Four majors in four months isn't working, is it? Here's how we would like to shake things up

In among everything else that 2020 brought to our lives, it made me completely forget about the utter lunacy that is this new condensed major championship season.

A year before the pandemic struck, the powers that be decided golf’s four biggest tournaments would all be played in consecutive months, starting with the Masters in April and concluding on these shores at The Open in mid-July.

One finishes and you’ve got barely any time to think before the next one starts.

And that nine-month wait from watching the Claret Jug being hoisted in the air to that first drive down Magnolia Lane is nothing short of torture.

I know the PGA Tour want to accommodate The Players and FedEx Cup Play-offs to make them part of some sort of super mega cowabunga summer of American golf, but it’s the big four we get excited about – particularly on this side of the Atlantic – and it all feels a bit diluted.

Aside from the incredible finish – and the fact it was a west-coast major – the US Open felt little more than a ramped-up regular tour event.

Well at least come up with a solution, I hear you say. (Probably.)

OK. Here’s my four-point plan. (Obviously.)

1. Move the PGA Championship to earlier in the year. It used to be played in February and it’s generally considered the fourth major by, well, everyone, so why not make it the first? We’ll be much more up for it if it’s also ending a lengthy major-free period.

2. This means The Players can stay in March and Masters in April, making for a really fascinating three-month period before you get into the summer.

3. Then you’ve got a nice two-month break before the US Open, which we’ll keep in June, please.

4. Finally – and I’ll get some grief for this – move The Open to September. Why not? It would be much more fun, and the weather is no more unpredictable then than it is July.

My new schedule would almost halve the wait time to the restart, and there’s always the excitement of the European Tour season conclusion to keep the purists going.

And in Ryder Cup years it will feel like nothing.

And another thing…

The other half of my job is putting together the National Club Golfer magazine each month – pick a copy up at your club now!

Do you know how hard the condensed major season makes this? I don’t want to spoil the magic, but I was writing the preview for the US Open issue a few days before the PGA Championship even started.

I was already at Torrey Pines and I had no idea who had lifted the Wanamaker Trophy a month before on the opposite side of the United States.

What a world.

Would you like to see the majors spaced out a bit more? Or do you like it as it is? Let me know in the comments below, or you can tweet me.

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Alex Perry

Alex has been the editor of National Club Golfer since 2017. A Devonian who enjoys wittering on about his south west roots, Alex moved north to join NCG after more than a decade in London, the last five of which were with ESPN. Away from golf, Alex follows Torquay United and spends too much time playing his PlayStation or his guitar and not enough time practising his short game.