Five, six, seven years ago, I made repeated lobby here for the PGA Championship to do SOMETHING to rescue it from its cemented reputation as a moribund, mid-August superfluous fixture...change the format, expand the field, make it two weeks, stroke play Qualifier, third day cut...SOMETHING! This was no original thought as the board generally agreed; at least very few people were taken in by the marketing tags "Golf's Last Chance at Glory" etc with which the PGA thought to counter the critique...
Another tack to this end was my public enthusiasm for a move to May, which seemed a corporate impossibility (to many posters) once the Players went there in 2013(?)...
But now here we are...we (I) will see if the Gods punish when they grant us (me) our (my) wishes, but on so many counts, given the particular excitement of THIS PGA, I think it is hard to refute that this was a wiser course for the juice and vitality of this tournament...
1. It wasn't working as the last shot at glory, lumped in with the artificial points season...it wouldn't be accepted as the first, usurping the Masters hegemony... the US Open and Open Ch. are not moving from their ensconced spots....
2. ... and the tournament calendar (before the Players move) was the blankest/least interesting in the 6 weeks between Augusta and Muirfield Village (with all apologies to the oil producing states of Texas and Louisiana).
3. The site choices were being limited by August climates/agronomic conditions in many parts of the country. The move to May liberalizes that some, and indeed we see (as future venues are penciled for many years out) that a slightly broader geographical swath is carved...
But most importantly...
4a. Can't you plainly see that the PGA by going SECOND, increases the public interest in the tournament, its field, the courses and the individual pursuits of leading players...? Forget Woods' return for a moment and imagine that Koepka, Molinari, DJ, Rory or another Top 20 contender had won the Masters... the anticipation would still be peaked, the story lines nearly as rich, the possibilities of a calendar Slam just as prevalent....
4b. ...on that last point, the calendar Slam, isn't it also plainly obvious that the move to May, now makes the PGA the true gatekeeper (for the public anyway, if not the golfers themselves) to the professional calendar Slam?...WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN DONE... even without the Woods return, can't you see how a Koepka, DJ, Rory, or Molinari Masters win gets talk of this started? True that if Danny Willet or Trevor Immelman or Ian Woosnam or Craig Stadler win, that year's calendar Slam seems lost, but you must balance that "yeah but" with the sober memory of what was such a win doing for the PGA anyway, as the last thing in August? The night before the Masters any of its Invitees can be the winner of the Slam, the night before (now) the PGA only one can...
5. And in the temporal moment, we have the competitive rejuvenation of Tiger Woods.. at a course he's won a major on before...with a vibrant class of accomplished young competitors to tackle fully... on the biggest media stage on the world...
6. Oh yes.. the delicious irony of John Daly on a cart, on perhaps the only municipal/public course in the world that doesn't permit them...as I said in another thread (about the Bethpage Sign)... the image of Daly in Evel Knievel pants pulling up to a greenside with a loud grass fart/stamp of the parking brake pitching away the Marlboro stub after a long pull is every bit as entertaining as DeChambeau's sextant adjustments and endless talk of the swing coaches.
cheers vk