In 1982, shortly after Jerry Pate won THE PLAYERS and threw Deane Beman and Pete Dye into the lake at the 18th hole at TPC Sawgrass, the late and legendary sportswriter Dan Jenkins called THE PLAYERS the fifth major for an article for Sports Illustrated. These days, 40 years later, the tournament has finally evolved into a major in the eyes of many TOUR players.
If you don’t recognize the name, you might know some of his book titles: “Dead Solid Perfect,” “Semi-Tough,” “The Dogged Victims of Inexorable Fate,” “You Gotta Play Hurt.” In addition, he wrote tons of articles on golf for Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest. He lived in Ponte Vedra for many years before moving back to his native Fort Worth, Texas.
Jenkins was a little bit like the kid in the old Life cereal commercial who was hard to please. (You remember: “Let Mikey try it. He hates everything.”) On Jenkins list of “likes” were his wife, June, Ben Hogan, Paschal High School, TCU football and Fort Worth, Texas. If you have lived here for a long time, you might remember June’s restaurant, Juanita’s, which was in Jax Beach. She had three Juanita’s for a while, one in New York City, one in Fort Worth and one here. After that, their son Danny opened Café Society.
Whether you were a fan of Jenkins’ writing or not, he had a great ear and typewriter for creating dialect, making him the Mark Twain of sports writing. And he was known to be correct in his assessment of what was good, what was bad and even what was ugly. He was the first to call THE PLAYERS a major. It has just taken a while for everybody else to catch up, including golfers. But this year, they have.
“You always hear when you're growing up, this is golf's fifth major,” Collin Morikawa, winner of the PGA Championship and British Open, said this week.
“I don't feel like the TOUR pushed the fifth major name in any way. It's just sort of what became of it,” Rory McIlroy, winner of two PGAs, the U.S. Open and the British Open, said in his press conference.
“It's considered our fifth major, and majors are sacred to us,” added Xander Schauffele, winner of the Olympic gold medal in golf.
How did the status grow in the minds of the golfers who play in the event? It’s a combination of ingredients. There’s the new gigantic purse of $20 million. There’s the new gigantic winner’s check of $3.6 million. And of course, there’s the kind of new gigantic clubhouse. Whatever caused it, the major status of THE PLAYERS is definitely trending.
“Every year we come here the stands seem to be bigger, everything seems to be bigger,” Schauffele said about THE PLAYERS. “Overall, you make big tournaments by just making everything more magnitude and more important. This is a very important week for us.”
Since Schauffele won the most recent Olympic gold medal in golf, he knows a thing or two about “big.”
Jon Rahm, reigning U.S. Open champ, agrees with that assessment.
“This is pretty much a major win, quality-wise, field-wise. It's like winning a major,” he said when he was asked what it had meant to his fellow countryman Sergio Garcia to win it. Garcia went on to win the Masters.
Morikawa said when he shows up at majors, people breathe differently. Golfers are much more focused. Instead of showing up on a Tuesday, they are starting to show up on Monday.
“They're putting in that extra little prep because they view this tournament that largely, as this big tournament, it's the players' tournament, and it's for us,” he added.
No matter which camp you are in, THE PLAYERS has become huge. It’s shown in more than 200 countries around the world and broadcast in 27 languages, according to PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan. Forty-six of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking will be in the field. Top to bottom, it is the strongest field in golf all year.
“The past couple years when you show up, you can feel the weight of what THE PLAYERS means to everyone, and I think that's the coolest thing,” Morikawa said.
This year, THE PLAYERS telecast will be shown with limited commercials, just like the Masters. There will be 45 hours of live coverage. And that doesn’t even count ESPN+.
