Among the world’s top players (and, for what it’s worth, most of the all-important media contingent), there is little dissent to the notion that the PGA Championship is the “fourth” of golf’s four annual Majors – the only one of the quartet with even the slightest amount to fear whenever the PGA Tour’s P.R. machine ratchets up their annual “Fifth Major” nonsense prior to the Player’s Championship.  Where the debate livens up considerably, however, is on the subject of which of the three remaining Majors – the Masters, the U.S. Open or the British Open (universally known outside of the U.S. as simply the Open Championship) – might be considered the best or most desirable of the bunch.
 
We should, of course, stipulate that this is one of those wholly unresolvable arguments, something akin to whether Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium is the better baseball venue, or Cypress Point or Pine Valley the better golf course; in the end, our particular conclusions are inevitably tied to our personal tastes and biases. 

And to be sure, each of the three candidates brings something special to the table.
 
The Masters is certainly golf’s most unique tournament, the only Major annually played over the same course, and an event imbued with the sort of tradition that only its Bobby Jones-rooted pedigree can provide.  Even with its silly new millennium alterations, the Augusta National Golf Club remains a venue of almost singular appeal, particularly as play rounds into the all-or-nothing 13th, 15th and 16th holes on Sunday afternoon.  Combine all of this with the Masters’ status as something of a rite of Spring and its place in golf’s pantheon remains, despite the club’s heavy-handed course meddling, utterly secure.

The U.S. Open, on the other hand, is without question golf’s most grueling test, a gauntlet of USGA-enhanced terror designed to whittle things down to the last man standing.  Par indeed remains the standard of excellence – except when the event visits really difficult venues like Winged Foot and Oakmont, and then it’s about five strokes beyond.  With the USGA's abrogation of responsibility with regard to equipment, a bit more tricking-up is now in order to maintain the chosen balance, but in the end, the American national championship will forever hold a unique niche among the Majors as the toughest event in golf.

And then there is the Open Championship.

We in the United States have been bred – passively, I believe, not by any sinister design – to view the “British Open” as a fine championship, an event more or less on par with the Masters and the U.S. Open, even if we have to wake up frighteningly early (at least on the West Coast) to see it.  I don’t believe, however, that there are many born-and-bred American golfers who view the Open as in any way exceeding our own Majors, and this is where things get interesting. 

There is, after all, a reason why the event is known simply as the Open Championship.  It was founded roughly 30 years before golf was even being played in the States (and most other corners of the globe) and was not simply the Scottish or British championship, but really the world’s championship; the idea of placing a national name within the title, then, was wholly unnecessary.  Further, while the Masters and U.S. Open will forever retain their particular cachets, it is undeniable that golfers from the many nations playing under the rules of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club (read most everyone outside of North America) generally rate the Open Championship as the event they most richly covet.  And with the majority of the world’s best players not named Tiger hailing from states other then the 50, shouldn’t the closest thing golf has to a world championship thus be ceded a place at the head of the Major championship table?

And one more thing: Being contested over links courses, where the luck of the bounce, the capriciousness of the occasional blind shot and the overriding presence of the elements all profoundly affect play, the Open Championship is the rare professional event to even vaguely resemble golf in its purest, most original form.

And if that doesn’t qualify it as the game’s pre-eminent event, I surely don’t know what does.