The Triumph of the Ball-Striker: Sergio Garcia at The Players Championship

I just hate it when significant golf tournaments are won by the players who putt the best over four days. Hot putters come and go but great ball-striking is the true stuff of golf legend. As Hogan said, "There are two games: Putting is playing the ball on the ground but golf is controlling the ball in the air." Though not usually metioned in the same breath as Hogan (yet, anyway), I have seen no better ball-striker than Sergio Garcia. Nick Price comes close but I am not sure that he ever had quite the combination of length and control with the driver that Garcia has owned since he was 19. If Sergio Garcia could have Tiger Woods putt for him the rest of the field would do well to stay home and enjoy the action on television.

Now, I have nothing against Paul Goydos (he's a good California boy) but the idea of him winning The Players by being first in putting and 46th in GIR makes me queasy. If all the talk of The Players being the 5th major have merit it will have to be something more than a putting contest. And, that brings me to the 18th. The boys of Ponte Vedra have got to fix that hole. Having an 18th hole that has evolved into one that few in the field can hit with two shots is just silly.

Can you imagine Hal Sutton exulting, "Be the right club today!" while laying up to 50 yards? The water has become a non-issue with far too many players hitting 3-wood so far right that they leave themselves little or no chance to hit the green. I would say they have two choices. The first is simply to move the tee up 10-20 yards on Sunday. That would present the players with an opportunity they would find hard to resist with the results being more birdies, more tee shots in the water and more approach shots in the water.

The other option is to take the rough out of the right side. That would open the option of playing for the green while still keeping the threat of the water left or the mounds right but still keeping some chance for a birdie.

It's time to seriously talk about The Players replacing the PGA as the fourth major. Let's face it, the PGA of today isn't the PGA of Hagen's day anyway. The Players brings a fantastic course and the deepest field in golf together in a way that the PGA will never achieve with the combination of its nepotostic tendencies toward choosing a venue and qualifying a field. We can save that debate for another day, but that day is coming.