Brandel Chamblee: Players Championship as a Major?

The Players Championship occupies a curious place in golf’s hierarchy.

Since its inception in 1974, it has served as the crown jewel of the PGA Tour. Its list of past winners reads like a who’s who of the game’s legends, with Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Greg Norman and Tiger Woods among them. It also boasts a host course, TPC Sawgrass, that is consistently ranked among the best in the country.

But try as the Tour might, the Players has never quite been able to ascend to the top tier of professional golf events. With the annual majors — the Masters, U.S. Open, Open Championship and PGA Championship — anchoring the sport’s calendar, the Players has always played second (or rather, fifth) fiddle.

That’s not to say the powers that be in Ponte Vedra haven’t done their best to alter that narrative. Each year when the Players Championship rolls around, the familiar debate about its major-worthiness ramps up. This year is no different. With the tournament on the horizon, the Tour has rolled out a provocative new tagline in another attempt to elevate its flagship event.

And it seems those inside the global home aren’t alone in pushing that message.

On a live set at the Waste Management Phoenix Open on Saturday, analyst Brandel Chamblee made a bold proclamation regarding the Players’ status.

“What constitutes a major championship?” Chamblee said. “Of course, it’s history and tradition and reverence and all those things. But at the core, these are hard events to win. They’re meant to be harder events to win because of the pressure, because of the setup — because everything is right on that line. They’ve got to be hard events to win, they’ve got to have great fields, and they’ve got to produce indelible champions and indelible moments.”

There’s little argument with any of that. The Players routinely delivers drama on Sunday afternoon, and with water lining the 16th, 17th and 18th holes, TPC Sawgrass boasts one of the most daunting closing stretches in professional golf.

But Chamblee’s case for the Players’ worthiness was far from finished.

“When you look at the Players Championship — with all due respect to the other four major championships — it is the best field in golf,” he continued. “It is the deepest field in golf. And by virtue of the fact that in its 50-year history, only one player has successfully defended it, I would argue that it is the hardest major championship to win. All the others have had far more successful defenses.

“Especially since it moved to TPC Sawgrass, which in my estimation — save for one hole — is arguably the best golf course on which they play a major championship from a shot-values perspective. You can talk about aesthetics all you want, risk-reward holes certainly, but from a shot-value standpoint, you cannot touch TPC Sawgrass.”

Then came the line that lit the internet ablaze.

“So, in every single way that a metric could be used to measure whether something is a major, the Players, to me, stands alone and above the other four major championships — not just as a major,” Chamblee said. “It is, in my estimation, the best major.”

Whew.

Not only is the Players a major — it’s the best major? Calling that a hot take would be an understatement.

Chamblee has long been a polarizing figure in his role as a golf analyst, and this opinion will only add fuel to that fire. Based on the discourse so far, however, there appear to be few — if any — outside the walls of the PGA Tour who agree with him.