The fifth major ... it's not the Players, it's ... Arnie's place!
Welcome - the following is one of many 19th hole discussion between our regular visitors. Click here for a profile of the crew.
Walt: Ah, the Players Championship – one of the toughest fields on one of the toughest tracks all year, and this year’s event is wide open.
Tucker: I was on Yahoo! sports the other day – the rallying crew is in mid-season form for the Players to be the 5th major. Doug Ferguson had a piece on it – although in the end he went with Jeff Sluman for breakfast.
Billy: No way Ferguson eats
with Sluman – Slu’s a Denny’s guy,
Tucker: They didn’t actually eat breakfast, bonehead – he went with Slu’s reasoning on why the Players can’t be a 5th major. Sluman boiled it down with that classic quote, "When you go Denny's and order the Grand Slam breakfast, they don't give you five things, do they? They give you four."
Billy: Like I said, Sluman’s a Denny’s guy, Ferguson orders the tall stack of pancakes – there’s 5 of them, you know, so maybe Ferguson was conflicted. I take care of my conflicts at IHOP really simple, just order bacon and sausage with my eggs. Boom – problem solved.
Walt: Such a simple creature – glad that takes care of any issues you’ve got with the accelerated death your little double order is bringing to some poor little pig looking like Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web.
Billy: Hey, if Homer Simpson considers bacon the perfect food, that’s good enough for me. Ah, Homer, they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
Walt: Yeah, and that Barney Rubble’s some actor too. Yeah, I saw the article – he also makes a point about not wanting to “designate” new majors – thou doth protest too much PGA when we fail to acknowledge your tournament as an additional major. Look at the Senior Tour – errr, Champions Tour – they tried to designate 5 majors and no nobody takes any of them seriously. I’ll tell you why the Players can’t be a 5th major – look at the way the media covers it.
Tucker: What do you mean? They’ve got the aerial view of pros dunking balls in the water more often the Chinese diving team, not to mention wall-to-wall weekend coverage on NBC. They get 3 extra hours of coverage on Saturday and Sunday. That alone should make it a major – that much prime time coverage.
Rick: Yeah, well, you start defining it that way, and pretty soon the Ryder Cup’s a major. So what, do we start giving all 12 team members on the winning team credit for one major.
Tucker: No way, although Sergio does say it’s like a major to him. Maybe that’s why he gets so cranky when the press bugs him about a major – he thinks he’s already won multiple majors with those Ryder Cup wins.
Walt: OK, back on point – Sergio’s got issues, but mostly with that flat stick he putts with or the hottie in the Michelob commercial that won’t give him her phone number, not the definition of a major. Here’s why it can’t be a 5th major. This is the week after Arnie’s tournament at Bay Hill, with that tremendously ugly 3-putt by Greg Owen and a gutsy performance by Rod Pampling, and it’s the week of the Players Championship, and look at some of the garbage they’re putting on the front of the Yahoo! Sports golf page. First, on Tuesday we get this beauty – “Tiger to play World Match Play.” Not a preview of the Players, not a recap of the Arnie tourney – no, no, we want to read about the fact that Tiger’s committed playing a match play tournament in … September. Whoa, stop the presses – that is major news!
Tucker: What could be bigger news? This is just Tiger’s way of sharing the love with the European tour, trying to share some of his greatness with the good people of Wentworth. Once again, Tiger the giver, just helping out tours all over the world with his mere presence.
Walt: Right, Tiger helping all the tours out there – put down the crack pipe you idiot. Tiger’s going over there for the appearance fee and the $1.75 million check the winner gets. And I hope they’re good with his mere presence – it’s probably all they’ll get given the format. It’s match play – might be like Accenture all over again, Tiger’s gone by the weekend and the TV guys cry in their Cheerios about the unfairness of match play for over 6 hours.
Tucker: No way, one big difference – the Euros will stick around and watch the guys that beat Tiger. For some reason, they seem to be OK with the whole “whoever beats Tiger must be worth watching” thing. Beats me how they go that way, but whatever – hey, if it weren’t for us, they’d all be speaking German so if they want to get all oppressive against the Americans, then fine. Next thing you know they’ll be rooting against Tiger just to make a point.
Walt: Wow, someone’s
a little bitter about Tiger’s poor week at Bay Hill. Fear not, they still found a way to mention
his 4-peat during the intros of both weekend telecasts – impressive stuff,
considering he was teeing off about the time the leaders were having
breakfast. Now, back to the topic at
hand, it gets better. Tuesday was classic,
but Wednesday was unbelievable. Let’s
not give Fred Funk any run for winning last year’s title at 48 in brutal
conditions – let’s not talk about the young guns like J.B. Holmes, Villegas,
and Bubba – and let’s certainly not talk about the hottest golfer around right
now in Geoff Oglivy, or is it David Toms? No, no, let’s forget all that so we can have the headline article on “Tiger
misses practice to be with ailing father.” Tiger misses today’s practice round to visit Earl in
Tucker: Oh, we’ll talk about all those topics right after we give everyone the latest on Tiger. Don’t know what’s so surprising about that – been going on for almost 10 years – your point would be …? Tiger’s been carrying the whole tour – not to mention the LPGA and Champions Tours – for almost a decade. He’s getting tired – give him a break and an off day to go see dad.
Walt: Yeah, you’re probably the only one who thinks Tiger’s carrying anything other than his own wallet and car keys. Tiger’s killing the Champions Tour – well, OK, the Champions Tour tried to kill itself by competing with the PGA events on a pure talent basis – bad idea. But Tiger’s responsible for some of the sponsors bailing. And the LPGA – tell me again how Tiger’s carrying that tour – by borrowing Annika’s skirt from Fred Funk so he can go play in the Dinah Shore? No, that’s the common misperception – that Tiger somehow raised all boats in the golf world. Clearly the S.S. Woods is riding a growing tide, but the S.S. Minnow also known as the Champions Tour is still on a 3-hour tour to nowhere as they search for the next great personality not named Hale Irwin – and let’s be honest, if the answer is Hale’s personality do we really want the question? And the S.S. LPGA currently has multiple skippers – the leading candidate is Annika, with Paula trying to grab the wheel and Michelle trying to grab anything even remotely close to a made cut on a mens tour event. And don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with the off day, I just think that if the Players wants to be considered a major they really need to work with the media to cover something other than Tiger’s cross-country trip to visit with dad as the headline story.
Rick: Well, you know, there are other places to get your golf news. As of Wednesday night, Golf Digest has articles on the front page about both Greg Owens’ debacle at Bay Hill and predictions on the Players results. GolfWorld predicts a Padraig Harrington win at Sawgrass as its headline story. Now of course Ron Sirak makes a compelling case for the Players being a fifth major, just to counter Ferguson’s effort.
Walt: Absolutely – the golf publications generally get it closer to right. But if the Players is going to pick up any momentum, the Tuesday and Wednesday leads need to be closer to Golf Digest’s articles and less like the current garbage about Tiger’s match play commitment and visit to dad. Besides, if they’re going to get fifth major status, they need one more thing
Tucker: What’s that?
Walt: A more Tiger-friendly course – there’s no way that any track Tiger hasn’t won on early and often will be considered for a major. His only win there was in 2001.
Tucker: Wait a minute – you’re saying that if they picked a different track and Tiger did better in the event it would be more likely to get 5th major status. No way they’ll change the track – TPC is money with a great finishing stretch. Think back to Craig Perks’ eagle-birdie-chip-in-par finish to ice it a few years back. So what do you think they should do, smart guy?
Walt: That's easy - they should go ahead and pick an event that's got a tough track, some great history, and a world-renowned host, maybe something like Bay Hill.
Tucker: Bay Hill? You kidding me - that's never even been mentioned as anything other than the top of the second tier of non-major events, and after the World Golf Championships launched, that's even up for discussion.
Walt: Yeah, but Bay Hill's got a few things going for it. First, Arnie's a great host. Second, some of the finishes have been fantastic - like Phil's back-9 30 with an Arnie-like charge to victory. Third, Tiger's got a great record with 4 wins, so the media knows that Tiger's going to play well there, unlike the Players, where he's a little spottier. The added bonus is that this will help get the media that much closer to history.
Tucker: How's that?
Walt: Well, Tiger will go from 10 to 14 majors overnight, and put him that much closer to Jack's 18 majors. Of course, we'll have to go back and check Jack's record and include his Bay Hill wins in his total to see if the number really is 18 now.
Tucker: Wow, this 5th major stuff is tough to figure out. It may take a beverage or two - barkeep!
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