What Is The PGA Championship's Identity?
Seriously. What is it?
Issue No. 33, May 14, 2025
It’s time for the second major championship of the year; the PGA Championship is headed to Quail Hollow.
Welcome to the From the Drop Zone newsletter, where we couldn’t feel more meh about this week’s tournament.
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Fore, please…
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The 105th PGA Championship begins on Thursday (sigh) Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina. A full field of 136 touring professionals and a "Team of 20" club and teaching professionals - who earned their place through their finish in the PGA Professionals Championship a few weeks - will play for the Wanamaker Trophy.
The PGA Championship is one of four major championships in the men's professional game. While it's difficult to exactly trace back to when the four majors were decided(?), many point to Arnold Palmer's 1960 season. Palmer won The Masters and the U.S. Open in 1960 and mentioned that if he would win The Open and the PGA Championship that year, he could have a "grand slam of his own" to match Bobby Jones' 1930 accomplishment. (Bobby Jones, one of the most prolific and influential amateurs of the game, won the U.S. and British Opens and Amateur Championships in 1930, which was considered a "grand slam" in that era.)
So, it seems like we have Arnold Palmer to thank for making the PGA Championship a major. But what makes it major? Why does the entire golf world stop and converge to the PGA of America's premier championship? What is the PGA Championship's identity?
An-All Professional Field
The PGA of America usually says their championship has the strongest field in golf. While there is no specific qualification using the Official World Golf Ranking for the PGA Championship, commonly the top 100 players in that ranking receive an invitation. It is the only major championship that is contested amongst exclusively professionals.
Also in PGA Championship's field is the "Team of 20"(sorry, the Corebridge Financial PGA Team, because of course there's a sponsor) of PGA club professionals. These professionals earn their entry by finishing in the top 20 of the PGA Professional Championship. The overwhelming majority of these professionals are the ones that give lessons, manage the golf course and club events, and manage the pro shop merchandise and oversees so many other aspects of the course and club.
While local PGA Sections do host tournaments, these club professionals often don't have time to work on their games as much as they would like. Managing golf courses - and all aspects surrounding the golf course - takes a lot of hours. That's not to say these professionals can't play! Earning their way into the PGA Championship is no small feat amongst itself: each PGA Section has an allocation and there are 312(!) golfers in the PGA Professional Championship field. These players need to beat at least 292 of the best of their peers.
While these club professionals are in the field, their stories can sometimes seem like after thoughts during the broadcast. This is a unique aspect amongst the majors and should be highlighted and more celebrated. Human interest stories can bring more people into watch. These pros are club professionals that could have given you your first lesson (or a lesson yesterday!), sold you a polo, or organized the member-guest last year. These club professionals are our connection to the game. The PGA and the broadcast should lean more into these players and their stories.
The Venues
In its early years - and still fairly recently - the PGA Championship was contested largely in the eastern half United States. Until the 2020 event at TPC Harding Park, the last time the PGA was held on the west coast was in 1998 at Sahalee in Washington State.
A common knock on the U.S. Open locations is the lack of midwestern venues. The PGA, for its part, does visit the midwestern portion of the country: Valhalla (Louisville), Bellrieve (St. Louis), Medinah (Chicago), Whistling Straits (Wisconsin), and Southern Hills (Tulsa) have all hosted PGA Championships in recent years. With the PGA of America's move to Frisco, Texas, the tournament is scheduled to be in Texas in 2027 and 2034.
A look at future hosts, however, does lack midwestern venues. A benefit of the PGA's scheduling philosophy, which currently seems to focus on naming venues for the Championship approximately seven years out. (As opposed to some organizations who basically have their flagship tournament nearly scheduled for the next quarter century.) With this week’s announcement of Southern Hills hosting in 2032, a quality venue has been added for an upcoming PGA Championship, and at a course not on the regular PGA Tour schedule, used only for majors, and is a “PGA venue” meaning there hasn’t been a USGA event there in recent memory. With the opening in 2033, the PGA needs to go to another quality course that is unique.
Venues matter. Quail Hollow this year? A course we see every year on the regular PGA Tour schedule? That doesn’t excite or provide novelty. It would be difficult to differentiate the PGA Championship from a regular event. What makes the winner of this week’s PGA at Quail Hollow any different than a winner at the Truist Championship (formerly Wells Fargo Championship) when it returns to Quail Hollow next year? Rory has already won three times at Quail Hollow! Maybe he should have eight major championships to his name now.
Next year, the PGA Championship heads to Aronimink near Philadelphia. I’m pretty sure that was supposed to be the Philly stop and they anticipated it would be like Philly Cricket this week. But, when the BMW Championship was held there in 2018, it lacked what Philly Cricket brought. After that, it’s off to PGA Frisco, an unknown venue, but a sensible choice considering the association’s brand new headquarters.
Improving the Identity
There are two commonly floated ideas for giving the PGA Championship more of an identity. One involves venues and the other is a change in format.
While the PGA Championship visits great golf courses, some are calling for the tournament to be taken internationally. "Golf should have more than one major not based in the United States," is a common theory. While there are certainly solid and logical arguments for that idea, the PGA of America is not going to move their championship, you know, out of America. There are 29,000 members of the PGA of America, and, yes, while only 20 of them will play in the Championship, organizations exist to serve and meet the needs of its members. Moving the PGA of America's flagship event internationally would not meet the needs of its members.
A change in format may be a more realistic option. Golf is currently filled with 72-hole stroke-play events. PGA Tour events, European, er, DP World Tour (apologies) events, Korn Ferry Tour events, LPGA Tour events, the NCAA Championship? Mostly all 72-hole stroke-play events. (Yes, LIV is 54-holes, I know. It's not that different though, please save your energy LIV bots.)
In 2008, the NCAA revamped its championship format and changed it from stroke-play only to stroke-play to match play. That added some life into an otherwise same slog that can be four days of stroke play. What if the PGA of America returned to its roots and implemented a match play aspect? That would set it apart from not only from the other majors, but also from nearly every other professional tournament. Admittedly, media partners don't like match play for a multitude of reasons: fewer players involved on the final days and the match could end early leaving extra time in the coverage window, are just two.
With a little creative thinking, though, most of these concerns regarding match play can be alleviated.
Consolation matches may not be the best, but with ranking points, money, and pride in a major championship on the line, those matches would likely be more competitive than the consolation matches of the (hopefully returning soon) WGC-Match Play. By having a larger consolation bracket, final places can be determined. For example, a loss in the round of 16 without consolation matches would result in a T-9 for eight players; adding more consolation matches would sort that out and have final results.
Another solution might be to have the top eight players after, say, 36 holes qualify for match play, while the remainder of the players who make the top 70 and ties cut play stroke play. This keeps more golfers on the course for media coverage while still allowing for head-to-head matches. Think of the craziness and excitement of a pressure-packed playoff for the eighth place. In 2021, there would have been a 5 players-for-2 spots playoff to qualify for the match play (5 players were T-7, but only two can advance for a hard total of eight.). In 2017, a 3-for-2 playoff would have been between Paul Casey, Justin Thomas, and Rickie Fowler. Last year, a 4-for-1 playoff would have included Dean Burmester, Austin Eckroat, Tony Finau, and Viktor Hovland. Those playoffs sound fun.
While the PGA Championship is usually always viewed as the "fourth" major - it's no longer Glory's Last Shot or the Season's Final Major - it still is major championship golf, with a high-quality field played at high-quality courses. With a change to its format, it could differentiate itself from the monotony of professional golf.