The Players Championship Push: When Ambition Outpaces History

Brian Rolapp’s been thinking about real estate. Not the kind with ocean views and palm trees—though there’s plenty of that in Jacksonville—but the more valuable kind: golf’s championship portfolio. The new PGA Tour CEO has correctly identified that the Tour owns none of the sport’s five marquee events. That’s a problem he’s determined to solve, starting with the Players Championship.

I get it. I really do. After 35 years covering this game, I understand institutional ambition, and I respect the Tour’s desire to build legacy around the assets it actually controls. But watching Brandel Chamblee—a broadcaster I genuinely admire—make the case that the Players “stands alone and above the other four major championships” this week at the WM Phoenix Open, I had to sit back and think about what we’re really discussing here.

The Tour’s Marketing Dilemma

Let’s be clear about what’s happening. The Tour just rolled out a slick 30-second promotional spot for the Players featuring Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” as the soundtrack, with the kicker: “MARCH IS GOING TO BE MAJOR.” It’s clever marketing. It’s also, frankly, a cry for relevance.

Chamblee’s been championing the Players as tour’s crown jewel for years, and I won’t dismiss his argument out of hand. The man’s done his homework—literally studied the swing mechanics of Jones, Hogan, and Nicklaus to make his points about golf fundamentals. When Brandel takes a position, he backs it up. But here’s what strikes me after watching this narrative develop: there’s a difference between excellence and majesty, and the Tour is conflating the two.

“The Players, to me, stands alone and above the other four major championships as not just a major, it is in my estimation, the best major.”

The thing is, Chamblee played in the Players 12 times and has covered it every year since 2004. He’s been contractually connected to this event through Golf Channel’s partnership with the Tour—an arrangement that runs through 2030. I’m not suggesting he’s being dishonest; I’m suggesting human nature is a powerful thing. We’re all shaped by our own experiences, and Brandel’s entire professional narrative has been built around this tournament.

What a Major Actually Means

Here’s what I know from three and a half decades around professional golf: a major championship isn’t anointed by television contracts or marketing budgets. It earns its stripes through the weight of history and the dreams it occupies in players’ minds.

Michael S. Kim, a current Tour player, recently posted on social media that he’d be prouder winning the Players over the PGA Championship. I believe him when he says it. The prize money supports that sentiment—last year’s Players winner took home a cool million more than the PGA’s victor. But here’s the question I’d ask Michael: Would Scottie Scheffler trade his PGA Championship for Rory McIlroy’s Players title? Not a chance. Scheffler’s chasing history. He’s building a legacy.

That’s the difference, and it’s everything.

“Have you ever, sir, met a kid on a late summer day on a practice putting green, aim-pointing over a five-footer and saying, ‘This is for the Players!'”

Michael Bamberger’s closing line in his piece captured what the Tour’s marketing machine cannot manufacture. Kids don’t dream about the Players Championship. They dream about the Masters. They dream about holing putts at Pebble Beach during the U.S. Open. They dream about the Open Championship at St. Andrews. These aren’t arbitrary preferences—they’re the accumulated cultural weight of generations.

The PGA Championship Precedent

Here’s something worth considering: if we’re going to elevate the Players, what does that do to the PGA Championship? Historically, it’s been the fifth major, and while Jack Nicklaus won it five times and Tiger Woods four times en route to their legendary career totals, it hasn’t always carried the same cachet as the Masters or the Opens. But it’s still a major because we treat it that way. Because Hagen won it. Because Hogan and Nicklaus and Koepka made it matter through their dominance.

The Tour could theoretically elevate the Players tomorrow with a thousand promotional campaigns. What they can’t do is rewrite 50 years of golf culture and expectation in a press release.

Why This Actually Matters

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not here to bury the Tour’s ambitions. In my experience, institutional initiative usually comes from a healthy place. The Tour recognizes that controlling its own destiny matters. Having a signature event that rivals the majors in prestige would strengthen the entire Tour product. That’s not cynicism; that’s business reality.

The Players is already an exceptional tournament. TPC Sawgrass’s Stadium Course is a legitimate test of golf. The field is elite. The production is first-class. These are facts worth celebrating on their own merits, without the need to make a comparative claim.

“It does own the Players Championship, which some people still refer to as the TPC (Tournament Players Championship), first played in 1974 on the Stadium Course, which some people still call TPC Sawgrass, its birth name.”

What strikes me is that the Tour might actually undermine the Players’ genuine value by pushing it too hard into the major championship conversation. The tournament is already prestigious. It’s already coveted. Sometimes the best marketing is simply letting excellence speak for itself.

The Players will never be what the Masters is because the Masters was built by Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones as a private club’s annual invitation. It will never be what St. Andrews means because that course carries six centuries of golf history. But it can absolutely be what it is: the Tour’s flagship event, the Players Championship—standing on its own considerable merit rather than in the shadow of a crown it didn’t earn.