Should Majors Be Hard?

[Matt_Cohn]

The USGA insists on it. The Masters has always been exacting, but not incredibly difficult relative to par.

The Open Championship's winning scores have ranged from +6 to -19 over the past 10 years. The Open Championship has produced several low scores relative to par, but that's never been a knock against the tournament.

The PGA Championship's reputation suffers every time the winning scores is double digits under par, unless Tiger wins, in which case its reputation is enhanced.

Here's one more consideration. This is the complete list of winners of major championships at 15 or more shots under par:

Trevino
Nicklaus
Floyd
Elkington
Faldo
Woods (late late edit, Augusta)
Toms
Woods (Valhalla)
Woods (St. Andrews)
Woods (Hoylake)
Woods (late edit, forgot about Medinah)

Based on that list, it's tough to argue that easy course setups make for less distinguished champions.

So what's the objective view? Should majors be hard work, as Ben Crenshaw said? Does that make them any better?

[Tim Bert]

I think you've got to remove a couple of those Woods names from the list.  I think it is erroneous to use those as examples of "easy" setup.  In particualare, aren't there two on that list where he so completely romped the field that the course played just as difficult as every other major for everyone else?

I do agree with your basic premise.  I don't think tough or easy determines the quality of the champion.

[tlavin]

Egads, where were all these softies last year when the pros picked apart Medinah when it was soft, lush and vulnerable?  Either universally mute or hypocritically vitriolic against the "too easy" Medinah.

Let's be honest here: THE DIFFERENCE IS THE WEATHER.  THE DIFFERENCE IS THE WEATHER.  If the course is firm and dry and the wind is blowing, a major caliber golf course will provide a stern challenge to the pros.  If the course is soft, no matter how long, no matter how narrow the fairways or tree overhangs may be, if the greens aren't crunchy, they will absolutely eat most courses alive, even with a "major setup"

If Augusta National was soft this week and the temperatures were warm and the wind was down, the scoreboard would be full of red numbers.  It's just that simple.

But to answer your question, "of course, majors should be hard."  Of course they should be difficult.  But the weather doesn't always cooperate and sometimes a predominant player will make the course and the rest of the field irrelevent.

[Matt_Cohn]

Tim,

The five Woods wins were Augusta, Valhalla, St. Andrews, Hoylake, and Medinah. Valhalla was a playoff, and Hoylake was only by 2. St. Andrews was a romp (Woods -19, Duval -11) as was Augusta. Medinah was by 5 but I'll still call that somewhat easy as eight guys finished double-digits under par. Remember Woods was "only" -12 at Pebble so that's not part of this list.

Tiger just throws off all the comparisons, doesn't he?

[Tim Bert]

My mistake - I did think that Pebble was on the list.

Did you exclude the Masters from this list?  I also thought one of the Woods appearing on your list was the Augusta romp where he broke the record.  Wasn't he 18 under there?

[Matt_Cohn]

Damn, has Tiger been 15-under in majors five different times? That's shocking...

Still, even throwing out the romps, the list is a strong one.

[Pete Lavallee]

Matt,

I think that if the newly planted trees were removed the Masters would still be hard. The big difference would be that drives would be indirectly punished; poorer angles would mean you would have to pull off a much better second shot. Scores overall would be lower, simply because people aren't loosing shots in the trees. Things would still not be easy; those greens are a work of genius.

[Jeff_Mingay]

The great thing about golf's professional majors in the past: they were all distinct. By comparison, we now have three US Open-type events and golf's true world championship, The Open.

Read more on this very topic at my blog, Monday.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Back on topic, I have always felt that the designation "major" is somewhat arbitrary, so they should be somehow different.  Look at the Women's tour, which changes the majors they play, often simply declaring that Tournament X is their new major......... Its not hard to imagine that "back in the day" those same issues were present for the men's tour, as there was a need to give some highlights to the golf season, which unlike other sports, never crowns a clear winner.  

The natural differences to distinguish majors were the national sponorships of the PGA, R and A, and USGA vs. the K Mart Greensboro Open and their ilk.  History figures in, and the Masters had the weather, flowers and aura of Bobby Jones.  

Architecturally speaking, that meant playing on the finest courses that pros rarely got to see. Remember, in the old days, they played Tour events anywhere someone would put up the money, including on munis in San Antonio and Pheonix.  Courses weren't of the uniform quality they are today.

However, it should also be no suprise that the Masters, founded by a player rather than an organization, would be the major historically tilted towards better scoring and aggressive play, no? The next least resistance to scoring has been the PGA, also primarily a players based group.  

Presuming you are speaking of the scores at this years Masters in your question, Terry is right - a lot of this is the weather.  I didn't watch the Masters yesterday (out doing field work instead) but did hear a few intereviews last night about how the ball wasn't going as far.  We don't need no stinking competition ball, we just need to move all majors to Alaska in December!