Has the time come for a fifth major?

Four months exactly. That is the amount of time between the first day of this year’s Masters Tournament and the final day of the PGA Championship. Four months and, just like that, another major season is over.

That’s nothing new, of course. Golf’s four marquee men’s events have long come and gone in the blink of an eye but that doesn’t make the eight-month gap between the PGA and the Masters any more pleasant to endure.

I often look at tennis and envy the people who follow it for a living. The ATP Tour is set up in such a way that, for a start, each of its four Grand Slams takes place in different countries: Australia, France, the UK and the US. The Australian Open is the first major on the calendar each year, taking place in January, with the final Grand Slam, the US Open, being held around the end of August or start of September.

Just by way of a comparison to golf, the time between the first day of the Aussie Open and last day of the US Open this year is seven months and 26 days. Almost eight months.

Personally, I’d love to see a major in Australia. There are enough great courses there to merit hosting a tournament of such calibre.

That, to me, is a far better spread and keeps the best players playing all year round. Instead of peaking for just four months at a time, the likes of Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have to be on top form for at least two-thirds of the year.

The trouble golf has got is that changing history and tradition is a very difficult thing to do. To host a major either very early or very late in the year, you’d probably need to introduce a fifth major – and it would, in all likelihood, need to be played somewhere like Australia, Dubai or South Africa where there is (a) typically better weather at that time of year, and (b) enough daylight to fit in all the golf that’s required.

Personally, I’d love to see a major in Australia. There are enough great courses (Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath and even the relatively new Barnbougle Dunes) to merit hosting a tournament of such calibre, and goodness knows there is enough of a golfing heritage ‘Down Under’. Likewise South Africa, whilst Dubai or Abu Dhabi could underwrite the cost of a staging a major championship – and a helluva good one at that – without feeling the pinch.

Purists will hate that idea, though, and will argue that there is enough golf in that eight-month major lull to keep the best players, and fans, interested. The FedEx Cup and Final Series, for example, are doing their best to top-load the final third of the year, whilst you also have a couple of World Golf Championships and, of course, the Ryder Cup and (yawn) Presidents Cup every second year.

I understand that, and that’s all well and good, but with the exception perhaps of the Ryder Cup, there’s nothing like a major championship to get the juices flowing. Like Rory McIlroy recently remarked, majors are what defines a player’s career.

As much as I love the Tour Championship, the WGC-HSBC Champions, and the DP World Tour Championship, they just don’t excite me as much as the majors. That’s no sleight on those events. It’s just you can’t manufacture a major’s buzz. And I’ll bet you any money the players feel the same way, too.

What’s more, with golf expanding into new parts of the world – and countries that had probably never even heard of golf when the first Masters was held in 1930 – you could say that it is in the best interests of the game that these new audiences are given a major championship to take ownership of and get fully behind. I mean, the R&A is all about ‘growing the game’, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I know the issues involved with adding a fifth major. I know there has been lobbying for the Players Championship to be given that status (although a fourth major in the? No thanks). I know the troubles, the pitfalls, the drawbacks, and the objections. I’m also not suggesting we start devaluing the existing majors by adding two, three or four new ones. No chance.

But the counter argument is compelling. The benefits, the spin-offs, the potential and so on. Put it this way, if I had anything to do with it, the Australian Open or China Open would be getting geared up towards becoming a major by the end of the decade. Why? Because I’m already dreading next Monday and the start of the longest eight months in golf.

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor