PGA Championship now truly a major

They used to call the PGA Championship the minor of the majors. It was held in August when people were more interested in playing golf than watching, and on courses that were less than testing and more than forgettable.

Given a choice your average touring pro, while not unhappy with any victory that paid purse money, would, in no particular order pick to win the Masters, US Open and British Open before the PGA.

Then the tournament contracted to play at great locations like Pebble Beach or Oakmont or, where it’s currently being held--and properly flummoxing so many of those in the field--Oak Hill, at Rochester, NY.

And no less important was the change of dates, from the end of August to mid-May when the event wasn’t up against the start of the overwhelming presence of the NFL’s preseason.

The belief here is the history of any major--indeed any golf tournament --is determined by the venue and the leader board. When the names at the top are names you know, swinging away on a course you want to know, success is all but guaranteed.

That is the case at Oak Hill after Thursday’s first round of this PGA Championship. Granted you may not be familiar with the guy who was in first, Eric Cole, although he did make a run at the Honda Classic.

 Cole was 5-under par through 14 holes, which was all he could finish because of frost-delayed start. Yes. You can get away from pro football by shifting the tournament dates, but you can’t get away from Mother Nature.

The other leaders are a revitalized Bryson Dechambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open champion, Scottie Scheffler, the 2022 Masters winner and Dustin Johnson, who’s won a Masters and U.S.  Open. True, he’s fled to the LIV Tour, however a multi-majors champ is a multi-majors champ forever.

Oak Hill (not to be confused with Oakland Hills in Detroit) has been the site of other PGA Championships, but since the last one in 2013 it was made more difficult, bunkers lowered, fairways narrowed.

The man on TV Thursday said the rough was growing practically between shots, an exaggeration, but isn’t golf the best of sports for exaggeration?

 “You don’t have to hit it very far off to make a bogey,” said Viktor Hovland, who after a 2-under 68 must not have been off more than infrequently.

Scheffler offered his version of the possibilities--and impossibilities, to wit, “It’s just one of those places where you hit one shot maybe barely offline, and sometimes you hit a good shot and end up in a place that’s pretty penalizing.”

Isn’t that what golf is all about? Like life, it’s an unfair game. But also a game someone will win.

To steal an old quote from Jack Nicklaus, who Tiger Woods to the contrary probably is the greatest golfer of all time: “The person who hits the fewest bad shots has the fewest bad lies.”