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Sullivan | Valhalla too easy for a major?

Tim Sullivan
@TimSullivan714

For golf fans who prefer the dramatic to the diabolical, the PGA Championship was a feast.

The leaderboard fairly sparkled with starpower. The tournament was tight, with multiple contenders and numerous plot twists. The winner, Rory McIlroy, is the best player on the planet. The runner-up was the crowd-pleasing Phil Mickelson. Though Sunday's final round was prolonged by rain, mud-streaked spectators stuck it out to produce full-throated roars late into the evening at Valhalla Golf Club.

Who could ask for anything more? Well, Alan Shipnuck, for one.

Before McIlroy, Mickelson, Rickie Fowler and Henrik Stenson staged their memorable four-man duel down the stretch Sunday evening, Shipnuck was on record that Valhalla was unworthy of a major championship. In a video commentary that appeared on Sports Illustrated's web site, the magazine's senior writer declared, "Mediocrity, thy name is Valhalla."

Up to a point, he had a point. Major championships should probably be more demanding than was this PGA. The most meaningful tournaments should force the world's greatest golfers to use every club in their bags and almost every shred of their sanity. They should test their ingenuity and their fortitude, their perseverance and their putting. As a general rule, you don't want pars to feel like bogeys. You want more bleeding and fewer red numbers.

But when you start to measure ticket sales, tension and sporting theatre, the 2014 PGA Championship is going to be tough to top. Since Shipnuck's commentary preceded Sunday's final round, maybe the man should take a mulligan.

"Here's a handy test to see if a course is worthy of a major championship," Shipnuck said. "Does it have an island green? Not worthy. Multiple waterfalls? Not worthy. A hokey double fairway?"

Here, Shipnuck simulated the sound of a buzzer, as if to signal an errant answer on a quiz show.

"If you get a free drop because your drive hits a power line, it's not a major championship venue, it's a dressed-up muni," Shipnuck continued. "Earlier this week, one veteran caddie called Valhalla the easiest setup he's ever seen in a major, which explains why this PGA feels like the Greater Louisville Classic."

We're not here to quibble, but what Shipnuck and Valhalla itself refer to as an "island green," No. 13, is technically a peninsula. That the writer objects to man-made waterfalls is an aesthetic irrelevance.

Still, at the core of his criticism is a valid concern, that a course that has now held three PGA Championships and a Ryder Cup might be viewed as an inadequate test for events of such stature.

Shipnuck's argument is supported by superlative scoring — there were 179 rounds below par, second most in the history of an event that has now been conducted 96 times — and that argument was only partially refuted by rains that reduced the greens to dart boards. Though only seven players broke par over 72 holes at the 2014 Masters, and just three at the U.S. Open, there were 58 of them during the PGA; 14 who finished at least 10 strokes in the red. No less an authority than Ernie Els said, "for a major, this was as gettable as you are going to get."

If this was unbecoming of a major championship, however, it is not unfixable. If Valhalla plays too easy for the Tour pros — at least for those with the most length off the tee — it can surely be tightened or tweaked to be made more challenging, as was TPC Sawgrass after Greg Norman shot a record 24-under-par in The Players Championship in 1994.

Given the size and accessibility of the venue, the robust attendance at the tournament and the PGA of America's stake in the success of its only wholly owned championship course, Valhalla is surely worth an investment in new teeth if that is deemed desirable.

Yet before bulldozers are brought in to upgrade the course's cruelty, the PGA could eliminate a lot of cheap birdies and unexceptional eagles simply by adjusting the par-five No. 18 to a par-four, and without removing any waterfalls, power lines or competitive intrigue.

Valhalla's 542-yard finishing hole produced more birdies (229) than pars (169) during the PGA and 20 of the tournament's 40 eagles. Though there's something to be said for providing players an opportunity for a closing charge, adjusting par by a single shot would inevitably reduce the number of red numbers without meaningfully detracting from the drama.

Whether such a cosmetic change is warranted depends on your interest in protecting par. But with six of the tournament's top seven finishers ranked among the world's Top 20 players, the tournament's results looked a lot more representative than random.

"I thought it was the greatest day of golf that we've seen in years and could not be more pleased or more excited about the excitement," said Kerry Haigh, the PGA of America's chief championships officer. "I think it's wonderful golf. ... What better advertisement for the game than seeing the four greatest players probably in the world right now playing to a crowd that was loving it?"

Sure, Valhalla could be harder. So, too, could ice cream.

Tim Sullivan can be reached at (502) 582-4650, by email at tsullivan@courier-journal.com, and on Twitter @TimSullivan714