Another vote for the US Open. I enjoy seeing what it takes to make a modern US-style course challenging for a pro absent a weather assist.
As mentioned above, I have a hard time separating the Masters from all of its baggage. It does have the advantage, tho, or a scoreable back nine, making for some thrilling Sunday afternoons.
The British always has crappy camerawork. And yeah, I can appreciate that that is how golf started, and that can be enjoyable as a diversion. But I think golf is more enjoyable to watch - and play - in the air than along the ground. And a big part of difficulty comes from crappy weather. Hell, a lot of US courses would be tougher if you played them in a gale as well. But since we do’t have such crappy weather, we don’t have to try to pass it off as a positive.
The PGA barely seems like a major. I guess one of them has to be last, but it seems anticlimactic. Also suffers from often searing heat. No bigger than the TPC in the spring, and overshadowed by the upcoming final playoff.
I chose The Masters but it was a close-run thing with The Open. I think course familiarity at The Masters helps. I preferred The Masters even more when I lived in England as I like watching in the late evening.
The Open is truly international and different from any of the others because of the links courses. I don’t like the way the USGA tricks up the US Open courses to protect the scores. I don’t want to watch pros hacking out and struggling to make par for 4 days. Nor do I want to see winning scores of 25 under, but there is a better balance than the USGA achieves.
<facetious>Is the PGA a major?</facetious> Although I am sure I will go watch it next year when it is in Atlanta.
The PGA Championship is perceived to be the red-headed step child of the majors. It does have a identity problem. However, it typically has the best field of all the majors as typically 90-95 of the top 100 ranked players are in the field.
Disclaimer, it also has 25 Club pros which dilute the field.
The TPC is the only tournament that comes close in terms of top 100 players.
I think it should be stripped of major status and create a fourth major somewhere in Asia-Pacific. It is wrong that three majors are held in the USA. Tennis does better with majors in four countries and three continents.
i kind of get what you are saying but i don’t think so. the pga is the penultimate tour to be associated with, rightly or wrongly.
it’s kind of like when you think in basketball terms the nba is more highly regarded than the {name your other league}.
there are a lot of players that are very good that are not pga members but it seems to me that most serious golfers want to play in the pga at some point. i mean i certainly didn’t grow up thinking i wanted to be the best golfer in afghanistan’s version of the pga (hit it thin or else you might trigger a mine).
there are many non americans that make playing on the pga as a goal. but i think most americans look at the euro and asian tours as secondary to getting back on the big stage.
make the fourth one open to something like the top ten “representatives” from the major tours as well as the top 60 or so from the world rankings. then rotate that puppy.
the only thing that would be tough is that a lot of teaching pros (at least here in the states) don’t have the funds to jet off to australia, as an example, for a week. crap half the time they are schlepping beers and head covers just for gas money.
I’m not a tremendous fan of golf; its primary purpose for me is to have soothing background sounds on the TV while I have a Sunday afternoon nap.
I do watch most of the final round of the Masters, but as an early riser who finds an incredible dearth of live sports on TV at 6am, I pay a good amount of attention to the Open. The Open in general also has the weirdest courses. I wait with bated breath for the world’s best golfers to pitch their bag into a water hazard.
i am reminded of the story of this 'ol boy that has a good round going up until 17. where he promptly plants three in the lake. he takes his bag from his caddy and throws the bag into the pond and then marches back to the clubhouse. he proceeds to have a couple of scotches and calms down. so he marches back to the pond and wades in and fishes his bag out of the water. he drags it to the shore, looks in one on the pockets, finds his car keys and puts them in his pocket and the promptly tosses the bag back into the pond again and leaves.
I voted Masters. Primarily because it was the most colourful and wonderful sight to my early sporting eyes and has provided such great drama over the last two decades.
I’d closely follow that with The Open. It is the contrast between the two that make them so interesting. Links golf is nothing like the Masters, it is almost a different game and increases my admiration of those players who can tame both.
To make you all slightly jealous, I live in Sandwich, Kent. The Open is held at Royal St. Georges next year and me, my wife and the two little 'uns will cycle the mile and a half complete with picnic and wine and spend a thoroughly enjoyable week among the dunes watching the practice rounds and the competition itself. As we did back in 2003 (minus the unhatched little 'uns)
I don’t know how easy or cheap it is to get tickets for the other majors but I know that it cost me £200 in 2003 to get unlimited access for the full week, and kids go free, that seems like a good deal to me.
I chose The Masters simply because it signals the start of spring and summer, and now that it precedes the Players Championship, it’s really the first tourney of the year in which I follow the leaderboard from the beginning. The PGA signals the end of summer so I like it least.