Golf’s four major championships are supposed to be and feel like defining moments of the season. But in recent years, they have come and gone in the blink of an eye. The next season is the same, four majors done and dusted in just four months. While this is great for fans who get to enjoy elite golf, it also raises one major question: whether the sport is giving these events enough room to stand on their own. Two-time Open winner Padraig Harrington believes the answer is no.
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Speaking to bunkered.co.uk at Gleneagles, ahead of the ISPS Handa Senior Open, he explained that the men’s major calendar is “way too condensed.” “It’s ridiculous that we’re waiting until April for the next major. The Open gets no benefit out of being the fourth major of the year. They don’t play the three major champions together; it’s not known as the last chance.”
It’s not difficult to understand why he feels that way. Today’s 15-week major window is recent. From 1969 to 2018, every PGA Championship was staged in August. There were a few exceptions, though. This created a slower build through the season, and it did help golfers. PGA Tour wanted to avoid a conflict with the NFL and moved their FedEx Cup Playoffs to August. That forced the PGA Championship to change its place. However, not everyone was a strong supporter of this change. The issue still lingers on as Harrington’s next few words reveal.
“I grew up and played in the PGA Championship at the end of August, when it was the last chance to win a major. You’ve got the three major champions playing together, sweltering hot. That’s what we think of the PGA. It’s a big gap; it’s too long, definitely too long, between The Open and The Masters. And there’s no benefit for The Open, whereas there is for the PGA.”
When asked for a plausible solution, he made it clear that there is only one: “The PGA should be in August. That’s it.”
But the current PGA Tour schedule almost makes it impossible to host the PGA Championship anywhere except May. But that doesn’t help the major. The second major of the season suffers from an identity crisis.
The Masters is held each year at the same venue. The U.S. Open features the toughest layout. The Open is hosted on links courses. The PGA Championship used to be “Glory’s last shot”– a tagline that at once gave the essence of the major: it’s your last chance to write your name in history books. Obviously now that it’s sandwiched between the Masters and the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship is considered the least important major.
On top of that, the PGA Tour has subtly started campaigning for The Players to be considered the “fifth” major. Michael S. Kim said he would rather win the Players Championship than lift the Wanamaker. The irony is that the FedEx Cup Playoffs, for which the PGA Championship had to move, don’t carry the same weight as that of a major. Not to fans. Not golfers.
Rory McIlroy clearly stated he wasn’t planning to tee off in either of the first two playoff events. The Ulsterman, in fact, is a believer in Harrington’s idea.
“Glory’s Last Shot. I think it needs to go back to August,” the five-time major winner said in February when asked about how the PGA Championship can regain its lost status.
McIlroy also believes that the men’s major season needs to be spread out more: “I’d like to see the major season spread out a little bit longer. The Masters is always going to have the build-up, but I think the U.S. PGA into the U.S. Open, the U.S. Open into here [Open Championship], it just seems like it’s very, very quick… For the sport as a whole and for, I guess, the general interest in the game, obviously I can see the positives in that major season being stretched out a little bit longer.”
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and former Masters champion Jon Rahm echoed similar thoughts too. Scheffler wanted a little more break in between the tournaments, and Rahm said for fans a bit spaced-out major season is better. The condensed major season also raises another problem.
At the 2019 Omega European Masters, Rory McIlroy rhetorically asked, “If [golf’s majors] are spaced so closely together, will fans only care from the second week of April to the third week in July?”
Jack Nicklaus also said that if a golfer is struggling with an injury, the next major is too close to get enough rest and be back. Now, of course, changing the schedule is not that simple. The four majors are run by different organizations, each with their own history, traditions, priorities, and agreements.
For now, all four majors are expected to be completed in just four months: the Masters April 4-11, 2027; the PGA May 17-23, 2027; the U.S. Open June 13-20, 2027; and The Open July 11-20, 2027.
Still, Harrington believes the PGA Championship moving back to August would be the right move. The Irishman’s major resume gives the criticism real authority. He is a three-time major champion, with back-to-back Open Championship titles in 2007 and 2008. Besides that, he won the 2008 PGA Championship and has posted strong Masters and U.S. Open finishes in his career.
This week, he will bid to defend his ISPS HANDA Senior Open title, which he won last year, carding rounds of 67-65-65-67. He admitted that he struggled a bit in the last two weeks playing against today’s top pros at the Scottish Open and The Open Championship. But he thinks that he has worked through it and is “in decent form now.”