Shiny new Sawgrass welcomes the world's best in May

Golf is at its most intriguing to the general public when it can marry big names with big tournaments. Unfortunately for the PGA Tour, they control none of the major championships and hold a limited sway over a band of prominent all stars typically endowed with their own set of prerogatives. Maybe that’s the drawback of being a de facto trade guild.

Because of these hard facts, the Tour is desperate to expand its holdings. This season, they introduce the FedEx Cup playoff format, which is meant to remedy a number of perceived weaknesses in the schedule, but another equally important expansion is the quest to establish the Players Championship as golf’s fifth major.

With the Sawgrass renovation, the Tour can boast the most sophisticated facility in all of professional golf, light years ahead of everybody else. But they realize that the splendor of a fancy venue by itself won’t suffice to achieve its goals.

There is definitely something to be said about customs and the sense of legacy invested in all the major championships. And no tournament worthy of such elevated status can do without it. Developing these spectral things will be the most elusive task for Finchem and staff.

Yet the simpler matters come first. Their gambit appears to be focused on effective media projection.

Perhaps they see a lesson to be learned in the rise of the Masters. The allure of Augusta National comes through on television like nothing else in the sport. The new opulent clubhouse and the marvelous milieu at the TPC Sawgrass could be seen as a move to incorporate more arresting visuals for the TV cameras.

Of course, the manufacturing of this type of appeal comes fraught with difficulty.

The Wall Street Journal quoted one PGA Tour Vice President as saying that the new 77,000-square-foot Mediterranean Revival-style edifice creates a feeling of “instant tradition” for this locale.

Aside from its paradoxical sense, the catchphrase “instant tradition” is reminiscent of other things like “instant coffee” – something whipped up in a trice, something not quite the real thing, and ultimately something unearned and, therefore, undeserving. The quote, whatever its real intention, is a clear sign that the Tour thinks it has limited time to work its magic.

But in the long run, this feverish push to forge a certain image could turn out to have been a futile passion. If the Players Championship eventually reaches its intended target, it might be less to do with the glamorous trappings and more to do with its new position on the schedule.

In seasons past, the Players Championship was set awkwardly in late March when most players are thinking of game plans for Augusta National. Just two weeks separated the Sawgrass showdown from the year’s first major. In its media dealings, the Tour would always bristle against suggestions that the event was anything like a warm-up for the Masters.

Now they have no need to put up the defenses. The Players Championship is scheduled smack-dab in that long span from the Masters in early April to the U.S Open in mid June. In retrospect, it seems like the obvious move, and one wonders why the tour didn’t do it earlier. The May date takes the tournament out of the shadow of the Masters and into the bright sunshine of spring when the tenor of the season has been set and many storylines are flourishing.

With a sparkling new playground and a plumy spot on the schedule, the Player Championship is out to conquer the world.