The PGA Championship Tends To Be Considered The Fourth-Best Major In The Men's Game… Is That Fair?

What order do you have your four men's Major Championships in? For many, it's a toss-up between The Masters and The Open, followed by the US Open, and then the PGA Championship.

If there's a debate around the order of the top-three (for me, it's The Open at one, Masters at two, and US Open at three), there's less of one around which Major Championship is the weakest - that'll be the PGA Championship.

This should be a tournament that golf fans get really excited about, because it's widely acknowledged as having the strongest field in golf.

On the eve of The Masters in early spring, the golf world reaches fever pitch. The US Open can be an attritional affair, but is rarely anything but absorbing, and The Open is, well, The Open, the one that boasts the most heritage and character.

So, what is it that the PGA Championship so sorely lacks?

Timing

It's a long wait for Major Championship golf between the end of the Women's Open in August and The Masters the following April, and we can still feel starved even if we're served up an autumn treat in a Solheim or Ryder Cup year.

By the time The Masters comes around, the excitement levels are usually off the scale. We're ready for it; in fact, we're ready for a whole week of it - practice days, the par-3 Contest, Honorary Starters, the lot.

It's not easy to follow all of this, which is what the PGA Championship has to do just a few weeks later. This year, we've also had two Signature Events in between the two Majors.

Is there a case that the PGA Championship feels a bit diluted? Maybe, but then it used to be played in August, and this feeling that something is missing still existed back then.

Timing might be a contributing factor, but there are others.

Identity

Yes, it usually boasts a very strong field, but the PGA Championship has an identity problem and sometimes feels like it could be any other regular tour event.

This is not something The Masters struggles with. For starters, it has Augusta National, arguably the most iconic golf course in the world, and a long list of traditions that helps to set it apart.

The US Open might be a hard watch at times (not if you like seeing players grind out pars), but it's fascinating to watch the world's best players scramble on courses where a 'bomb it and wedge it close' strategy rarely works.

Then you have The Open and all the wonderful history that comes with it. For many, this is golf at its finest - a firm and fast links with a bit of unpredictable weather thrown in.

Aside from boasting one of the most impressive pieces of silverware in the sport, the Wanamaker Trophy, it's hard to think of many other defining traits that can be associated with the PGA Championship.

The Course

The PGA Championship visits a number of excellent courses, but it still follows Augusta National, which has hosted every Masters tournament since 1934.

Meanwhile, even when The Open isn't played at the Home of Golf and the Old Course at St Andrews, the links courses on the Open rota are steeped in history and, like Augusta, boast a visual familiarity that even non golfers fall in love with.

Would the PGA Championship gain something from being played at somewhere like a Kiawah Island or Whistling Straits every year, courses that make for better viewing on television? Possibly.

Magic Memories

It feels as though the PGA Championship hasn't produced quite the volume of 'wow' moments compared to the other three Major Championships.

This is not to say the tournament hasn't crowned its fair share of great champions, because it has - Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, McIlroy, Jack Nicklaus among them.

However, maybe it suffers from having had fewer genuine classics. You might be able to think of one or two (Y.E. Yang beating Woods at Hazeltine in 2009 was one of the most memorable affairs in recent times), but you could swiftly put together a long list of magic moments for the other three without using Google.

Maybe McIlroy going back-to-back, or one of the 20 club pros competing in the PGA Championship coming out on top would give the tournament a boost.