McEwan: Identity crisis is destroying the PGA Championship

Events of the next 72 hours may render what I am about to say somewhat foolish – at best, ill-timed – but I’m going to say it anyway.

The PGA Championship is in the throes of a monumental identity crisis that it needs to solve, lest its ‘major’ status be subject to legitimate scrutiny.

After a lukewarm build-up, the action – if you can even call it that – got under way at Oak Hill on Thursday. And let’s be honest, it wasn’t great.

Seth Waugh, the PGA of America’s CEO, made no secret of his feelings towards LIV Golf in a newspaper interview last weekend (spoiler alert: he hates it) but, on some level, he must have been relieved to see Bryson DeChambeau head the leaderboard after a frost-impacted opening round.

The presence of such a polarising, fascinating personality at the business-end of Waugh’s flagship tournament has thrown a sprinkling of mint chocolate chips on what has been another hitherto vanilla championship.

• PGA Championship: Fans fume over beer prices

• DeChambeau hits fellow player with wild shot

With the exception of Phil Mickelson’s utterly extraordinary victory in 2021, the PGA has served up an abundance of forgettable fare over the last decade or more. Whilst the other three majors can point to a plethora of “who can forget” moments, it fills the shelves of the “who can remember” aisle.

Let’s perform an experiment: right now, without Googling it, tell me who won US PGA in 2019?

Come on. It was only four years ago. It was the major right after Tiger Woods won The Masters in such dramatic, defining circumstances.

No? Still struggling?

It was Brooks Koepka. At Bethpage. He beat Dustin Johnson by two.

(Don’t worry. I had to look it up, too.)

The PGA has no clear, succinct, easy-to-articulate identity. The fact that people even spend so much time arguing over what to call it demonstrates that point. Is it the “US PGA Championship”? Is it the “PGA Championship”? Who knows? More to the point, who actually cares?

These are dreadful things to say about a major championship. And that’s precisely the point.

Before LIV came along and inserted a Grand Canyon-esque chasm at the heart of men’s professional golf, there was an intensifying sentiment that The PLAYERS Championship was not just narrowing the gap but had overtaken the PGA across a multitude of metrics: strength of field, prize money, reach, the capacity to transcend traditional audiences and pique the interest of non-golf fans.

• Scottie Scheffler takes five minutes to hit shot

The only thing the PGA had over the PGA Tour’s flagship event was its ‘major’ classification but the gains were sufficient enough to prompt an uptick in chatter about whether the PGA should be downgraded and / or The PLAYERS upgraded.

Again, Waugh & Co. potentially owe Greg Norman and his bankrollers a private thank you. Because of the PGA Tour’s hardline stance on LIV golfers, this year’s PLAYERS went ahead with a weakened field and no defending champion. The gulf widened again, if by only a little.

None of which changes the fact that the PGA remains, by some distance, the fourth of the four men’s majors.

The Open has the history. The Masters has the mystique. The US Open is the toughest.

The PGA Championship? It’s the other one.

And to think, we've only just begun ✌️#PGAChamp pic.twitter.com/1AG8NQnDDh

— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 19, 2023

Of course you want to win it. It’s a major. But it’s got issues – and it needs to solve them.

It could end its golf course rotation and take up permanent residency somewhere, perhaps PGA Frisco where the PGA of America is now based. Build an identity around the familiarity of ‘home’, much like The Masters has done with Augusta National and The PLAYERS with TPC Sawgrass.

Alternatively, it could become ‘The International Major’ and travel on a global rotation. Visit South Africa, Australia, Japan and other huge, established golf nations that currently have no representation at the highest level of the game. There are Professional Golfers’ Associations in all major countries around the world. Why should the PGA of America get all the fun? Think big, park the ego, and watch your tournament grow.

• Koepka concedes he “choked” at Masters

Resist it all you want, change is the price of survival, and it’s a tariff the PGA of America has a track record of paying. Look at its decision to pivot from match play to stroke play in the 1950s and, more recently, its move from its August slot to a new date in May.

Think of this as evolution, not revolution.

Because guess what the alternative is? Dissolution. Dissolution of its union with the other three majors.

The PGA Championship is sustained by the relevancy afforded to it by its major companions. Without it, it would just be another PGA Tour event. No less but no more than the Wells Fargo, the Byron Nelson, the Memorial, the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

Something has to change for what was once “Glory’s Last Shot”, otherwise it won’t be long before “This Is Major” no more.

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