The Players Championship: Is the "Fifth Major" a Real Major?

The Players Championship tees off Thursday at TPC Sawgrass, and all during tournament week you can expect to hear players and pundits and fans teeing off on the question of whether this "unofficial fifth major" will ever - should ever - attain major championship status. My prediction is below the fold.

But what's involved in this issue? What is the background, and what do supporters and detractors have to say? Those questions are examined in "Does The Players Championship Deserve to Be Called a Major?"

You can add your opinion by sounding off in the Golf Forum or voting in our poll: Will The Players Championship ever attain status as a major? As for that prediction ...

I believe The Players Championship is well on its way to achieving major championship status. I predict that within 10 years, The Players Championship will be talked about by tour players as a major, and the general public and golf media will generally accept that The Players Championship has achieved major championship status.

I believe this for two reasons: First, it's already happening, by acclamation. Second, the PGA Tour desperately wants the tournament to be called a major, and so shall it be called a major - by proclamation.

Taking those points one at a time. Point 1: Although some tour players are adamant that there are only four majors and this tournament isn't one of them, many more players point out that The Players Championship is the tournament with the best field, with the biggest purse, played on one of the game's most recognizable golf courses, and is the tournament of the PGA Tour.

I believe that within 10 years, by general acclamation, PGA Tour players will be speaking of the event as a major, and treating it as such. This year, Phil Mickelson skipped Arnold Palmer's tournament, the Bay Hill Invitational, in order to apply his major championship preparation routine to The Players Championship. More and more players will begin preparing for The Players as they do for the four majors, and soon it will simply be a given that The Players is a major.

Point 2 from above: The Players Championship will become accepted as a major because the PGA Tour - which has spent the last decade hinting and suggesting that it should be a major - will finally, simply, declare it a major.

It's their tournament on their tour. It's the players' championship, after all. The other major governing bodies have their own major, and the PGA Tour wants one, too.

There's money and prestige at stake, and never underestimate the pull of those things even among people who already have plenty of both. The Players Championship being accepted as a major would add even more money, more exposure, more endorsement opportunities for the tour and its players. It would allow more players to call themselves major champions.

But if the PGA Tour simply declared The Players Championship a major, would anyone listen? Yes, and there's precedent. The Women's British Open has been played since the 1970s, but only in 2001 did it become a major. How did it become a major? The LPGA declared it one. Simple as that.

The PGA Tour could do the same thing, as long as what we discussed under Point 1 is well under way, and making headway. I believe it will be.

The Players Championship - by acclamation and proclamation - will, by the year 2015, be generally and widely accepted as a major championship.

What Do You Think?
Make your prediction in our poll, and post your thoughts in the Golf Forums.