Five months after Deane Beman was appointed commissioner of the USPGA Tour in March 1974, an event known as the Tournament Players' Championship was launched at the Atlanta Country Club. Since then, there has been a change of venue and a change of title, but Beman's greatest wish will remain unfulfilled when the tournament has its 18th staging later this week.
When talking about that inaugural event, it was as if the commissioner was anticipating the thoughts of Sandy Lyle. "All we are trying to do is to put on a quality event with a good field that the public and press might someday accept as a major championship," he said.
"We don't have a hundred years to wait, like the British Open, to gain this prestige. It isn't for me to say that this is a major tournament, but to try and make it one."
As the only European winner of the title, after a three-hole play-off with Jeff Sluman in 1987, Lyle was asked what the difference was between it and the British Open. "About 150 years," came the reply, as if to highlight the folly of Beman's ambitions. A year later, the TPC became known as the Players' Championship and despite perennial politicking, it is still no nearer to becoming a legitimate fifth "major".
Yet, ironically, it consistently draws fields of greater quality than some of the select four. And winners such as Jack Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd, Lee Trevino, Greg Norman, Nick Price, David Duval and the defending champion, Hal Sutton.
Back in 1980, its climax had the feel of a true classic. When the final round got under way, the top 12 players on the leaderboard could boast a combined 36 major titles. And in the final three-ball, Nicklaus, Trevino and Gary Player accounted for 29 of them. Not for the first time, Trevino showed himself to have the skill and courage to beat his illustrious partners, with a four-round aggregate of 278. And by way of responding to a surprised cognoscenti, remarked: "Hey, I'm one of the big boys, too, you know. I'm not cotton candy."
At that time, the plan was to move the event from the old oceanside Sawgrass Country Club to the newly-constructed Tournament Players' Club the following year, but it was decided that Pete Dye's dramatic creation was still too young and immature. So it was that in an extended farewell at the Country Club, Floyd took the title after a three-way play-off.
Finally, in 1982, the Stadium Course at the Tournament Players' Club was unveiled, complete with the stunning, short 17th and its island green. And by way of baptism, Jerry Pate captured the title, dumped Beman in for an unscheduled swim and had Dye glowing: "We wanted to build a course that would bring out all the shots of these great players. And I think we've succeeded."
In wicked winds on the opening day in 1984, a record 64 balls found a watery grave around the 17th green, prompting John Mahaffey to describe it as one of the easier par fives on the course. Further high winds were predicted for Friday but they never materialised.
So, in benign conditions, there were 13 eagles, five of them on par fours and British Open champion Tom Watson set a tournament record with six successive birdies. Small wonder he felt moved to comment "The word isn't easier but fairer," with regard to the architectural changes made to the layout in response to complaints from the players.
A year later, Calvin Peete struck a significant blow for minorities when displaying remarkable accuracy on the way to a 14-under-par winning aggregate of 274. But during a course-record final round of 66, there was an exception on the 10th hole where his drive finished some way from its intended destination, leaving Peete with a restricted follow-through.
"My only concern was that I might break a club or my wrist and I figured $162,000 (for first prize) was worth either one," he said afterwards. Meanwhile, his playing partner of the final round, DA Weibring, said of Peete's general play: "The man is a machine. He drives his ball. He hits his irons and never backs off the flag all day. And please don't write that he can't putt." It was against this background that Lyle achieved Europe's lone success at Sawgrass, two years later. Going into the tournament, the 1985 British Open champion had claimed he was striking the ball as well as ever. As things turned out, however, an aggregate which matched Peete's was good enough only to get the Scot into a play-off, but he had too much class for Sluman.
On the fateful 17th, the second play-off hole, Sluman stood over a six-foot birdie putt which would have delivered victory. At that precise moment, a spectator jumped into the lake; the player backed off the putt and when he resumed, he missed the target. So it was that Lyle won with a par on the 18th.
This is the sort of challenge leading Europeans such as Darren Clarke and Padraig Harrington will have to surmount this week, if they are to follow in Lyle's footsteps. And in the process, they can consider the words of Jodie Mudd, the 1990 champion.
By way of acknowledging the lofty aspiration Beman had articulated 16 years previously, Mudd said after his 10-underpar triumph: "For right now, this has to be the high point of my career, unless I win a major." And so it proved to be, when Mudd eased into retirement with a 10-year exemption which ran until the end of last season.
