Jim McCabe

There’s plenty of new flavor with The Players Championship this year. A new name date (mid-March changed to mid-May) and new conditions, courtesy of tractors and plows and a re-seeding to allow for firmer turf.

But what’s not new is this: It’s still not a major championship.

Sorry, but the matter is closed. There are spots for only four majors and they were long ago spoken for. The Masters. The U.S. Open. The British Open. The PGA Championship. A tidy fourfold package that is tied up with a pretty bow in the form of that most priceless commodity, history.

1934. 1895. 1860. 1916.

That is how far back the respective majors date to, and while the concept of a Grand Slam may only have begun upon the insistence of Arnold Palmer in 1960, we know this: When you hit a Grand Slam, you touch only four bases — not five, not six, not three.

The sports world is convoluted enough without us promoting even further needless semantical debates, so to best pay homage to history and the players who achieved it, it’s imperative that professional golf maintain structure and stability. Let’s start with four majors that are run by four different golf bodies — Augusta National, the U.S. Golf Association, the Royal & Ancient, the PGA of America — each of them with a slightly different approach and let’s keep it that way.

Which brings us to The Players Championship, which for the 26^th spring will be staged upon the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

The Players Championship Lefty earns first win with new coach  |  Scores Opinion: Jury still on out on Mickelson-Harmon Opinion: Mickelson makeover looks promising Tiger finally finds stroke in final round Strong effort that leaves O'Hair all wet Expert: No major, but PGA's top tourney   Discuss: Sound off on the 'fifth major' Vote: How would you fare on No. 17?

If it’s not a major championship — and that was established a few paragraphs ago, remember? — just what in the name of Pete Dye is it?

Start with this: It’s the PGA Tour’s best tournament.

The Players Championship offers a bit of Masters flavor — a permanent home that golf fans can identify with.

The Players Championship offers a bit of U.S. Open flavor — hard and fast greens and a set-up intended to shade a leaderboard black, not red.

Special feature So just who is Lorena Ochoa? Find out here

The Players Championship offers a bit of British Open flavor — international stars at every turn of the head.

The Players Championship offers a bit of PGA Championship flavor — an arguably superior field, based upon world rankings.

That it doesn’t carry a “major championship” tag should hardly diminish its appeal, which is plenty. Start with the course, which is a gem. While it’s always offered great routing and a variety of superb holes — long par-4s, short par-4s, reachable par-5s, three-shot par-5s — what will be at the heart of this year’s Players Championship will be the conditions. Within a day or so of last year’s tournament, the Stadium Course was shut down, layers of sod and soil were pulled back, a better drainage system was installed, and new and improved sand, soil, and grasses were applied. By itself, this procedure is probably enough to assure firmer conditions; but when you push the date back seven weeks to guarantee warmer temperatures and (hopefully) less moisture, well, you’ve gone a long way toward guaranteeing a better complexion to the playing field.

All of that, of course, is perfectly fitting, because it’s the best tournament run by the PGA Tour all year.

It’s just not a major championship.

MORE FROM GOLF

Golf Section Front

Ochoa edges Shin for LPGA's top player award Nordqvist wins LPGA Tour Championship Out of Bounds: Tiger booed ... at Stanford? Latest golf videos Latest player news, rumors and more Tracking Tiger: News, features and more Tiger's triumphs: Recapping all Woods' wins Vote: When will Tiger win his 15th major? Vote, discuss: Best major of 2009? Special section: Golf on NBC   Golf Section Front   Add Golf headlines to your news reader: