Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee has labelled The Players Championship as the best major in men’s professional golf despite it not being officially classed as a major championship itself.
The Masters, US Open, PGA Championship and Open Championship have stood alone as golf’s flagship events while The Players Championship has been dubbed as golf’s “fifth major.” Chamblee, speaking at the WM Phoenix Open said not only is The Players a fifth major, it is the sport’s best major given its history and the coverage it receives.
“First of all, we do ‘Live Froms’ from Major championships. We’ve been doing a ‘Live From The Players Championship’ since 2004, since I first started working at the Golf Channel. Just by that mere fact, we give it the attention of a Major championship, we give it that prestige.
“So when you say, should it be a Major championship, what constitutes a Major championship? Of course, it’s history and tradition and reverence and all those things, but at the core, these are hard events to win.
“They’re meant to be harder events to win, because of the pressure, because of the setup, because, you know, everything’s right on the line. So they’ve got to be hard events to win.
“They’ve got to be great fields. They’ve got to produce indelible champions, and indelible moments. When you look at The Players Championship, with all due respect to the other four Major championships, it is the best field in golf. It is the deepest field in golf.
“By virtue of the fact that only one person in its 50 year history has managed to successfully defend it, I would argue that it is the hardest Major championship to win.”
Chamblee also heaped praise on TPC Sawgrass as a major championship venue and The Players as well as the Masters are two events where the host golf course doesn’t change.
“Especially since it moved (The Players Championship) to TPC Sawgrass, which, in my estimation, save one hole, is perhaps arguably the best golf course that they play a Major championship on from a shot value perspective.
“You can talk about aesthetics all you want, risk-reward holes, certainly, but I’m talking about a shot value standpoint. You can’t touch TPC Sawgrass.
“So in every single way that a metric could be used to measure whether something is a Major, The Players, to me, stands alone and above all the other four Major championships as not just a Major. It is in my estimation, the best Major.”
Rory McIlroy edged out JJ Spaun in a playoff to win his second Players Championship last year and the PGA Tour’s flagship event returns next month from 12-15 March.