MAJOR DIFFERENCE

There are four every year, four chances to define a career . . . not to mention get rich(er), save your reputation and get everybody off your back. These are golf’s four major professional championships and, except for one guy each time, they are lessons in losing.

The tournament schedule for the pros begins the first week in January and ends the first week of November. If it lasted any longer, they might have to consider teeing it up at the airport to save time. There are so many tournaments that even the hard-core followers can’t keep up with them all, week to week.

But in four of those weeks, it’s a much different story.

The cold, hard fact: You’re a minor player without a major victory.

Look at how David Duval is perceived, now that he’s a major winner, thanks to his two-shot victory in the British Open at Royal Lytham. Sure, he’d won 12 tournaments in the last four years, but none of them was a major.

And without one of those, Duval was viewed as incomplete, not totally effective, an underachiever.

“Now, where he’s concerned, he’ll probably go ahead and win a couple more,” Sam Snead said. “He got a monkey off his back, he sure did.”

Snead won seven majors and 74 other PGA Tour events, which qualifies him as a expert.

“David played fantastic coming down the line,” Gary Player said of Duval at Lytham. “He had a chance to win two Masters and made bogeys with a seven-iron in his hand. You can’t do that. Now that he’s won, he will have great encouragement that he can win that major. He has an incredible work ethic. Now, I think we can expect great things from Duval in the future.”

Player won nine majors and 154 other tournaments worldwide.

“It was much like Tom Watson,” Jack Nicklaus said. “He blew a PGA Championship, a couple of U.S. Opens, then he figured out how to win and then he became difficult to beat.”

Nicklaus won 18 majors and 58 others on the PGA Tour.

Despite their impressive totals, what are the chances that Snead, Player and Nicklaus would have made the Hall of Fame without a major title? You get the point.

Of course, if winning a major were so easy, everybody would do it. The list of top players who haven’t won a major shrunk by one when Duval came through at the British Open. It’s a list that is getting trimmed little by little.

Curtis Strange won the 1988 U.S. Open, Payne Stewart won the 1989 PGA Championship and John Daly won it in 1991. Tom Kite won the 1992 U.S. Open and Lee Janzen won it in 1993. Nick Price won the 1992 PGA, Fred Couples the 1992 Masters and Paul Azinger the 1993 PGA.

Ernie Els won the 1994 U.S. Open and Corey Pavin won it in 1995. Steve Elkington won the 1995 PGA and Tom Lehman won the 1996 British Open. Tiger Woods won the 1997 Masters, Justin Leonard the 1997 British Open and Davis Love III the 1997 PGA. Two others came through in 1998. Mark O’Meara won the Masters and Vijay Singh the PGA Championship.

Duval was the next in line for his breakthrough.

So who’s left? Everybody’s favorite is Phil Mickelson, 31, who is 0 for 36 and counting in the majors. Then there are Colin Montgomerie, Darren Clarke, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Jim Furyk. Actually, it’s a short list, probably as limited as it has been in a while.

When the PGA Championship begins today at Atlanta Athletic Club, the story lines will follow a familiar pattern . . . Woods, the favorite, will be trying to win his third consecutive PGA, and Mickelson, the best player who hasn’t won a major, will be trying to change that.

Last week at the Buick Open, Mickelson briefly addressed his plight and said that time is on his side.

“I feel like I still have half my career left,” he said.

The first half has had several close calls. Mickelson has 13 top 10s in his 36 majors. He was second at the 1999 U.S. Open when Stewart won on the 72nd hole. He was third at the Masters this year when he closed with a 70 that included four bogeys--one at the par-three 16th when he three-putted from 35 feet.

Mickelson said that he wasn’t that far from winning, but that he wasn’t there mentally for all 72 holes.

And not having won a major is not a burden, he added:

“It’s not a weight, because I think that every major that I play in provides a better and better opportunity than in the past.

“I think that I’ve been playing well this year . . . and because I played consistently well in the majors last year, meaning I played well in all four of them, which I haven’t really done in years past.

“I feel like now I’ll make the right decision and manage my game a little bit better than I have in the past.”

At the U.S. Open at Southern Hills, Mickelson was only two shots out of the lead through 54 holes, but he finished with a 75 and tied for seventh. He was no factor at the British Open, where he tied for 21st, 11 shots behind Duval.

Mickelson has the reputation of a risk-taker who relishes having something on the line, whether it’s a basketball game in his swimming pool, throwing darts, making a wager at the sports book or playing in a practice round or in the last round of a major.

He says his style isn’t something that he plans to tone down in his quest to win a major . . . perhaps this week.

“I don’t think that the style of play is what has prevented me from winning major championships; I think that execution has been more of a factor,” he said.

“I will be able to attack quite a few pins here because the greens are soft and receptive. The par-threes are holes that I will not attack. If I can put four 3s on my card, I feel that I can take advantage of the course. If I make a double [bogey] or go in the water, it’s because I hit a poor shot. So there’s a difference between mental approach or course management as well as execution. You still have to hit good shots.

“The fact that the greens are big, the fact that the greens are receptive and I feel very comfortable out of the rough chipping will allow me to attack and be aggressive.”

Nicklaus says there will be many more opportunities for Mickelson, even if it doesn’t happen for him this week in suburban Atlanta.

“Phil is still young and has plenty of time to win a major and become a competitive force,” Nicklaus said.

If there is anything that separates the major winners from those who haven’t yet won one, it’s experience, Nicklaus said:

“There are a lot of good young players all around the world [and] you haven’t won one [major] until you win your first. We’ve talked about Tiger having it to himself because he hasn’t had the competition. [The others] don’t have the experience in the competition.

“We know there are a lot of great players--Duval, Mickelson and many others--but when you get down to the stretch of winning a major, it’s a little bit different. When Tiger came down to the end, he had the experience that David and Phil didn’t have. He had the experience and confidence in knowing how to win. Believe me, I promise it’s different winning a major than winning a regular tournament.

“Now David has the experience. I think he’s still very young.

“There’s a lot of them out there. Give them a chance. Once they win, there will be more and more competition in major championship golf.”

Mickelson says his feelings are not at all disturbed when he is called the best player never to have won a major.

“I don’t think that it’s unfair at all,” he said. “I would say that if I were to win this week, I don’t think anybody will look at me any different. . . . I have shown the style of player I am, and a win in one tournament or not winning a tournament really isn’t going to change that perception.

“That being said, it would mean a lot to finally break through and win a major, just to prove to myself that it can be done and that all of the hard work that I have put into my game in trying to refine it and minimize the misses and play smarter on difficult tests is paying off. So that’s why it would be very important.

“But I don’t think it’s an unfair label. In fact, it’s a very complimentary label if you think about it.

“What I would see as being a negative is having not having won a major and not even being included among the best players who haven’t won a major. That is basically saying, ‘Gosh, you may never do it.’ But I’m hoping that me being on that list will be short-lived.”

Woods is confident that will be the case for Mickelson.

“It’s not that easy to win a major championship,” Woods said. “There are only four a year. You have to play well, yes, but you need to have a little luck on your side.

“I think to focus in on just one individual, or even a few individuals for not winning a major championship, I think it is a little bit unfair. Because they have won championships all around the world, they just haven’t won a major--yet.

“I knew David would win one. Phil will win one. It’s a matter of time. He’s not that old. It’s not like he’s 50 years old. He’s 31, he’s got a lot of years ahead. He will be contending and he’ll get a couple of lucky breaks and win a major championship, or he’ll just flat outplay everybody. Whatever the scenario is, I’m sure that he will win a major championship in the future.”

What Duval accomplished at Lytham probably isn’t going to make it any easier for his major-less peers to win one, just as Singh’s victory at Sahalee or Love’s at Winged Foot or even Pavin’s at Shinnecock didn’t change a great deal except their own self-interests.

The players without majors can’t piggyback emotionally on the new winners. However, count Duval among those who are even more confident, now that he has his first.

“I imagine it will intensify my drive,” he said.

See if this means anything: Duval didn’t win his first 86 times out on the PGA Tour, then won three in a row and eight times in the next two years on his way to replacing Woods as the No. 1-ranked player in the world.

If that’s a pattern that can be applied to majors, then be prepared for a few more major trophies with Duval’s name on them.

Mickelson would be happy for one name on one trophy right now--as long as it’s his early Sunday evening at Atlanta Athletic Club.