I Hate Major Victories Counting As Tour Wins... It's Just Plain Wrong!

Tiger Woods does not have 82 PGA Tour wins. He has 67 PGA Tour wins and 15 victories at Major Championships.

Sam Snead does not have 82 PGA Tour wins. He has 75 PGA Tour wins and seven victories at Major Championships.

Jack Nicklaus does not have 73 PGA Tour wins. He has 55 PGA Tour wins and an all-time record 18 Major Championships. Do you see where I'm going with this?

I've never understood why Majors are counted as PGA Tour or DP World Tour wins as well. And I absolutely hate that this is the case. It's just plain wrong.

A key portion of the argument is that the Majors form notable breaks in the main tours' schedules and they work together in certain aspects, i.e. host courses. The same is at least partly true for LIV Golf as well, but do you see the Saudi-backed tour trying to claim the Masters as a LIV win? Not yet anyway.

There are FedEx Cup/Race To Dubai points on offer at the Majors, too, which is fine. I can accept that. I like the fact that tours rewards their players for making it to these championships. Maybe LIV et al should look at offering points for those who make the Majors now that it has a reasonable qualification route.

But those factors should not mean the king-making quartet are also considered regular tour wins.

I do agree that players can earn a win on two tours if an event is co-sanctioned, like the PGA Tour and DP World Tour's Genesis Scottish Open. But, ultimately, they will still only add one to their overall pro wins tally.

Yet, in my eyes, wins at any of the four modern men's Majors are triumphs at those alone.

We can group them by Majors, sure, but if we say a Masters victory counts as a PGA Tour or DP World Tour win, then surely - by the same token - it should also count for LIV Golf, the Asian Tour, the Sunshine Tour, the PGA Tour of Australasia, the Korean Golf Tour and every other top-level circuit in the world?

The argument is a little more complicated in terms of the women's majors because the LPGA Tour operates the Chevron Championship and did run the Women's PGA Championship until as recently as 2014, when the PGA of America took over. So, for now, I'll leave that argument alone.

But, in men's golf, it seems perfectly clear to me. The big four championships in men's golf are self-governed. They're not owned by the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour. Anyone can enter as long as they qualify. Therefore, they are unique and a separate category to a regular tour event.

Recently, Matt Fitzpatrick won the Valspar Championship on the PGA Tour. The commentators and countless journalists called it his third PGA Tour success. No, it's not. Fitzpatrick has won two PGA Tour titles and a US Open.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Fitzpatrick or any other Major winner. They've still won the same number of titles and they will rightly go down in history.

I'd just like the wins categorized properly. I don't think that's too much to ask.