Majors: More overvalued than Tesla stock

[FootWedge16]

Watching the PGA this weekend, I couldn't help but think that "majors" are absolutely overvalued when judging career achievements. Would anyone actually care about the PGA championship if it wasn't branded a "major?"

Why is it that we value a PGA Championship win so much more than a win at the Players? Barclays? Others?

We shouldn't. Golf tournaments should be judged by their strength of field only (funny enough, the PGA is #1 on that list). It's obvious that winning the Memorial is a bigger deal than winning the Puerto Rico Open. But winning a PGA shouldn't be a bigger deal than winning any other big time tournament, "major" or not.

[smashdn]

What would you put above it? A WGC event? How about the event at TPC River Highlands? Pebble Beach Pro-Am?

[munichop]

Based on this approach the Masters would struggle since it is such a limited field and many of the competitors are ceremonial.

[nichho]

You don't have to. If you want the RBC Heritage to be rated higher than the PGA just tell yourself that it is, after all it is purely subjective and arbitrary . You can ignore the rest of the golfing world when they are banging on about Open this and Masters that and bang on about the tournaments that are important to you. I'm sure that you will find some like minded souls on here, it truly is a weird place.

[cardoustie]

I disagree with your post 100 percent

[snizzle]

The PGA Championship had 96 of the top 100 players in the world. In terms of career achievements I fail to see how winning that event wouldn't be a huge accomplishment for any of the golfers in that field.

[straightshot7]

No offense but you're basically contradicting yourself, because you said "Golf tournaments should be judged by their strength of field only" and the Majors DO have the strongest fields, along with the Player's Championship.

The only good/consistent argument with your premise might be that the Player's deserves more love, although some already do it call it the 5th major...

Also, it's not just about Strength of Field. It's about the fact that players gear up all year to try to peak at the Majors. When everyone is fighting/preparing harder, the event becomes more competitive and calls for a higher level of golf to win it.

[sailfishchris]

See? You and Bryson get it! It's all about branding!

[tiderider]

the tours give the majors more weight with more pts awarded ... other majors give the majors more weight with longer periods of exemptions ... players themselves give the majors more weights by changing their schedule to peak for a major ... marketing/businesses give the majors more weight by advertising those majors wins ... history/golf community gives the majors more weight ... the collective "we" has spoken and feels that you are wrong ...

[FootWedge16]

I probably didn't explain myself very well. I understand that majors would still be the most important tournaments if judged by strength of field (outside of the Masters). My whole point was meant to be that winning other high strength of field tournaments should be considered equal to or almost equal to winning a major.

I'll give an example: I assume most people on this board would rather win one PGA than two Players championships. To me, that's ridiculous, as winning two Players championships is clearly the greater accomplishment.

[Chief Illiniwek]

Straight shot 7 nailed it. Not only are most of the best players there, but they literally prepare themselves to “peak” four times a year. Sure, the top players are at the Memorial. But are they designing their entire lives around peaking to win it? No.

 

It would be like playing Michael Jordan around Finals time, or playing him one on one in mid August. Sure either way you’re playing Michael Jordan. But it’s not the same.

[Titleist99]

Of course the MAJORS are grossly over rated. Jack N. & Tiger W. keep the narrative going that golf is all about the major championships and that a players career is defined by the number of majors he has won. That notion is totally ridiculous to me and should be dispelled at every opportunity. Imagine if Brooks Keopka had won the PGA championship, he would have been proclaimed a Hall of Famer with a grand total of eight wins......He would have been mentioned in the same breath as Byron Nelson and Seve Ballesteros......How ridiculous is that!?!

P.S. ....that's why Brooks Keopka thinks that his seven wins trumps Dustin Johnson's twenty one wins and one major championship....

[Titleist99]

Jack, Tiger and Brooks all proclaim that the Majors are the easiest to win, so why judge ones career on the total of majors won?

[rafal]

Majors is one thing, but how about getting all wrapped up about those Olympic medals! Any given track&field meet has the same fixtures and if anyone wins there they should be also celebrated.

 

But noooo, we all focus on those Olympic Games! Boomer please!

[ProStryker]

The Super Bowl is overrated. Along with the NBA Finals. All meaningless stuff....

[Darth Putter]

The OWGR seems to agree with you.

Majors: 100 first place points

TPC: 80

WGCs/ Fed Ex Cup Playoff: 70s

Memorial/ Bay Hill/ LA Open: 60s

standard PGA Tour event: 50s

 

Is that about the margin you're thinking of?

[MUNIGRIT]

TSLA stock overrated? What if you had 500 shares at $313 bucks and sold them July 23rd?

[Hawkeye77]

Yawn

[Jwin323]

This ha always bothered me. You can be a world champion in your sport 3-4 years running, have a bad Olympic performance then win 3 more world championships in a row and the press makes you out to be a failure. Meanwhile, someone who is not as good as you can show out with the performance of a lifetime in the Olympics and they are immortal. Golf should have never bought into this. With the limited amount of players from each country, it is not a strong field. There are better ways to grow the game.

[MattyO1984]

Win The Open - get your name on the Claret Jug and your name associated with all of the greats of the game.
Win a WGC - get a trophy that has the name plate changed on it more often than John Daly changes wife.
Yeah they are the same ??‍♂️

[ColinKelvin]

Interesting post.
Majors are incredibly important - as the highest-profile championships in golf with significantly greater history, prestige and public interest than other events. I think the Open, the Masters and the US Open are all valued just right, and they bring different things to the golfing year.
For me (like you, I think), the question is how/why the USPGA came to claim the title of a major. It wasn't even stroke play for its first 40 years, only two non-Americans won it between 1958 (when it went strokeplay) and 1989, it is an event with an identity built on the US PGA (including club pros), and in the past it tended to look and play almost identically to a generic PGA tour event, perhaps just slightly harder. In recent years, the use of US Open courses and move in the calendar has also blurred its identity.
Personally, I'd love to see the fourth major being moved from the USPGA to a global event either by initiating something new, or bulking up an established event outside Europe and the US with far higher prize money (e.g. the Australian Open). Some may laugh, but failing the global option, I'd even say that (despite its even shorter history), the Players has a stronger identity and in some ways is a better shout as a 4th Major given its field.

[MattyO1984]

There is no chance the the PGA moves abroad. A members organisation based in the US together with sponsors that want the US market over anything else means that it will remain a no go. That that is the case is certainly a pity but something which is completely understandable. As for The Players replacing the PGA, my view is that the reasons listed for not having a favourable opinion of the PGA apply even more so to The Players which suffers from the Tour’s desperate attempts at giving it an identity and a weaker field every year than PGA has. It can be argued that the inclusion of 20 Club Pro’s dilutes the field but even with them there, the PGA has a stronger field as a result of allowing the Top 100 to be exempt as opposed to the Top 50.

[iBanesto]

As stated by straightshot7, the SoF of the Players last year was 882. Whilst the 2020 PGA had a SoF of 899.
So objectively it is the stronger tournament and also has universally been considered a major for many years since 1916. The Players has only been played since 1975, so it lacks the tradition.
What are you basing your comment on Tesla shares on? P/E ratio?

[Frostfield]

Perception is reality. Along with the fact that the majors are the most historic events played on the most revered courses, there IS a small tinge of subjectivity, however, they mean the most because everyone has bought in and is drinking the kool aid. Perception is reality. It’s no different than money. Everyone accepts that it has inherent value; therefore it works. If you want to be a mouth breather in your moms basement and stomp and yell that they aren’t more important, go right ahead. The other 99.9% of the world will still keep them at a higher importance level.

[Hawkeye77]

Never happening and pointless to move abroad.
We can have the Players argument for the 1000th time next year. It’s not a major.

[ColinKelvin]

It's probably never happening, but it wouldn't be "pointless" to move abroad. Currently the US has three of the four majors every year, and it's unfair for one country to have that many when golf is a global game. The US PGA is by far the weakest, so in my (probably unpopular) opinion, it should make way in terms of major status in favour of a global event somewhere else.

[rafal]

I can tell you that for all the talking about golf being global game, the reality is that in most countries there are 4-8 courses and they are full of CEOs, celebrities and fund babies. It's just not a people's sport apart from GB&I and all of their former colonies It's simply out of reach for a normal working family in the world to actively pursue golf in those other places.

[ColinKelvin]

I'm not claiming golf is a huge deal in every country in the world. I'm saying that the current majors spread of...
USA - 3
UK - 1
Continental Europe - 0
Australia - 0
South Africa - 0
... is completely skewed. There have been dozens of major winners from those last three, so why not have a fourth major which rotates around them and reflects that? And which takes in Asia too? I hear golf is quite big in Japan and S. Korea...

[MattyO1984]

I genuinely think that a good number of today’s crop of players would view a trip to Asia or Australia as not being necessary. Clearly the PGA is more prestigious than the WGC but look at how hit or miss those events can be. The only global golf organisation that would want the PGA to move away from the States would be the Tour...that would be the number 1 way that they could get the Players to take the PGA’s place as a major.

[FootWedge16]

Yes, actually. I think the OWGR gets it right.