NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — It was bound to happen, and Tuesday morning, in a white tent almost in the shade of the massive stone clubhouse of the Aronimink Golf Club, where the 108th PGA Championship is being played this week, it did: The stealth work of the Committee to Resurrect Walter Hagen went public.
It happened during a press conference with Rory McIlroy, a two-time winner of the PGA Championship, both times at stroke play. Hagen won it five times, all at match play.
“Have you heard about this stealth committee, the Committee to Resurrect Walter Hagen?” McIlroy was asked.
That word, again.
There had been speculation, not widespread, that McIlroy knew about the committee’s work. Hagen is one of the great sporting legends from Rochester, N.Y., where Erica Stoll, McIlroy’s wife, grew up. Plus, McIlroy is so in the loop. He knows Jimmy Dunne, for one thing. But McIlroy had not heard.
The reigning Masters champion leaned in (in the modern, figurative sense of the phrase), seemingly eager to learn more.
The Hagen Committee is working to combine the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am with the PGA Championship in a unique stroke-play/match play format by which the PGA Championship would be the first major of the year, played in February.
The PGA Championship — with AT&T as its sponsor and continuing to raise vast sums for the for the many good works done by the Monterey Peninsula Foundation — would begin with a 54-hole qualifier played at the Pebble Beach Golf Links on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in late winter. The medalist would receive the Bing Crosby Medal, along with an automatic spot in the fields of the year’s three remaining Grand Slam event, plus a place in the FedEx Cup playoffs and a winner’s check large enough to send all his kids through college and grad school.
(The Crosby Medal, per circulating early artist renderings, depicts the iconic singer and golf impresario in follow-through, pipe in mouth.)
The top-16 finishers from the 54-hole Crosby event at Pebble then qualify for the match play weekend portion of the PGA Championship. Eight matches Saturday morning (loser goes homes), four matches Saturday afternoon (ditto), two Sunday morning (again), one Sunday afternoon. The player who goes 4-0 on the weekend receives the Wanamaker Trophy as the PGA Champion, the player’s named etched on it, alongside Walter Hagen’s, Rory McIroy’s and other luminaries of the game.
The weekend play would be held down the road (17 Mile Drive) from Pebble Beach, at the golf course of the Cypress Point Club.
Tied matches would be settled in by sudden-death playoff beginning on the pitch-shot par-3 15th hole, sometimes cited as the most aromatic hole in golf.
The committee’s work was explained to McIlroy.
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“Sounds amazing,” he said.
You might want to let that comment settle in you for a moment before you continue.
“I thought we didn’t like 54-hole tournaments, though?” McIlroy asked.
The reporter reiterated that was the 54 holes of stroke play was the qualifying portion of the five-day event, the preamble to the match play weekend at Cypress Point.
“Ah — OK,” McIlroy said. “That’s just the qualifying? OK, that’s nice.
“Any opportunity to play Cypress Point would be good with me, absolutely,” McIlroy added, warming to the subject. “And match play has been a big talking point, possibly talking about it for the Tour Championship at the end of the year going forward.”
“I think match play is the purest form of the game,” the career Grand Slam winner and Ryder Cup stalwart said. Some have speculated that Tiger Woods’s greatness at stroke-play stems from uniquely adapting a match-play mentality to 72-hole stroke-play events. “I think it’s a shame that we don’t have any match play really on the schedule apart from the Ryder Cup or the Presidents Cup. It would be nice to get some more match play on the schedule, for sure.”
Per a committee source, McIlroy is expected to receive an invitation to join the committee before the U.S. Open. This website, and likely other news sites devoted to golf, will have updates as warranted.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com.