Fifh of Four Majors Watch, Vol. 2

It's Monday of fifth major week, which means no one has much to write about. So Jason Sobel and Bob Harig try their best to be like Brittle and Gorse over at GolfDigest.com by doing their alternate shot shtick. Let the fifth major debate begin!

Sobel: Well, I've always disliked the notion of The Players Championship as the "fifth major" and I hated those snarky comments we heard throughout the week about the Wachovia Championship becoming the "sixth major," according to some of the pundits.

Oh I don't think Andrew Magee was being snarky! You did mean Andrew, right?  Lord knows, the word snarky has never been uttered in the same sentence as moi!

That said, it was an enjoyable, memorable weekend of golf from Quail Hollow, culminating in Tiger Woods' 57th career victory.

It's one they'll talk about for weeks. I know I enjoyed thinking about not watching it at while I lounged at the beach.

Of course, it's the same old story: Did Tiger outplay the field in Sunday's final round or did his fellow contenders simply wave the white towel and get out of his way?

Harig: First things first. The idea of a fifth major is ridiculous, no matter how good The Players Championship was, is, or might be. So a sixth is even sillier. A Grand Slam in baseball does not consist of five runs scoring on a home run, and one in golf does not include five (or six) tournaments. And it never will. Too much history would have to be rewritten. And then there is this: When was the last time you saw 19 of the top 20 in the world play the week prior to a major? Probably never.

So cynical Bob!

Meanwhile Doug Ferguson spent Monday trying not to get lost in the new clubhouse, unlike Geoff Ogilvy.

“I’m a little lost,’’ U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy said. “It’s such a big building.’’

And Doug did the fifth major thing, and he comes out firmly that The Players remains the fifth of golf's four majors.

“I think enough fun has been made of their place in the golf kingdom,’’ Sluman said over the weekend. “There are still only four majors, but it is an unbelievable golf course with bar-none the best field in golf.’’

Shouldn’t that be enough?

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has said that he only wants The Players Championship to be the best it can be, and he has stopped at nothing to accomplish that. The Tour wants the tournament to be known as “The Players,’’ similar to “The Masters.’’ Television coverage will include only four minutes of commercials every hour, just like the Masters.

The winner of The Players gets as many FedEx Cup points as the winner of a major. In the World Golf Hall of Fame ballots, The Players is listed in bold print alongside the four majors.

“Nobody likes being force-fed,’’ Sluman said. “I think everybody associated with the tournament needs to let it take its course. It will find its spot wherever that ends up in five, 10, 15 or 50 years. But just let it happen.’’

Ogilvy called it the fifth-best tournament in the world, which probably is what The Players Championship is. But what inevitably followed were more examples of what it’s not.

“It’s not a career-defining win,’’ he said.

Can't you get fined for saying things like that? 

"It's like being inside a great big pinball machine"

Thanks to reader WF for this fun Laury Livsey story on PGATour.com on the first tee shot ever hit in the Tournament Players Championship THE PLAYERS and what's happened to the fellow who hit it (you would never guess who it is or what he does now, unless you live in Cleveland!).

The story also weaves in some of the early history of the course and includes some great old lines, including the Weiskopf line featured above. 

"And that's all you can do."

Deane Beman is featured in a PGATour.com interview and handles the dreaded fifth major question well (in other words, he's proud of what's become and admires the operation and leaves it at that...)

PGATOUR.com: Now, the major question. Is it or isn't it?

Beman: It's the best tournament that can be put on -- in every respect. From the standpoint of -- the golf course and the fairness of the challenge of it, the volunteers, the organization, the field, the financial reward, the clubhouse facility -- now it's the highest standard in the world. It's the standard by which all facilities will be judged in the future. And we can't do anymore than that. I consider it the best tournament in the world. The moniker the press puts on up ... it's up to them. We did all we could do to make it the best event in the world. And we did it. I did that for the 21 years I was there and Tim Finchem and his crew have done a fabulous just of taking it to a new level. And that's all you can do.

"The fans want to see a car wreck, and that's what it is."

Martin Blake, quoting Mike Clayton on TPC Sawgrass's 17th:

"It's American golf," says Mike Clayton, the renowned Melbourne golf course architect. "It's entertainment. The fans want to see a car wreck, and that's what it is."

The placement of the hole in the rota at No. 17 is significant, too, for no player is safe in the lead until he gets past the island green at the penultimate hole.

Clayton remembers Tom Doak, the great American designer, having a dim view. "He (Doak) called it the germ that started the plague," says Clayton. "It's been copied too often, fortunately not in Australia, but mainly in Asia where they think that everything American is great.

"It's a decent-sized green. You have to hit a good shot. At the 71st hole, you find out who's in control and who's not. The history of that tournament is that the leader's always hit a great shot."

Blake also has a note on the health problems of several players that started at the Masters. 

"Watch the start of golf's 5th Major on the The Golf Channel."

Even as they were televising golf's sixth major, according to reader JT, the Golf Channel GOLF CHANNEL's "own commercial for THE PLAYERS says 'Watch the start of golf's 5th Major on the The Golf Channel.'"

It's official, The Players Championship  THE PLAYERS   The PLAYERS  The Players is golf's fifth of four majors.

After all, they say it on TV, it must be true. 

"A Masters-like aura"

The WSJ's John Paul Newport visits the home of the fifth of four majors, gets a personal tour from Commissioner Finchem, and uncovers some real nuggets. Where to start?

How about yet another variation on the tournament's name.

The tournament formally known as the Players Championship, played in March and viewed by the pros as a kind of warm up for the Masters, will henceforth be known simply as "the Players" and anchor its own month on the calendar, May. The first one is next week.

Any similarity between the new name and "the Masters" is purely intentional. And the PGA Tour, which owns and runs the tournament, will probably not object if, in an undisciplined moment, you happen to say something like, "Gee, it's almost like a fifth major."

Oooh, a slightly sarcastic fifth major reference. But more importantly, are we now not capitalizing the T in the? That's probably just a WSJ thing. Weakens the brand if I may say so myself.

Tim Finchem, the Tour's commissioner, knows he cannot simply wave a wand and decree that the Players is a major, but he and his compadres are doing everything they can to give the tournament, in his words, "a Masters-like aura."

And to do that... 

The primary design goal of the new, 77,000-square-foot Mediterranean Revival-style structure, one of Mr. Finchem's vice presidents explained, was to create a sense of "instant tradition." During the tournament, bagpipers will play at dusk every day from the two faux bell towers.

Okay everyone on three...one, two, three...Oy Vey!

In fact, there's a Disneyfied, made-for-TV quality to every aspect of the project, from the balustraded "presentation lawn" where the winner will receive his huge cardboard check to the "master storytellers" who will be stationed in the clubhouse lobby during the other 51 weeks of the year and regale visitors with tales of the tournament's legacy.

Those Jodie Mudd, Craig Perks and Stephen Ames stories ought to knock 'em dead.

One foursome at the course each day will be allowed to pay extra for a "PGA Tour experience." Its members can change shoes in the small locker room reserved, Augusta-like, for past Players champions, lunch in a PGA Tour members-only dining room called Pub 17 and stride down the fairways alongside white-bibbed caddies bearing the players' names on their backs.

Yes, I can really see the connection with Augusta and the Masters.

This isn't the way other tournaments became majors, but that's the world we live in today, and Mr. Finchem and his recently beefed-up corps of vice presidents are no slouches.

If the top pros in the world keep coming to the Players (it has traditionally attracted the best field in golf) and fans get used to seeing high drama play out in front of the clubhouse edifice, who knows? Maybe some other major, such as the PGA Championship, will begin to lose luster by comparison, and our children or grandchildren will come to think of the Players in the same hallowed way we think of the Masters. Majors come and go. Remember the Western Open, anyone?

I think it's the bagpipes that will really put it over the...top. 

TPC...Clubhouse Reviews In

Golfweek's Brad Klein reviews the new TPC clubhouse architecture, giving him a chance to use words like variegated.

The structure offers an expansive, wide-angle view of the course. The building follows the Spanish Mediterranean vernacular tradition of historic St. Augustine, Fla., replete with rope-style columns, clay tile roof, Moorish loggia and numerous Mediterranean arched spaces that offer unrestricted views. The variegated roofline, however, doesn’t have the massive, undifferentiated presence of the previous building and its graceful design can be spotted from most holes on the course.

Meanwhile PGATour.com offers a few pictures and a tour with locker room attendant Conway Murchison. 

“The money meter was running on all this stuff"

Last week I wondered if Brian Hewitt had it right about the new $32 million price tag on the TPC Sawgrass clubhouse. Sure enough, Golfweek's Adam Schupak confirms it and shares some of the excuses reasons why the cost just about doubled.

It’s a far cry from the original TPC clubhouse that was built for $1.3 million and opened in 1981. Former commissioner Deane Beman built the project under strict orders not to use the Tour’s assets or put the Tour at liability. This time, the Tour’s co-chief operating officer, Charlie Zink, established a reserve fund that reached $45 million in anticipation of  renovations.

Those reserves will be replenished in five to seven years, according to Pillsbury. How so? Through a combination of club operations, tournament revenue and sponsorship fees.

The Tour sold three companies – UBS, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Jeld-Wen – “proud partner” tournament-sponsorship packages that include TV inventory and dedicated hospitality and meeting space within the new clubhouse. Its predecessor had limited indoor space for entertaining and little useable space for hosting outdoor events.

The new clubhouse is more than just a place to change shoes and grab a hot dog. It features a Champions Lounge, separate member, player, and resort guest locker rooms, a golf shop, a 2,550-square-foot main dining area with a 1,300-square-foot terrace, and 13,800-square-
feet of banquet and meeting space.

Sounds so quaint!

The clubhouse’s second story is dedicated mainly to the three “proud partner” rooms, each large enough to seat 130 people. Each of the three companies signed a six-year deal that insiders estimate costs $12 million to $14 million annually. (Of that amount, $4 million to $6 million is earmarked to replenish the reserve fund.)

Efforts to further boost the clubhouse’s sponsorship revenue potential led to cost overruns. Initially, Tour executives had planned to build two “proud partner” rooms, but later added a third. The project originally was budgeted between $18 million and $22 million; it cost nearly twice as much to complete.

Satisfying sponsors’ needs also came with a price. During an early site visit, sponsors noted that the commissioner’s hospitality area had a patio. Now the “proud partner” rooms do, too.

Wow, those are some expensive patios!

While construction benefited from the driest summer in 22 years, the Tour still had to dip into its rainy day fund. To ensure the facility would be open for this year’s tournament, a construction schedule of slightly less than a year from demolition to completion was implemented, leading to $2 million in overtime. Normally, a project of this magnitude would take 18 to 24 months, Pillsbury says. Moreover, there was a 30 percent increase in the cost of materials such as steel and concrete during construction, adding $6 million to the final bill.

“The money meter was running on all this stuff,” Pillsbury says.

Fifth of Four Majors Watch

So I try to start the second annual fifth of four majors watch--that's when we watch for a golf scribbler to declare the TPC The Players Championship THE PLAYERS The PLAYERS a major--and then we have Scott Verplank making a mess of things by declaring the Byron Nelson a fifth major.

But we must focus on to the real fifth of golf's four majors. The Players. And oh does this year figure to be the prime year for major championshp declarations.

Golf Digest featured Jerry Tarde listed five reasons it's a major:

 
Sorry Jerry, but to win our watch, you have to actually leave humor and those traces of skepticism out of the equation.

No, to win our coveted prize, our judges here looking for that special scribe who in some delusional moment after a particularly good press room meal actually sits down, skims past Jodie Mudd and Craig Perks's names, and by golly, declares the Players a major. Preferably designating it the fifth major...of golf's four.  

Which makes Ron Whitten's feature story in the May Golf Digest a near winner. Ron starts humping away on the fifth major concept, but cleverly actually avoids making that inane sweeping declaration we so enjoy.

If ever the Players Championship is to be elevated to the status of a major golf championship in the mind of the players, the media and the public, this is the year. 

He also manages to get in a few interesting points.

For greens, Dye selected the latest turfgrass innovation, MiniVerde Ultradwarf Bermuda, as fine-bladed as any bent-grass green, so it can be mowed as short as bent. It’s never grainy, and it’s also the rare Bermuda that keeps its green color throughout the winter.

That's right, they're playing the fifth of four on Bermuda greens this year. Not something you see your run of the mill fifth major. Should be fun to see what the players say about this exciting new turfgrass development.

This is now a golf course, and a championship, that combines attributes of all four majors.

And isn't that precisely the problem? It borrows a bit too much from everyone? Oh, sorry, I interrupted. 

If the tour wants, it can grow U.S. Open- and PGA-style rough, because the May dates provide extra growing time. The Players’ finish is akin to Augusta National’s Amen Corner, only in reverse: a short, gambling par 5 followed by a treacherous little par 3 before the long, hard par 4. And it will surely play British Open firm and fast. The Players Stadium Course will play much like Royal Liverpool did for the British Open last year, forcing players to calculate roll, maneuver shots and invent strategies to avoid hazards and hit targets.

That’s the best of all worlds. Not even a major championship can say it has that. 

So close, but still, no fifth major declaration.

Readers, please help me keep a watch for our first declaration. I feel this is the year we're going to here a record number of declarations for fifth major status!

Newsflash: TPC Clubhouse To Open!

Golf Channel's Brian Hewitt scores a major exclusive by finding out when they'll be dedicating the TPC SawgrassThe Players Stadium course clubhouse:

Sources at The TOUR confirmed today they have scheduled the dedication for the new 70,000 square foot, $32 million clubhouse at the TPC Sawgrass for the Tuesday before next month’s PLAYERS Championship.

Uh, $32 million? Oh I think we have our first question for the commissioner!

In this 2005 Ryan Herrington item from Golf World, the tab was penciled in at $16-18 million

Hey, it's not our money! 

The Players Stadium Course

Garry Smits offers an update on the TPC Stadium The Players Stadium course construction (yes, it's been uh, rebranded).

Jeld Win Teleconference

The PGA Tour held a teleconference to unveil yet another new THE PLAYERS logo and to announced another presenting sponsor. Some nice Finchemspeak for your files.

One of the most important things about next year's tournament is the telecast. To think that we're going to have later air times, that's important, but we're going to have limited commercial inventory, with only four minutes of commercials an hour.

Limited commericial inventory. Is that why we have all of those The Villages ads?

So over the years we have been blessed in the last few years with our relationship with Price Waterhouse Coopers and also with UBS. And today we're delighted to announce that Jeld-Wen, which is the largest manufacturer of reliable doors and windows in the world, will become our third sponsor.

That is particularly important to be able to generate the kind of television presentation that we want to present. It's also important to help underpin all the changes and presentation that will occur with the players going forward.

Underpin...nice verb choice Tim. 

Jeld-Wen is -- why Jeld-Wen? Not just that we have a relationship with Jeld-Wen that goes back several years, when Jeld-Wen has been sponsoring a major championship on the Champions Tour, the Tradition. The Jeld-Wen Tradition has quickly become a fixture on the Champions Tour.

Is that like one of the nine majors in a row they're currently playing?

But the nature of the people at Jeld-Wen, the executive team at Jeld-Wen are a group of people that believe in the game of golf. They believe in what the game can do for a brand. They have demonstrated in their relationship with the Tradition out in Portland, a commitment to charity as well, a million dollars have been raised for charitable causes in the Portland area. So they are a natural, big company, global brand to align not just with The PLAYERS, but in association with The PLAYERS with Price Waterhouse Coopers and UBS. So that rounds out our charitable mix and gives us the basis where we can move forward and have the security to know that we can accomplish the things we need to accomplish to create a better PLAYERS and bring it to our fans.

So many words, and yet so little actually said.

Ah but here's the best part, the report on course and clubhouse renovations from David Pillsbury.

DAVE PILLSBURY: Well, first, I can assure you that the windows and doors are in fact Jeld-Wen through and through. We are very proud to say that. A great product for a great clubhouse, building a platform really for the next 25 years.

And you wonder why I'm cynical? 

Ponte Vedra Weather Not As Awful This Time Of Year As Some Might Think

Garry Smits reports on the weather in Ponte Vedra where a year from now The Players Championship THE PLAYERS will be contested.

Players Championship executive director Brian Goin said if the 2007 tournament gets similar weather to what's predicted for this week, he would be more than pleased.

"We've had a little rain this week, but overall, the temperatures haven't been that hot, and we've had some cloud cover," Goin said. "Maybe we could hope for sunnier weather, but if we get this every year, I wouldn't complain."

Goin said gentler winds than in March would be offset by a firmer playing surface and difficult Bermuda rough.

"If someone played really well under these conditions, they could shoot 14 under," Goin said. "But I can picture a winning score in single-digits under-par. It's what we're hoping for with a firmer, faster course."

Well, there's always hope for that single-digit-under par score! Let us pray for them.

Rough Call

Garry Smits writes about the apparently monumental decision facing the PGA Tour:

Dozens of players interviewed since the decision was made to move to the tournament to May agree that the course should not be over-seeded for that date, given the warmer temperatures that will now be as much a part of the tournament as cold March winds had been for 40 years. When played in March, the course was over-seeded with grass that would better stand up to the winter months. But with the tournament in May, and new irrigation and drainage systems being installed, superintendant Fred Klauk can simply let the natural Bermuda grass take over.

As a result, the rough would be cut to 2 1/2 inches. Because of the nature of Bermuda rough, and the small, undulating greens of the Stadium Course, anything deeper would be unplayable, since balls tend to sink all the way to the bottom of that grass. Even the United States Golf Association, never shy about torturing players for the U.S. Open, capped the Bermuda rough at 3 inches for the last two Opens held at Pinehurst.

Past Players champions such as Tiger Woods, PGA Tour Policy Board member Davis Love III, Fred Funk, Mark McCumber and Craig Perks, as well as Joe Durant (another Policy Board member), and Jim Furyk, David Toms, Len Mattiace, Frank Lickliter and Zach Johnson are among the players who have come out in favor of not over-seeding, either in news conferences or in interviews with The Times-Union.

Mark Russell, the rules official who set up the Stadium Course for last week's Players Championship, said a final decision hasn't been made. But he also said having shallow Bermuda rough with firm fairways and greens would be closer to what architect Pete Dye intended when he designed the course in the late 1970s.

A Stadium Course set-up such as that would offer two strategies that don't exist now: a lot of drives previously caught by heavy rough (and giving players only one alternative, hacking out with a wedge) will run into the trees on holes such as Nos.1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 11 and 16, forcing the pros to play recovery shots. Since the days of Arnold Palmer, golf fans have enjoyed watching professionals try to hit shots over and through trees.

"We like that challenge also," said Love. "That would give us the chance to try a lot of exciting golf shots."

And there was this from Jim Furyk:

"They're trying to get the input of guys who have won this tournament, and guys who play at this course a lot, in all kinds of weather and conditions," said Furyk, a Ponte Vedra Beach resident. "I'm encouraged by what I'm hearing. Not over-seeding, cutting the rough down to around 2 inches and getting this course really firm and fast would tremendous for this tournament."

Tiger On Sawgrass Setup

More from Tiger Woods after Sunday's final The Players Championship, before it becomes THE PLAYERS:

TIGER WOODS: Since I've played here, I've never liked the way they've set it up with the rough high because the golf course wasn't meant to be played that way. I've talked to Pete Dye, and it wasn't meant to be played that way. It's supposed to be hard and fast and all the palmetto bushes are supposed to be coming into play. When we played the Amateur here in '94 that's the way it was, but they've cleaned it up and changed the golf course and changed, I think, how Pete wanted it initially to be played.

Hopefully when we come back here in May, it will be playing like that. Hard and fast is great, but six, eight inch rough, I don't think that's the right combo.