While the highest level of professional golf appears to be in a fantastic position right now, it is surely fair to say that there are a couple of tournaments which are still searching for their identity – with the PGA Championship most definitely one of those.
It is not controversial to view the PGA Championship as the least prestigious major.
The Masters returns to the iconic Augusta National every year, while the US Open and The Open Championship tend to put a completely different set of skills under the microscope.
Meanwhile, the PGA Championship is arguably the major which most resembles a regular PGA Tour event, particularly when it visits courses such as Quail Hollow, as it did in 2025.
The change which would make the PGA Championship ‘incredible’
The tournament has undergone changes over the years. Of course, it moved from August to May in 2019, meaning that major championship season on the golfing calendar only lasts four months.
But there is another change that perhaps the PGA of America should look to reverse.
Speaking on The Rough Cut Golf Podcast about the desire to have more variety on the schedule, Peter Finch suggested that the PGA Championship should be a real contender to overhaul its format.
“There’s definitely room for matchplay. It will never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever happen, and I get it, and it’s fine, but if the PGA Championship went back to being matchplay, as it was originally back in the day, that would be incredible. Because all of a sudden, it matters,” he said.
“The thing with matchplay comps, and the thing with any event on tour, you want the players who are competing for it to actually be engaged. In fairness, the Dell Matchplay, it used to be a World Golf Championship, World Golf Championships have now gone, so they used to be a specific type of trophy that people wanted to win, and they wanted to play for.
“So if you want to bring an event in and make it exciting, it has to have some meaning. It has to be worth something. And I don’t mean that monetarily.”
Why the PGA Championship is believed to have moved away from a matchplay format
The PGA Championship began life as a matchplay event before switching ahead of the 1958 tournament after just over four decades.
As reported by Golf Monthly, it is believed that the governing body came under pressure from television companies who were clearly unhappy with some of the better players being knocked out earlier in the tournament.
That is obviously one of the big concerns about a matchplay competition.
In the case of the WGC Match Play, the closest the event ever came to delivering a showdown between the two best players in the field in the final came in 2004 when Tiger Woods faced Davis Love III.
On that occasion, it will surprise no one to know that Woods was the number one seed. Meanwhile, his opponent was number three going into the week.
In fact, just one of the finalists in the final five stagings of the event was a top 10 seed.
That does not mean that the tournament cannot be exciting. But clearly, it would be a gamble for the PGA of America to opt to make that significant a change with their one major.
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