Meh, never at any point felt like a major championship to me. Can't really put my finger on why.

Glad I stuck around to get flipped off by Day's kid and to watch Walker smack his wife's ass.

She should hook up with Willett and Stenson to complete the 2016 Grand Slam.

For me, that is always how I feel about the PGA. For some reason it just never gets me like the first three do. I went out and played rather than watch, which I never do for the others.

does anyone actually know on the difficulty of a 7 iron layup for walker? would it be that short? with wet conditions, he risks a chunk maybe?

i would say it's easy too.. but the announcer said it wasn't straightforward. might have been being nice. but i have seen some really poor layups under pressure.

Sawgrass is more prestigious now, imo.

To close to the open because of the Olympics, losing a day of play hurts as well. Hopefully this is the last Olympics golf is played in.

Yeah same here. Feels like a regular stop on tour.

The problem with the PGA is there just isn't anything to differentiate it. The other majors are basically the cult of Bobby Jones / always on the same historic course, the US championship and the world championship / links golf. The PGA offers a bunch of club pro's which isn't interesting at all.

I heard that.

The PGA Championship should go to something along these lines:

- First get rid of the club professionals shenanigans. They never even make the cut.

- Start with 117 players, play 18 holes on Wednesday and 18 holes on Thursday, the low 48 advance to Friday (obv a playoff might be necessary to get to the 48 ... which would be super exciting).

- Play 36 holes on Friday, the low 16 advance to Saturday (playoff again might be necessary).

- At the conclusion of Friday's play, the remaining 16 players go to the middle of the 18th green where a table is set up and a bowl containing 16 balls (two numbered #1, two numbered #2, etc. to two numbered #8). The players pick a ball out of the bowl to see who their Round of 16 match-play opponent will be.

* All match-play matches will be 18 hole matches.

- Saturday's play consists of Round of 16 and QF match-play matches

- Sunday's matches consist of four matches pitting the QF losers to determine who finishes T-5 and T7. The SF matches go off after the loser QF matches. Following these matches, there's an hour long break and then the 3rd place match goes off followed by the championship match.

A major on the line in an 18-hole match-play game. The PGA Championship finds its niche. Don't forget that the PGA Championship was a match-play event its first 41 years. I say go back to your roots.

that sounds terrible

Fair enough. Can you give some constructive criticism on my ideas?

If the PGA of America came to you for help, what would you tell them. Status quo?

I think it's a pretty cool idea as a mix up factor. For whatever reason and it's likely a variety of them the PGA rarely feels like a major to me and more like a normal golf tournament.

just a bit too much golf and too much going on

it would be a bit odd that the governing body that runs all the events would run their prestige event with a drastically different format than the rest

match play is really boring imo, way worse than stroke play

you could have a 3rd round cut and get it down to like 8 players tho, and even a playoff for the last spot, then just stroke play for the last eight on the final day (likely carrying forward scores)

Yeah, I was thinking outside the box. Adding the match-play element creates a clear distinction from the other 3. I think the potential hole-by-hole playoffs (for example, 12 for 3, 5 for 2, etc.) could be some of the most memorable action of the tournament too. Picking numbers out of a hat might be hokey/unfair, but that can be tweaked.

Just pointing this out b/c your second paragraph makes it seem like you might not know, the PGA of America (not the PGA Tour) puts on the PGA Championship. The Players is the PGA Tour's prestige event. The PGA of America puts on the following events: the PGA Championship, the Senior PGA, the PGA Grand Slam, and the Ryder Cup (in cooperation with the European Tour).

I agree that there's a lot going on. Regarding match-play, I find it more exciting to watch (and actually playing it is the nuts ... especially a team alternate-shot match), but you're probably right -- the majority of golf viewers probably don't find match-play as enjoyable.

edit: the PGA of America also puts on the PGA Professional Championship (for club pros).

hmmm, weird, apparently i didn't

read up on it a bit now, seems weird they run the ryder cup

First Ryder Cup was 1927. PGA Tour was founded in 1929. PGA of America was founded in 1916.

I just learned something too regarding the Ryder Cup:

The event is jointly administered by the PGA of America and Ryder Cup Europe, the latter a joint venture of the PGA European Tour (60%), the PGA of Great Britain and Ireland (20%), and the PGA of Europe (20%).

Simple new idea to make the PGA interesting: new courses only. Anyone that's hosted a major ever, or any tour event in the last decade, is out. Get us something we haven't seen before and neither have any of the players. Put their club pro or club champion in the field automatically.

this is a great idea, but I'm not sure if they could find enough courses that would be good tests, fun for the viewer, and have the capacity/setup that would make it a good experience in person.

would also like it more if they just made it more of a US Open test with absurdly fast greens and more penalizing rough

except you have the US Open for that and this would just be a less interesting version of that, sort of like it is now, and it would make the US Open less exciting/unique

Some of the problem with the PGA is just timing. It's the last major of the year, so you can get major fatigue unless there's something really compelling happening in the golf world. It's usually in mid-August when people are trying to squeeze out every last drop of summer or are staring down the start of the school year. Football is underway. All that sort of thing.

I don't think going back to match play is the answer. A lot of pros used to skip the PGA when it was match play. Plus playing that many rounds in August heat would be a killer.

I generally like the new courses idea, but some things: I thought last year's PGA at Whistling Straits was pretty compelling, as were the two previous editions in Kohler. Also, and probably more importantly, there are only so many courses that can host a major -- the overwhelming majority of courses in this country don't have the length, the difficulty or the necessary infrastructure.

(I italicized in this country -- but for the fact that the event is owned by the PGA of America and thus never would go anywhere, the PGA would be an ideal major to contest elsewhere around the world.)

I mean, I guess part of the charm would be they show up at the Des Moines Municipal Golf Course (only better of course) and Henrik Stenson shoots -34 from the tips so everyone there knows These Guys Are Really Good and have something to compare themselves to and say stuff like "Phil holed out from RIGHT HERE, let's see if you can get it in in less than four shots".

I think the infrastructure issues, while they're there, are not really all THAT compelling. Any location with a good sized town within 20-40 minutes travel would be fine. That stuff can be figured out. The crowds will be smaller but I don't care about that (I'm aware the people running the tournament would).

The travel would be tough, but what about playing the PGA in other countries every year.

The PGA is supposed to honor the "everyman" working golf pros, why not hold it at a rotation of public courses only? Could call it "the people's championship" or something like that.

Holding it at Baltusrol made it feel like any other mid-season stop at a nondescript ritzy country club.

Also Baltusrol is a very boring course regardless of the weather. Boring course, dull tournament.

I agree with the feeling that the PGA did not feel like a major. It felt like standard target golf.

A big part of that was Walker had one of the luckiest final rounds I can remember. He got so many lucky drops/bounces and chip ins. He hit the grand stands twice, hit a huge tree with another drive, and put another bad missed shot in the bunker. Every time he hit a horrible shot he somehow got relief. The 1st grandstand he hit he got two drops!! (one from the grand stand, the next from the cart path, and suddenly he had a decent shot at the green.) When he hit the big tree he somehow miracled the ball through the tree to a decent lie with a clear look at the green, and than he holed it out of the sand. I know it was his day and sometimes you get lucky, but it made the event/course feel like there were no consequences. It felt like I could shoot an 80 on that course. Walker had at least 4 solid blowups and somehow ended up -1 on those holes.