Golf's minor major

FOURTH OF four, the US PGA Championship has long had a bit of an identity problem. Unlike the three other component parts of the modern Grand Slam, the season's final major has too often failed to significantly separate itself from so many other big-money events on America's PGA Tour. Distinctive it invariably isn't.

While the Masters is instantly recognisable by the course on which it is played every April; the US Open too by the typically (until this year) one-dimensional and penal nature of the challenge presented; and our own Open Championship by its proximity to the nearest ocean; the US PGA looks and feels a lot like, oh, a Memorial, or a Wachovia, or a John Deere Classic. Last time I cocked an ear, no one was shouting for any of those tournaments to be promoted into major-like status.

"There really is nothing unique about the US PGA," sighs former Ryder Cup player and now BBC commentator, Ken Brown. "Maybe if it had a permanent rota of three or four courses, it would have more cache.

"Then again, just being the fourth biggest championship in the game makes it a pretty big deal. Compared with every other tournament played around the world, fourth is still pretty impressive. But it is definitely number four if you have to choose."

Let's face it; the US PGA is lucky to be a major in the 21st century. Were the four quarters of what was once called the "Impregnable Quadrilateral" chosen again tomorrow, surely only two of today's constituent parts would make the cut. Joining the two Opens, the PGA Tour's flagship Players Championship and a travelling World Match Play Championship would better reflect the modern golfing world. A brace of majors in the United States, one in Great Britain and the fourth moving between the likes of Australia, South Africa and, the way things are going, China, is at least less biased than the status quo, three of the four majors played in the same country.

"The US PGA would definitely be fourth on my list," agrees former Open champion Paul Lawrie. "I'd go Open, Masters, US Open, US PGA. The others have a character that the US PGA doesn't have. It is just another event. In fact, I'd put the Players Championship ahead of the US PGA. That's a fantastic tournament with a great field. I know the US PGA has a great field, too, but the Players should be the major."

But that is a debate for another day. For now and the foreseeable future we are stuck with this ancient oddity run by an increasingly irrelevant PGA of America, a bloated organisation largely made up of sweater salesmen. Which is not to say that the Tiger-less and now Great White Shark-less field gathered at Oakland Hills this week will be trying any less hard to win the thing. At least in the record books, a major is a major is a major is a major.

"I can see why people think the PGA is number four on the list, but I never put one in front of the other three," says Adam Scott, the so-far major-less world No.4. "They all mean the same. But if I'm going to get picky, I'd like to win the Masters because no Australian has ever done that. And I'd love to win the Open. I grew up watching that event on television. And the US Open means more to me now than it did when I was a kid because I'm playing in it now. And the US PGA? Well, it is just as demanding. I wouldn't knock it back!

"So I don't see them as being in any order. They are all majors and they are the four most important events of the year."

While Scott's view has some obvious merit and support, for long enough the race for the huge Wanamaker Trophy was being run on the golfing equivalent of a public park when an Olympic stadium was available elsewhere. This championship has visited some real goat tracks.

The worst example came in 1987, when PGA National in Florida – 'coincidentally' home to the PGA of America – was the host course. The heat and humidity were close to unbearable and the greens were surely the worst ever seen in a major event. So horrible was the whole experience that hardly anyone came to watch even the biggest crowd-pullers. Laughably, a three-ball containing Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson had an audience so small that Watson took time to shake hands with everyone in the gallery. Perhaps the only thing worth watching was the bikini-clad maiden employed on the scoreboard floating in the lake beside the 18th green.

Things have markedly improved since those tasteless days, but the image of the championship has inevitably struggled to overcome the fearful battering it took from the press and the public.

"The PGA of America went to a lot of ordinary courses for a while and that didn't help the stature of the event," admits another Australian, Wayne Grady, who won at one of those dodgy sites, Shoal Creek, in 1990. "A great championship has great history and the venues are a big part of that. Sadly, it was allowed to go to some places they should not have visited.

"The Open is always played on a great links. Augusta is Augusta. And the US Open is generally played on a top course. The US PGA can't say any of those things, or couldn't for a while."

In keeping with the more recent trend, this year's venue is far from ordinary. Oakland Hills has hosted the US PGA twice before (the club's first professional, Walter Hagen, was a five-time winner of the event) and as many as six US Opens. After the third of those in 1951 the new champion, Ben Hogan, was moved to label the place "a monster." It doesn't quite qualify as such today, but this original Donald Ross design - since re-done by the infamous Robert Trent Jones and recently touched up by his son, Rees - retains at least some of what even the relentless Hogan found intimidating, especially over the closing holes.

Back in 1996, the destination of the US Open trophy came down to who could make a par four on the now 498-yard 18th; Davis Love and Tom Lehman could not, so the unheralded Steve Jones, a qualifier, became the unlikeliest of champions. And throughout the 2004 Ryder Cup, Europe's victory owed much to the visitor's collective ability to shoot no worse than regulation figures over the last five holes. Which is nothing new. In 1951 the 14th was so tough that no one made a birdie three in any of the four rounds. This year that hole will be 501-yards long – and still be a par-4.

All of which points to the next US PGA champion falling into the not-always complimentary category of 'grinder,' as do many past winners at Oakland Hills. Apart from Hogan – the ultimate grinder – David Graham, Gary Player and Andy North have all triumphed there. So it is that the more prosaic amongst golf's myriad skills are likely to gain maximum reward this coming week. Somewhere, the likes of Jim Furyk is already smiling.