A Matter of Choice

By Dave Shedloski
Photo By Stephen Szurlej May 2, 2008

The so-called fifth major in professional golf can be found in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. Also in Orlando, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Dallas, Fort Worth, Atlanta, Ohio and Connecticut, not to mention London and various points in Canada and Australia.

Every year, as surely as azaleas bloom in Augusta, Ga., and par is gerrymandered at the U.S. Open, discussion is renewed about which tournament, aside from the four major championships, is considered the most important in professional golf. And every year, the PGA Tour's flagship event, the Players, becomes the focal point of the debate, which hardly is coincidental but eminently logical.

The Players, begun in 1974, offers the largest purse in professional golf ($9 million) and bestows on its winners a five-year PGA Tour exemption­ -- equal to the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship. Similarly, in the tour's FedEx Cup competition instituted in 2007, the four majors and the Players share the distinction of offering the most total points, 27,500, with 4,950 going to the winner. Common sense dictates that such incentives will lure the strongest field, and the world's best golfers eagerly migrate every spring to the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach.

"Whether you want to say that it's official or unofficial or whatever, the Players is the fifth major in golf. It's simply a major tournament in my mind," says Sean O'Hair, who contended at TPC Sawgrass last year before finishing 11th. "If I could put any trophy on my mantel, it would be the Players, and I'm sure there are plenty of guys who feel the same way."

Well, yes, there is no shortage of O'Hair's peers who acknowledge the significance of the Players. Recently, however, it has become apparent that the "fifth major" seal of approval is far from unanimous even while there is no refutation of the Players' cachet.

The parameters of the discussion were reconstituted last year when Scott Verplank, a Dallas native, won his hometown tournament, the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. As a kid Verplank had worked at the event as a standard bearer, and later he became friends with the tournament's legendary namesake. The victory, coming in the first year after Nelson's death, was both emotional and consequential -- so much so that Verplank was moved to refer to it as "my fifth major."

"I've been wanting to win that tournament for 35 years," Verplank explains. "It was the biggest event on my schedule. I grew up there. Byron meant so much to me. Emotionally, it felt like a major to me."

Verplank appropriating fifth-major status for an event other than the Players wasn't necessarily heresy. Neither was it some watershed moment in modern golf revisionism. Nonetheless, there was something liberating about Verplank's clear, visceral assertion.

Two weeks later, in the theater-like interview room at TPC Sawgrass, Australia's Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, offered that his home country's open tournament superseded the Players as the most desirable nonmajor. "Career-wise, winning [the Players] is leaps and bounds in front of the [Australian] Open, but if I ended my career not winning this tournament, it wouldn't be as disappointing as not winning the Open."

Ogilvy allowed, as did many fellow pros, that a clear-cut answer wasn't readily forthcoming. It seems the practical side of the brain recognizes a good deal, which the Players clearly is from a cash and career standpoint.

Compatriot Adam Scott, who won the '04 Players, clearly was torn when presented similar options. "That's a hard one because [the Australian Open] is a very important tournament to me as well, and being Australian, that's what I grew up always wanting to win. Is it the fifth biggest tournament in the world? No, it's not; [the Players] is."

Indeed, the Players has no trouble earning that distinction. But the questions for today's professionals have become more nuanced. Is golf's so-called fifth major your fifth major? If not, then what is? And why?

"There are only four majors, so any fifth major is whatever you want it to be," says Steve Flesch, whose recent tie for fifth in the Masters was his career-best finish in a major championship. "It's different for everybody and for different reasons. It's the tournament that motivates you and makes you nervous or excited, the one you don't ever want to miss, and only you know what that is."