Now that Phil Mickelson has won his second major, the PGA championship he dramatically picked up yesterday, people can stop calling the best player only ever to have won ONE major!
But watching the PGA Championship, the last of the four majors, after watching the first three got me to thinking. It doesn’t really have the same identity as the others. It’s always been considered the lesser of the four. Why? The Masters is the only one played on the same course every year. The U.S. Open and the British Open are the two “open” championships played in America and the UK, respectively, and the former is the national championship, the latter is at the home of golf.
The PGA, like the Masters, is by invitation/qualification, and like the U.S. Open, is played on many different courses. So it doesn’t have any uniqueness to itself.
But it can. Why not change it so it’s truly not “open” even with respect to the golf courses that can host it. I’m not suggesting that it be contested in the same place each year (that’s reserved for the Masters). But what about putting in something like a five-course rotation, and calling those the “PGA Championship Courses.”
They’ve already set up something conducive to this already. Whistling Straits has been confirmed to host both the 2010 and 2015, and the other courses confirmed are Hazeltine in 2009, Atlanta in 2011, joining Whistling Straits in a three-year period of courses that previously hosted the PGA ten years earlier or less. Kiawah has been confirmed for 2012, and if they were to add Medinah in 2013, which hosted in 1999 and will again next year, and Hazeltine again in 2014, you’d have a solid rotation of five courses who have clearly become PGA championship favorites.
The rotation, starting in 2009, would look like this:
2009 - Hazeltine * (7)
2010 - Whistling Straits * (6)
2011 - Atlanta * (10)
2012 - Kiawah *
2013 - Medinah (7)
2014 - Hazeltine (5)
2015 - Whistling Straits * (5)
2016 - Atlanta (5)
2017 - Kiawah (5)
2018 - Medinah
* indicates the course has already been confirmed to host, and the number in brackets indicates how many years previously the course hosted the PGA championship
If those five courses would agree to it, they would become "PGA Championship Courses", while becoming ineligible to host the US Open. This would be a good trade-off, certainly for Whistling Straits which has never hosted the US Open anyway, and for Atlanta which hasn't since 1976. Medinah and Hazeltine each hosted the US Open once in the early 90's and only other time, in the 70's. Come 2009, they will have each hosted the PGA Championship twice, seven-years apart respectively. That's a much better deal. On the other hand, the courses that would no longer have a chance to host the PGA would probably prefer to host the US Open anyway.
Doing this would give the PGA Championship an identity of its own, as opposed to being the "other" major championship that any US golf course can host. It would be the only major that follows a strict rotation of courses, each whose major championship history will be rooted in the PGA not the US Open. No more Baltusrol, Southern Hills or Oakland Hills, which are more known for the US Opens contested there anyway.
The PGA Championship would be the "Mid-America" Major, and the courses governed by the PGA of America, not the USGA. I think this would add unique prestige to both the championship and the courses.
