News

How (and why) to add a fifth major to the golf schedule

Published

3 months ago

May 30, 2025

Remember that old saw about the only two things that are certain in life? Death and taxes, right? Add this third one: upon conclusion of the PGA Championship each year, journalists, influencers, and colleagues will begin everything from a kvetch to a tirade about what is wrong with the tournament. “It’s not a major championship,” they will belch, and that’s where this manifesto begins.

There are four major championships in men’s professional golf. They haven’t always been the same ones, and there are former ones whose winners are not credited with a major win. The Western Open is the shining example of that oversight. This, however, is not the place nor the time for that debate. Imagine being a professional prior to 1915, when there were only two professional majors (U.S. Open and Open Championship). The amateurs could play in all four (U.S. Amateur and British Amateur, plus Opens) but not the pros. Again, not the time nor the place…

All major championships are made up of invitees and qualifiers. At the Masters, five amateurs minimum make the scene. At the Opens, there is usually more, as open qualifying exists, whereas it does not for Augusta. The PGA Championship is the only one of the four where zero amateurs compete. Back in halcyon days, all touring professionals were members of the PGA of America. Even Jack Nicklaus had to serve a period of apprenticeship, during which he could not compete in major events as a professional. In the late 1960s, the tour became renegade, splitting from the PGA of America. Since then, two sets of rules have been the norm. PGA Professionals continue to serve apprenticeships and work long hours in shops, while touring professionals ply their trade as sojourners around the green-grass world.

At the PGA Championship, in place of the amateurs, twenty club professionals qualify each year to compete at the association’s pre-eminent tournament. Over the years, a number of them have represented the PGA with great distinction, even challenging for the title. The list below shows the decorated few that have finished inside the top forty since 1971. It is not a long list, nor should it be.

4: Jimmy Wright, 1971 (NCR)
T-11: Don Bies, 1973 (Cantebury); Tommy Aycock, 1974 (Tanglewood Park); Lonnie Nielsen, 1986 (Inverness Club)
T-12: Denny Lyons, 1983 (Cantebury)
T-15: Michael Block, 2023 (Oak Hill)
T-17: Jay Overton, 1988 (Oak Tree)
T-19: Bob Boyd, 1990 (Shoal Creek)
T-27: Buddy Whitten, 1983 (Riviera)
T-28: Tom Wargo, 1992 (Bellerive)
T-30: Bob Boyd, 1994 (Southern Hills)
T-31: Chip Sullivan, 2004 (Whistling Straits)
T-31: Stu Ingraham, 1993 (Inverness Club)
T-40: Steve Schneiter, 2005 (Baltusrol)

Like all major titles, the PGA Championship is conducted at 72 holes of stroke play. It has been that way since 1958, when the event changed from match play to medal. There are many who pine for a time that they never knew, a halcyon era of great difference. The competitive world moved away from match play at the professional level some seven decades ago. For a time, there was a match play event on the men’s tour, and there continues to be one on the LPGA.

The men’s tours reserve their love of match play for team events, and college golf has followed suit. There is something connected between hole-by-hole competition with teammates. Whether contested at singles, foursomes, or four-ball, match play is a wondrous team competition.

What it is not is a viable method for determining a major champion. Match play is unpredictable. Match play allows concessions. Match play suggests that the best player in the field may run up against a hot streak over four, six, or eight holes, and be eliminated with no appeal to the court. Match play is volatile, fickle, unpredictable, and capricious. It is a marvelous way to keep people in the game for a club or friendly match, but such uncertainty should not be leveraged to determine a major titleist.

We all have opinions, and we are entitled to them. When Ben Hogan spoke of his major championship record, he spoke of the 1942 Hale America Open, an event that he won. It was conducted by the USGA, identical to a U.S. Open, but was not considered a U.S. Open. Hogan considered it a major, but the world does not. I consider the Olympics to be a major. They bring some (but not all) of the world’s great golfers to one of the most nerve-wracking venues of sport. They take place once every four years, something of a unicorn, but not quite a brigadoon. They’ve only been played three times (2016, 2o2o/2o21, 2o24) in the modern era.

These are opinions. Others are of the notion that the Players Championship is a major, and should join the other four, or replace the PGA. The Players Championship is identical in nearly every way to the Masters: spring, same southeast USA course every year. It cannot be included. It is a spectacular event, and is valued by the professionals, but it cannot ever be considered a major, while the Masters still lives on.

My suggestion for a fifth major is an interesting one, that perhaps soothes and ameliorates all egos. Its working title is the Lord I Was Born A Traveling Major. Perhaps Floating Major is a bit less wieldy. The International Golf Foundation and the major tours and associations can work together to establish a rotation throughout Central/South America, Canada, continental Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia, and Oceania. Every four years, the floating major would be the Olympic Games. The other years would sequence in the fashion elaborated below, presuming a 2030 start:

2030-Match play @ Canada
2031-72 holes medal play @ Africa
2032-Olympic Games 72 holes medal play @ Australia/Oceania
2033-72 holes medal play @ South America
2034-match play @ Middle East
2035-72 holes medal play @ Continental Europe
2036-Olympic Games 72 holes medal play @ TBD (Turkey/Chile/Indonesia in running)
2037-match play @ TBD

In this way, every eight years would see three major events played at match play. It would be unique and should travel across the globe. As there are seven underrepresented regions, the Traveling Major would make a stop there every seven years.

News

Tour Rundown: Bend, but don’t break

Published

3 weeks ago

Aug 4, 2025

Ronald Montesano

I’m going to gush in this intro paragraph, to get the emo stuff done early. I’ve not pulled harder for a professional to win, than Cameron Young. I coach golf in New York state, and each spring, my best golfers head to a state championship in Poughkeepsie. I first saw Cameron there as a 9th grade student. I saw him three more times after that. I reconnecected with Coach Haas from Wake Forest, an old interview subject from my days on the Old Gold and Black, the Wake newspaper. He was there to watch Cameron. After four years at Wake Forest, Young won on the Korn Ferry Tour, made it to the big tour, almost won two majors, almost won five other events, and finally got the chalice about 25 minutes from the Wake campus. Congratulations, Cameron. You truly are a glass of the finest. #MotherSoDear

OK, let’s move on to the Tour Rundown. The major championship season closed this week in Wales, with the Women’s Open championship. The PGA Tour bounced through Greensboror, N.C., while the PGA Tour Americas hit TO (aka, Toronto) for a long-winded event. The Korn Ferry lads made a stop in Utah, one of just two events for that tour in August. The many-events, golf season is winding down, as we ease from summer toward fall in the northern hemisphere. Let’s bask in the glory of an August sunrise, and run down a quartet of events from the first weekend of the eighth month.

LET/LPGA @ Women’s Open: Miyu bends, but she doesn’t break

Royal Porthcawl was not a known commodity in the major tournament community. The Welsh links had served as host to men’s senior opens, men’s amateurs, and Curtis and Walker Cups in prior years, but never an Open championship for the women or the men. The last-kept secret in UK golf was revealed once again to the world this week, as the best female golfers took to the sandy stage.

Mao Saigo, Grace Kim, Maja Stark, and Minjee Lee hoped to add a second major title to previous wins this season, but only Lee was able to finish inside the top ten. The 2025 playing of the Women’s Open gave us a new-faces gallery from day one. The Kordas and Thitikulls were nowhere to be found, and it was the Mayashitas, Katsus, and Lim Kims that secured the Cymru spotlight. The first round lead was held at 67 by two golfers. One of them battled to the end, while the other posted 81 on day two, and missed the cut. Sitting one shot behind was Miyu Yamashita.

On day two, Yamashita posted the round of the tournament. Her 65 moved her to the front of the aisle, in just her fourth turn around a women’s Open championship. With the pre-event favorites drifting off pace, followers narrowed into two camps: those on the side of an underdog, and others hoping for a weekend charge from back in the pack. In the end, we had a bit of both.

On Saturday, Yamashita bent with 74 on Saturday, offering rays of hope to her pursuing pack. England’s Charley Hull made a run on Sunday closing within one shot before tailing off to a T2 finish with Minami Katsu. Katsu posted the other 65 of the week, on Saturday, but could not overtake her countrywoman, Yamashita. wunderkind Lottie Woad needed one round in the 60s to find her pace, but could only must close-to’s, ending on 284 and a tie with Minjee for eighth.

On Sunday, Yamashita put away the thoughts of Saturday’s struggles, with three-under 33 on the outward half. She closed in plus-one 37, but still won by two, for a first Major and LPGA title.

PGA Tour @ Wyndham: Young gathers first title near home

Cameron Young grew up along the Hudson river, above metro New York, but he also calls Winston-Salem home. He spent four years as a student and athlete at Wake Forest University, then embarked on tour. This week in Greensboro, after a bit of a break, Young opened with 63-62, and revved the engine of Is this the week once more. Runner-up finishes at the Open, the PGA, and a handful of PGA Tour events had followers wonder when the day would come.

On Saturday, Young continued his torrid pace with 65, giving him a five-shot advantage over his closest pursuer. Sunday saw the Scarborough native open with bogey, then reel off five consecutive birdies to remind folks that his time had, at last, arrived. Pars to the 16th, before two harmless bogeys coming home, made Young the 1000th winner of an official PGA Tour event (dating back to before there was a PGA Tour) throughout history. What’s next? I have a suspicion, but I’m not letting on. Mac Meissner closed with 66 to finish solo 2nd, while Mark Hubbard and Alex Noren tied for third.

Korn Ferry Tour @ Utah Championship: Are you Suri it’s Julian?

Who knows exactly when the flower will bloom? Julian Suri played a solid careet at Duke University, then paid his dues on the world’s minor tours for three years. He won twice on two tours in Europe, in 2017. Since then, the grind has continued for the journeyman from New York city. At age 34, Suri broke through in Beehive state, outlasting another grinder (Spencer Levin) and four others, by two shots.

Taylor Montgomery began the week with 62, then posted 64, then 68, and finally, 70. That final round was his undoing. He finished in that second-place tie, two back of the leader. Trace Crowe, Barend Botha, and Kensei Hirata made up the last of the almost quintet. As for Suri, his Sunday play was sublime. His nines were 32 and 31, with his only radar blip a bogey at ten. He closed in style with one final birdie, to double his winning margin. Hogan bloomed late…might Suri?

PGA Tour Americas @ Osprey Valley Open presented by Votorantim Cimentos – CBM Aggregates

Some tournament names run longer than others. This week in Toronto, at the Heathlands course at TPC Toronto, we might have seen the longest tournament title in recorded history. The OVOPBVCCBMA was a splendid affair. It saw three rounds of 62 on Thursday, but of those early risers, only Drew Goodman would stick around until the end. 64 was the low tally on day two, and two of those legionnaires managed to finish inside the top three at week’s end. Saturday brought a 63 from Patrick Newcomb, and he would follow with 64 on Sunday, to finish solo fourth.

Who, then, ended up winning the acronym of the year? It turns out that Carson Bacha had the right stuff in TeeOhhh. Bacha and Jay Card III posted 63 and 64, respectively, on day four, to tie for medalist honors at 23-under 261. Nathan Franks was one shot adrift, despite also closing with 63. If you didn’t go low on Sunday, it was about the check, not the championship.

Bacha and JC3 returned to the 18th hole twice in overtime. Card nearly chipped in from the thick stuff for birdie, while Bacha peeked and shoved a ten-feet attempt at the win. On the second go-round, Card was long with his approach, into the native grasses once more. He was unable to escape, and a routine par from the fairway was enough to earn the former Auburn golfers a first KFT title.

Card III and Bacha both miss their birdie tries on the first playoff hole.

We’ll play 18 again @OspreyOpen. pic.twitter.com/vNpHTdkHDg

— PGA TOUR Americas (@PGATOURAmericas) August 3, 2025

Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2025 Wyndham Championship

Published

4 weeks ago

Jul 29, 2025

GolfWRX Staff

GolfWRX is live this week from the final event of the PGA Tour’s regular season, the Wyndham Championship.

Photos are flowing into the forums from Sedgefield Country Club, where we already have a GolfWRX spirit animal Adam Schenk WITB and plenty of putters for your viewing pleasure.

Check out links to all our photos below, which we’ll continue to update as more arrive.

General Albums

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

See what GolfWRXers are saying and join the discussion in the forums.

News

BK’s Breakdowns: Kurt Kitayama’s Winning WITB, 3M Open

Published

4 weeks ago

Jul 28, 2025

Brian Knudson

Kurt Kitayama just won his 2nd PGA Tour event at the 3M Open. Kurt is a Bridgestone staffer but with just the ball and bag. Here are the rest of the clubs he used to secure a win at the 2025 3M Open.

Driver: Titleist GT3 (11 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD VF 7 TX

3-wood: Titleist GT1 3Tour (14.5 degrees, A3 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8 TX

7-wood: Titleist GT1 (21 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 9 TX

Irons: TaylorMade P7CB (4), TaylorMade P7MB (5-PW)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (52-12F, 56-14F), Vokey Design WedgeWorks (60-K*)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Putter: Scotty Cameron Studio Style Newport 2 Tour Prototype
Grip: SuperStroke Zenergy 1.0PT

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet

Ball: Bridgestone Tour B XS (with Mindset)