It was early on Monday morning of April 11 in 2005 when the final words had been filed on a multitude of stories that chronicled the events of the previous day at Augusta National Golf Club. These were still the days of newspapers and magazines for the bulk of the writers in attendance and often you left the Press Building in groups—not bloodied, perhaps, but certainly tapped out.
Having shaken off a spirited effort by Chris DiMarco, Tiger Woods had been Houdini-like with a chip-in at the par-three 16th and then at the first playoff hole with a 15-foot putt, those unforgettable birdies enabling him to maintain an aura of invincibility.
It was his fourth Masters win in nine years, he was just 29 years old, and in the eerie silence on the way to the parking lot, the conversation was quiet, but emphatic.
“Can you believe it will take him 14 more years to win a fifth Green Jacket?” said exactly zero golf writers. Nor did anyone echo with this: “Hard to believe now that he’s won nine of 33 majors as a pro, a 27 percent clip, but will never match Jack Nicklaus’s total of 18.”
Nope. Human and silly as we were, we suspected these major championships were easy to figure out. Damn, were we wrong.
Woods going 28 major championship appearances and 10-plus years between his 14th major victory and his 15th is just one of the nuggets that is sobering to those who wrongfully think these biggest of our golf tournaments are a cinch.
There is the matter of Rory McIlroy. When he won his second PGA Championship in August of 2014, just weeks after winning the Open Championship, he had four wins in 25 major championship starts and was just 25 years old. Human and silly again, we penciled him in for double-digit majors.
Wrong. So wrong and to paraphrase Bob Seger, “sweet 25 has turned 35” and the major count remains at four.
OK, so you must like McIlroy’s chances to add to his major count. Then again, he did cough up golden opportunities at the ’22 Open and ’24 U.S. Open, and not only are fields younger, deeper, and stronger than ever before, there’s the matter of history telling us the major window is only open so long.
Consider the late Seve Ballesteros. Like McIlroy, he won his first major at 22 and his second at 23. With a third Open Championship in the summer of 1988, the utterly brilliant Ballesteros had five majors in 44 starts and was just 31 years old.
He never won another major.
Arnold Palmer’s record is incomparable. In a stretch of 23 major championships—the ’58 Masters to the ’64 Masters—he won seven times. He was just 34 when he captured his fourth Green Jacket in 1964 but would never win another major.
Fewer opportunities were available in his career, no question, but Gene Sarazen was just 33 when he won his sixth and final major at the 1935 Masters.
Tom Watson? He was just 24 at Carnoustie in 1975 when he won his first major and the first of his five Claret Jugs. That fifth Open triumph, in 1983, came when he was just 33 and we figured his major total was going to go beyond eight.
We were wrong.
We were wrong because we’ve never embraced the essence of major championships. That is, just because you’re very good doesn’t mean you are destined for majors. Colin Montgomerie, Lee Westwood, Steve Stricker, Luke Donald, and Rickie Fowler could attest. From the time tunnels, Doug Sanders and Harry Cooper were major talents without major wins, and in today’s landscape there is certainly plenty of time for Patrick Cantlay and Tommy Fleetwood, but they are 32 and 33, respectively, and a combined 0-for-68 in the majors.
So, yeah. No one is rushing to pencil them in for a major.
Crazy how these major championships consume our attention far more than they did, say, 25 years ago.
Consider that an after-work discussion group one night at the Golfweek house centered around which major championship in which decade produced the most golden of all heavyweights.
Heated debates ensued, but it was pretty much determined that the 1970–79 Open Championship winners were stellar stuff. In order, it went Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Trevino again, Tom Weiskopf, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Watson again, Nicklaus again, and Seve Ballesteros.
As for the greatest feat in major championship history: Woods’s four straight in 2000–01 (U.S. Open, Open Championship, PGA Championship, Masters, a.k.a. “The Tiger Slam”) gets many votes but give me what Ben Hogan did in 1953. The man had nearly been killed in a car crash four years earlier, he was 40 and playing on one good leg, and he not only drove long distances to get to U.S. tournaments—he traveled by boat to Scotland for his first and only Open Championship, at which he was required to go through a qualifier, by the way.
No matter the massive odds, Hogan won all three. Tops in my book.
But enough digression. Let’s return to this generation’s firm embrace of the majors.
So enamored are we that we know as gospel that Nicklaus has the most major wins in a career (18) and that Woods with 15 is next.
But you only need to add one more name, Walter Hagen with 10, to get three players in the history of golf who’ve reached double-digits in major wins. Hogan and Player have nine, Watson has eight, and the list of five names at seven include Palmer and Sam Snead.
In all only 20 players in golf history have compiled at least five major wins in a career so perhaps we really need to stop obsessing about how McIlroy is stuck at four and marvel that four is a rather stout total.
Give the kid from Northern Ireland massive credit. It’s not like he’s disappeared since winning that fourth major in an impressive 2011–14 stretch. To the contrary, he has piled up 17 PGA Tour wins and three FedExCup championships since then, and on the DP World Tour he’s added six wins.
Unlike a lot of players who didn’t accomplish stellar figures after their last major, McIlroy has pretty much had a Hall of Fame career since 2014—without winning a major.
It isn’t, and shouldn’t be, all about the majors.
Thank you for writing what so many of us have been thinking for a long time. So many of the greatest players went out and won all over the world and yet the majors are all we hear about. Durability is an underappreciated quality for the grinders.