<P> Three of the four majors take place in the United States . The Masters is played at the same course, Augusta National Golf Club, every year, while the other three rotate courses (the Open Championship, however, is always played on a links course). Each of the majors has a distinct history, and they are run by four different golf organizations, but their special status is recognized worldwide . Major championship winners receive the maximum possible allocation of 100 points from the Official World Golf Ranking, which is endorsed by all of the main tours, and major championship prize money is official on the three richest regular (i.e. under - 50) golf tours, the PGA Tour, European Tour and Japan Golf Tour . </P> <P> Although the majors are considered prestigious due to their history and traditions, there are still other non - "major" tournaments which prominently feature top players competing for purses meeting or exceeding those of the four traditional majors, such as the World Golf Championships, the European Tour's DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, and the PGA Tour's Players Championship . As The Players has the largest prize fund of any golf event, and is promoted as the tour's flagship tournament, it is frequently considered to be an unofficial "fifth major" by players and critics . After the announcement that the Evian Masters would be recognized as the fifth women's major by the LPGA Tour, players shared objections to the concept of having a fifth men's major, owing to the long - standing traditions that the existing four have established . </P> <P> The majors originally consisted of two British tournaments, The Open Championship and The Amateur Championship, and two American tournaments, the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur . With the introduction of the Masters Tournament in 1934, and the rise of professional golf in the late 1940s and 1950s, the term "major championships" eventually came to describe the Masters, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and the PGA Championship . It is difficult to determine when the definition changed to include the current four tournaments, although many trace it to Arnold Palmer's 1960 season . After winning the Masters and the U.S. Open to start the season, he remarked that if he could win the Open Championship and PGA Championship to finish the season, he would complete "a grand slam of his own" to rival Bobby Jones's 1930 feat . Until that time, many U.S. players such as Byron Nelson also considered the Western Open and the North and South Open as two of golf's "majors," and the British PGA Matchplay Championship was as important to British and Commonwealth professionals as the PGA Championship was to Americans . </P> <P> During the 1950s, the short - lived World Championship of Golf was viewed as a "major" by its competitors, as its first prize was worth almost ten times any other event in the game, and it was the first event whose finale was televised live on U.S. television . The oldest of the majors is The Open Championship, commonly referred to as the "British Open" outside the United Kingdom . Dominated by American champions in the 1920s and 1930s, the comparative explosion in the riches available on the U.S. Tour from the 1940s onwards meant that the lengthy overseas trip needed to qualify and compete in the event became increasingly prohibitive for the leading American professionals . Their regular participation dwindled after the war years . Ben Hogan entered just once in 1953 and won, but never returned . Sam Snead won in 1946 but lost money on the trip (first prize was $600) and did not return until 1962 . </P>

How many majors are there in pga golf