We all have various thresholds for tolerance that some might consider irrational. Pet peeves. Small things that can make our neurons explode over something others might consider irrelevant. The kind of triviality that drags you into a Twitter argument while others look on and think, “really?”
I’ll confess there are too many of these insignificant traps laid inside my head. One of them is baited to go off in two months when someone will inevitably refer to top-15 players Xander Schauffele or Tony Finau or Viktor Hovland as “one of the best players never to have won a major.” When that happens, I’m going to snap.
That phrase gets used so often that it cheapens the concept. At the same time, it is grossly unfair to many of the golfers to which it is directed as a combination of compliment and slur. Aside from accepted facts – they’re ranked high in the world and they haven’t won a major championship to date – players such as Schauffele, Finau and Hovland couldn’t be more different. Schauffele has only played in 14 majors; Finau still hasn’t won a non-opposite-field PGA Tour event; Hovland hasn’t even played in every major yet.
Whether the argument is semantic or subjective, there needs to be a codified definition of what qualifies as “greatest” or “best” when it comes to players without majors and when it is fair to judge them for it. Having spent way too much time worrying about such things, I’ve sorted it into two fraternities – GNOMEs (Greatest NO Major Ever) and BP-WAMYs (Best Players Without A Major Yet). One category is a fixed historical achievement. The other is an active registry based on a set of various prerequisite parameters.
Colin Montgomerie is the king of the GNOMEs, edging out Harry Cooper (in my book) for the greatest of the major-less ranks. With 31 European Tour wins, eight Order of Merits and a celebrated record in nine Ryder Cups, Monty breezed into the World Golf Hall of Fame despite his glaring absence from the major championship club. Five times a runner-up on major stages, including three U.S. Opens, he’s got the scars to prove his enshrinement.
Cooper’s 29 PGA Tour wins are the most of anyone without a major (though he did win the 1934 Western Open which was considered pretty major in his day). Twice a runner-up in both the Masters and U.S. Open with 10 finishes of fourth or better in majors, “Lighthorse” Harry’s WGHOF resume isn’t light on accomplishment.
Behind them you have Macdonald Smith and Doug Sanders, with 25 and 20 PGA Tour wins respectively and more than their fair share of major near misses and heartbreaks. Smith can lay claim to three Westerns while Sanders passed away last year still ruing that 2-foot miss at St. Andrews that cost him the 1970 Open Championship.
World Golf Hall of Famers Isao Aoki and Jumbo Ozaki warrant inclusion. Jack Nicklaus had to play his very best golf and set a record at Baltusrol to keep Aoki from winning the 1980 U.S. Open. While Osaki’s game didn’t travel as well as most, his dominance in Japan (94 wins) and three major top-10s can’t be ignored.
GNOMEs are fairly easy to credit because it doesn’t really take any toll on the recipient. Nobody should argue the merits of Bobby Cruickshank, Bill Mehlhorn, Harold “Jug” McSpaden or Dutch Harrison in the GNOME club – each with 17 or more PGA Tour wins, several heartbreaks and double-digit top-10s in majors to their names. Likewise, legitimate cases can be made for Sam Torrance, Mark James, Neil Coles and Dai Rees, who excelled on European stages while typically not playing in U.S.-based majors.
More modern GNOME candidates include Miguel Ángel Jiménez, Thomas Bjørn, Mark McNulty and Steve Stricker – with former world No. 1 Luke Donald likely unwilling to deem himself eligible quite yet.
Ireland’s Christy O’Connor Sr. (who had 10 top-10s in a 19-year span at the Open but never played in a U.S. major) and Canada’s George Knudson (three top 10s in the Masters including runner-up in 1969) deserve GNOMEs on reputation alone.
More modern GNOME candidates include Miguel Ángel Jiménez, Thomas Bjørn, Mark McNulty and Steve Stricker – with former world No. 1 Luke Donald likely unwilling to deem himself eligible quite yet.
While the GNOME nomination committee is happy to hear all manner of cases, the parameters for BP-WAMYs needs to be buttoned up tightly for the sake of the active players who get painted with that brush.
How long before a player should be fairly judged on his major performances? There is no standard gestation period for major success. For every Keegan Bradley who nails it on his first attempt, there’s a Sergio García who needed 74 cracks at it. Collin Morikawa joined the major club on his third try; Phil Mickelson required 47 starts and a lot of hard lessons along the way.
So, what’s reasonable before a player should start fielding questions about a major gap on his résumé? If you just look at the 31 players who have won majors since the 2010 season, the average number of attempts before breaking through was 22.06. Toss out the high (García) and low (Bradley) and the average drops to 21.0. Toss out the next two extremes (Morikawa’s 3 and Darren Clarke’s 54) and the average drops to 20.44.
Eleven of those 31 players needed more than 20 tries before winning one, while 13 made it happen in 15 or fewer. Seven players since 2010 broke their major maiden in their 17th, 18th or 19th attempt – the median range. It’s fair to say that a player needs a good five years and about 20 major starts before he should start dealing with uncomfortable judgments.
A player also needs to be a pretty consistent winner on his respective tour to deserve anything labeled “best,” otherwise he’s just another rank-and-file player without a major. A high world ranking based on a two-year snapshot simply isn’t enough.
The undisputed BP-WAMY is Lee Westwood, still ranked 37th in the world at age 47 with 44 professional wins including 25 on the European and two on the PGA Tour. The former world No. 1 has been crowned three times in three different decades as the top player on the Euro Tour, with a stellar record in 10 Ryder Cup appearances to boot. In 84 major starts, he has 19 top 10s and three runner-ups, so he knows the pain. If he doesn’t capture the magic at a major soon, he’s a shoo-in to join the GNOMEs.
Behind Westwood is a familiar cast of characters who have had both ample success and major opportunity: Matt Kuchar, Paul Casey, Ian Poulter, Hideki Matsuyama, Marc Leishman and Rickie Fowler. Each one of them has won five or more times on either the PGA or European Tours and has at least 30 major starts including at least one runner-up and multiple top-10 finishes. They may never be GNOMEs, but they are certainly BP-WAMYs.
Joining the club in 2021 are Englishmen Tyrrell Hatton and Tommy Fleetwood – each with plenty of regular wins, high world ranks and 20-plus major starts. Hatton has five top-10s in 22 majors, but with his No. 5 world ranking, he can’t be getting swept by major cuts as he was in 2017 and 2020. Fleetwood has two runner-ups in 21 majors and is long on expectation. Countryman Matthew Fitzpatrick is close behind them, but with only one top-10 in 22 majors starts he hasn’t quite earned the extra scrutiny – yet.
On their heels is a strong class of “tweeners” – highly ranked players approaching that 20-major threshold to warrant the enhanced expectation a BP-WAMY brings. Calling each of them BP-WAMYs to this stage is like criticizing teenagers because they haven’t already figured out what they want to do with their lives before they’ve even decided where to go to college.
The best of them is world No. 2 Jon Rahm, who has now started in 17 majors and collected five top-10 finishes. It’s reasonable to start expecting more of him this summer. Cameron Smith has three top-5s in 17 majors and was the first person to break 70 in all four rounds during November’s Masters. The attention paid to him is going to grow like his mullet.
World No. 4 Schauffele has only started in 14 majors, but he’s posted top-10 finishes in half of them. If 2021 passes him by without winning one, he’ll become a genuine BP-WAMY.
Patrick Cantlay has three PGA Tour wins, but he’s already made enough noise with two top 10s in 15 major starts that he’ll start feeling the pressure of higher expectations next year. Finau already feels the weight of judgment trying to close regular tour events, so it’s unreasonable to afflict him with BP-WAMY status despite eight top-10s in 18 major starts.
A clear line needs to be drawn before branding players with these labels. For the sake of their career ascents, please back completely off all the promising kids as they build their portfolios. Treat rising stars such as Hovland, Sungjae Im, Matthew Wolff and Scottie Scheffler like a fine cabernet – give them a chance to age and an opportunity to breathe before consuming them. Some might join the lucky ones like Morikawa in the NO-WAMY club if we don’t burden them with labels prematurely.
Golf fate isn’t always kind. Some may end up as GNOMEs one day. But let’s agree not to start campaigning.