major too if it wants!

C) Or quite simply, called it a major because the Players displays major-like tendencies (the worst of which is an uncanny tendency to mimic the best attributes of the other four majors...well, the other three in the U.S., which explains the azaleas, the rough, and the blinding white sand).

This annual rite of spring, which has become a fallback column or Wednesday story, has even earned The Players a mention in a golf glossary under "fifth major."

Contending stories in our "watch" inevitably include mentions of the field being the greatest ever assembled, the course the finest of its kind, the PGA Tour deserving of its own major, and the list of champions incredibly diverse. (After all, how else do you deal with Jimmy Roberts' favorite, the Craig Perks win?)

PGATour.com references do not qualify. 

Amazingly, none of the credentialed scribes filed a genuine fifth-of-four majors story last year, though we did get several fifth-of-four references, and even a few "so-called" fifth major mentions (those cynical European writers).

Yet here we are on the eve of the Players, no one has even had a chance to get bored sitting around the press room in search of a story, and we have 2006's potential Grand Prize winner!

Let the mundane stories begin!