PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – March is going to be major.
That is the tagline of the PGA Tour’s promotional campaign for The Players and it has sparked renewed debate of whether the Tour’s flagship tournament should be promoted to major-championship status.
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“Our marketing department’s really effective. They made one commercial spot, and we’re all having this conversation, which is really interesting,” said PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp in his State of the Tour press conference on Wednesday. “Kudos to them.”
‘Is the Players a major’ has been argued since before the first tee was stuck in the ground at a championship that dates to 1974.
The Players Championship trophy at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
“Before the first putt has been stroked, the first hot dog sold or the first complaint made about the rough, it has been billed as golf’s Super Bowl,” wrote Golf Digest’s Dwayne Netland. “This is quite a burden for an unborn event, no matter how noble its blood, but if the grandiose plans materialize, the Tournament Players Championship (the original name of the tournament) may become the sport’s fifth major event.”
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The debate has ebbed and flowed over the years, with the Players unofficially being tabbed “the fifth major.” The Tour’s campaign subtly implies that The Players is a big deal, and had the feeling of the Tour shifting back to a hard sell that the Players deserves major status.
“We take a lot of pride in the Players, and with all the major talk, some may say even too much pride. Ultimately, that is not for us to decide,” Rolapp said. “Listen, the talk on if this should be a major, should it not be a major, I’ve learned a lot. I’m not entirely sure how majors become majors, the history is really interesting to study. There used to be more majors. There’s fewer majors. I think what’s important, that’s not for us to decide. What is important is that this is a pretty special event and I think among the best events in golf. So I think anyone you talk to, players, fans, partners, they will tell you the same thing, and I think that should be celebrated.”
Brian Rolapp, CEO of the PGA Tour, takes questions from the media ahead of the 2026 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
Davis Love III, who won the Players twice and the PGA Championship once during a Hall of Fame career, recalled former PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem encouraging the players to take the lead in promoting the Players as major worthy.
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“Tim said, ‘I can’t call it a major but if you guys do, everyone else will have to.’ It’s one of the hardest tournaments to win, the biggest purse and everyone wants to win it, so call it what you want,” Love said. “If Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy (who have each won it twice too) call it a major, it’ll be a major.”
McIlroy, with a wide smile creasing his face, cracked that he’d love to be credited with seven majors instead of his current tally of five. But while he is quick to classify the Players as “one of the best golf tournaments in the world,” he doesn’t think it needs to be considered a major.
“I’m a traditionalist, I’m a historian of the game. We have four major championships. You know, if you want to see what five major championships looks like, look at the women’s game. I don’t know how well that’s went for them,” McIlroy said. “I think the Players has got it nailed. The Players is an amazing tournament in its own right and I don’t think it being classified a major or not a major makes it any more or any less,” McIlroy said. “It stands on its own without the label.” He added, “It doesn’t need to be anything else.”
The modern Grand Slam was conceived on an overseas flight to Scotland for the 1960 British Open at St. Andrews by none other than Arnold Palmer, who had won the Masters and U.S. Open that year and lamented that he wasn’t eligible to win the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur, which were part of the Grand Slam won by amateur great Bobby Jones in 1930 (pre-Masters, the tournament he later created), the only time a player has completed the Grand Slam in a single season. [Tiger Woods held all four major trophies at the same time — a remarkable feat — but not in the same calendar year.] Palmer’s longtime local scribe Bob Drum of The Pittsburgh Press suggested they could conceive a new version, and spread Palmer’s words as gospel of the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and British Open as golf’s version of the Grand Slam.
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If the media is going to once again crown a change to the majors or addition to the number of majors, it may be led by Brandel Chamblee, a former Tour pro and current analyst who not only has argued that the Players is deserving of major status, but that it’s better than the four actual major championships, noting it has the deepest field in golf and that TPC Sawgrass, the annual venue designed by Pete Dye, is “arguably the best golf course that they play a major championship on from a shot-value perspective.”
“So, in every single way that a metric could be used to measure whether something is a major,” Chamblee continued, “the Players, to me, stands alone and above the other four major championships as not just a major. It is, in my estimation, the best major.”
Shahith Theegala, 28, is of the generation who remembers watching Tiger Woods famed “better than most” putt at 17 and grew up playing the course in video games. He has heard the chatter and the debate and in the process of answering the “Is it or is it not” question he provided support for both sides.
“I would be fine with it, but I wouldn’t be like super pro for having it be a fifth major … Does it need to be a fifth major? Not really.”
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But the Players is special to Theegala and winning it would be on the same level as a major to him. A couple years ago, he was in one of the last groups and he said he experienced the same butterflies in the belly as being in one of the last groups at a major.
“It sure feels like it to me. When I’m there, the energy’s pretty palpable. Just the air’s a little bit different. I don’t think guys are grinding harder, necessarily, but everybody knows it’s a bigger event than the other events,” Theegala said. “It’s one of those events where you win it, nobody’s forgetting that you won the Players. So, it’s a huge deal.”
And then he added one final thought for which there’d be no debate among all 120 pros in the field. “I’m just glad I’m in the field this year,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Is the Players Championship a major? The debate continues
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