The last major championship of the year, the self-proclaimed ‘Glory’s Last Shot’, the PGA Championship begins today. In a way, the PGA Championship is the red-headed step child of the majors. It doesn’t have the historical significance of a British Open, the national status of a US Open, or the prestige of the Masters. Simply put, it’s the least important major. But, it’s still a major, it’s still a tournament the players want to win, and it still has a very good field. So how to pick a winner?
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Don't be fooled by the flags, Americans
almost always win the tourney |
To begin, the PGA’s field is different than the other majors. The other three fields feature a host of amateur players taking up spots from potential winners (I have nothing against amateurs in majors, but they don’t really have a chance of winning, and they do keep a professional out of the tournament), while the PGA has twenty odd club pros, who have absolutely no chance of winning. We can shrink the field down quite a bit when looking for potential winners, but there are still a lot of golfers with a chance at the Wannamaker Trophy.
What also makes it more difficult is the PGA’s tendency to crown more ‘one and done’ major winners than the other three. In the past quarter century we’ve seen such household names as Jeff Sluman, Shaun Micheel, YE Yang, Rich Beem, Wayne Grady, Mark Brooks and Bob Tway win this tournament. Hardly world beaters, these are players who never really amounted to much other than that one hot week. So when we look at the field this weekend, these ‘no-name’ players have to be considered, even though their biggest ‘win’ might be a T22 in the Lumber 84 Classic.
