The Masters is the youngest of the four majors, yet perhaps the most familiar because it’s always at Augusta National. The U.S. Open bills itself as golf’s toughest test. The British Open is the only major played on links courses.
And what does that make the PGA Championship?
“The other one,” Geoff Ogilvy said with a grin. “It’s hard to stand out against those. That’s some pretty good competition. But it doesn’t make it any less.”
It will be no less valuable to win, especially for the long list of players without a major this year (Phil Mickelson) or ever (Sergio Garcia). The PGA Championship starts Thursday - without injured 2006 and 2007 champion Tiger Woods - at Oakland Hills in Michigan with so much on the line for so many players.
“It’s a major, and it’s one I’d love to win,” said Steve Stricker, the PGA runner-up 10 years ago at Sahalee. “It’s always gotten a bad rap, but I still perceive it as one that’s very important.
“Being the fourth one, maybe guys build up a tolerance of the pressure. But again, it’s a major. A lot of guys get their first major win there. So it provides a lot of hope for a lot of players.”
Maybe that’s what the PGA of America thought when it created the motto “Glory’s Last Shot.”
It rings true for three-time major champion Mickelson, who has gone 10 majors without winning, and Ernie Els, who has gone six years without a major, the longest drought of his career. Garcia is 0-for-37 in majors as a pro, and so much more was expected when he won the Players Championship.
Mickelson might be the most intriguing at Oakland Hills.
Despite winning at Riviera and Colonial, his season has been quiet in the majors. It is similar to how he was in 2005 when he finished a combined 36 shots out of the lead at the first three majors, then made it a great year by winning the PGA at Baltusrol.
“I’ve got a newfound energy for the end of the season,” he said. “I’ve been practicing hard, and I’m excited.”
And for the second time in a major, no one has to worry about four-time PGA champ Woods.
The world’s No. 1 player collected his 14th major at the U.S. Open, outlasting Rocco Mediate in a playoff. Woods had reconstructive surgery on his left knee two weeks later and is done for the year, making him the first defending PGA champion not to play since Ben Hogan was recovering from a car accident in 1949.
It was Hogan who made Oakland Hills famous by referring to it as a “monster” after he won the 1951 U.S. Open. That monster has even more muscle now, stretched to 7,395 yards as a par 70 with some of the most frightening greens in golf.
At least the course has an identity.
The PGA is still working on one, although chief executive Joe Steranka said it has made significant progress the last few decades. It traditionally has the strongest field in golf, with 97 of the top 100 in the world ranking expected to play. No other major in the last 10 years has such a strong cast of winners - Woods four times, Vijay Singh twice and Mickelson.
And instead of defending its spot in the lineup, the PGA of America embraced it.
“We were looking for something that said, ‘This is the season’s final major and your last shot at glory,’” Steranka said. “When you win a major, you go into the history books.”
The PGA is a major that looks like the others, minus an identity that has been easy to market. Even so, it has delivered great moments over the last 20 years, from the arrival of John Daly to the rainbow for Davis Love III, from Woods’ playoff win over unheralded Bob May to David Toms laying up on the final hole and beating Mickelson with a par putt.
“If you had to rank it, the PGA is probably fourth on everyone’s list,” Tim Clark said. “But ask a player if he wants to win it, and I’ll guarantee he’ll tell you, ‘Yes.’ When it comes to winning a major, it really doesn’t matter which one.”
