How many majors to be an all-time great?
With his win at the PGA Championship, Mickelson separates himself from a group of one-major wonders to join the far more elite company of multiple major winners. That leads me to thinking about how many major championships a golfer needs in order to be considered an all-time great.
My gut says five major wins are needed to be considered an all-time great, although completing the career grand slam would surely be enough. Indeed, because very few players have even won three different majors, perhaps even making it 3/4 of the way to a career grand slam makes the grade.
Also, I certainly think success in other settings (PGA, amateur, major team events) ought to be part of the all-time-great equation, but I am not sure exactly how we might quantify a diversity of other possible golf accomplishments.
Aided by this great Wikipedia list of major winners and this About.com list of PGA Tour victories, perhaps someone can devise an all-time great formula that might help us figure out whether anyone now active other than Tiger has already earned all-time-great status. (Personally, I think Phil and Vijay and Ernie are all close, but not quite there.)
11 Comments:
The Wikipedia list is way cool. Tough question. Seve's got 5 majors -- is he an all-time great? Not sure. I wonder if longevity in playing well should factor into the equation. Given Arnie's at 7, maybe that should be the gold standard.
Funny thing...I was going to put as my commentary on my website this same idea. Tiering the players, erasing the talk of the "Big Four," etc., and showing where the tour stands now that the major season is over.
With active players, I think having two majors gets you up to the top tier, although to make it current, you would have to look at their current playing skills, as well as their regular wins (examples....Daly, O'Meara, Janzen, Stockton, Price, Els).
As for today's top tier players, Els would be up there with Tiger if he didn't go aggressive sailing, and Vijay and Mickelson should be up there solely on the number of PGA Tour wins to go with their majors. I'd take Love over Goosen just because of his number of wins outside of majors, but taking playing ability lately, it is a close call.
For best player without a major, I'd take Kenny Perry. I'd expect him to come through at some point if the "Big Three" would give him an opportunity.
Cutting the list at 5 majors gets you to 18 players. That's a relatively small number and doesn't feel too large for an "all-time greats" list.
I think Seve is definitely an all-time great. The guy won 6 Order of Merit titles, won like 50 European Tour events, dominated in the Ryder Cup and won twice at Augusta. If you are going to argue against Seve, you have to cut Faldo too.
I think there is a case for some of the guys below five. The Morris boys, Greg Norman & Payne Stewart to name a few.
On the other hand, I'd cut the three guys who won 5 British Opens and no other majors.
Of the current players, Vijay, Phil and Els are the obvious top candidates. Vijay or Phil with 4 majors given their career win totals and Els with 5.
During the coverage this weekend, I think I heard Jim Nance say that Phil and DLIII were two of the top 10 all time greats. Either he misspoke, I misheard him, or he's crazy. DLIII only has 1 major -- the one I personally think is the least prestigious. I lump him in there with Dan Marino. Greatest stats does not equal greatest player. You gotta win the big ones.
What makes a great champion "great" is a super question! The majors are clearly the key, but not dispositive factor. Others to consider include, as has been pointed out, number of PGA wins, amateur record, team record. I think also "greatness" encompasses more circumstance-specific factors too, for example Seve's greatness must be tied to his significant contribution to the emergence of a strong European tour, and the related reinvigoratin of the Ryder Cup. Similarly, someone like Gary Player's greatness must lie not just in his fantastic playing record, but the way that he - along with Palmer - took golf "global".
Which brings me onto a final point: what emphasis should we place on the range of victories a champion amasses? What sort of victories? Where? Against what field? Was it a "classic", ie Nicklaus/Watson's "Battle in the Sun"? In particular, how important is it that a champion exhibit an ability to win in different countries? In different formats (matchplay, team play etc).
For example, look at how Ernie's win-list straddles a number of continents. Tiger similarly has victories in Europe and Asia. Nicklaus won several Australian Opens...I, for one, have always been impressed when the likes of Azinger, Stewart, Daly won in Europe. Mickelson has no international victories of note (and his 1993 Perrier Paris victory was against a very weak field in an event not-sanctioned by the European Tour).
I would say the great players have won at least 3 different majors. That shows a well-rounded game against the best competition of the day. So, the big Open winners of long ago would not make the 'great' cut. And I think that's why Seve and Faldo don't quite rise to the 'Great' level.
Vardon may be the exception to my criteria, but he only had two majors to play in back then and he won them both. That is the reason to still consider Braid and Taylor on the Great list. They didn't have the opportunity for more majors. And when you consider that between Vardon, Braid, and Taylor; they won 16 Opens in 21 years, they didn't leave a lot of room for anyone else to have a chance.
There are a couple of problems with the 3-different majors approach:
(i) it rewards longetivity. On its own this is perhaps no bad thing. Clearly, the ability to maintain major-winning form throughout a career is really important. However, it is too inflexibile as it overlooks those who, for whatever reason, might not have had the opportunity to perform at the highest level. Tony Lema and Payne Stewart come to mind; and (ii) it simply re-inforces the American-centric focus of the major-championships. Remember that only recently (ie early 1990s) did the Masters, and US Open start to invite a significant number of international players. Take Faldo: he finished 4th, 2nd and 4th between 1980-82 on the Euro Order of Merit, yet in that time was only able to contest 3 British Opens (80-82) and 1 US PGA (1982). So, there he was, one of the top European players. He'd already taken 7 points in three Ryder Cups (1977, '79 and '81), including defeating Tom Watson and Johnny Miller in the singles. Surely the sort of guy you'd want competing in the majors? Is it right that we should construct criteria which disadvantage a guy like Faldo who - reflecting the time he was competitive in - didn't have the same opportunities to compete as many of is contemporaries, and certainly not the same opportunities as enjoyed by European and other international players today?
I think we need to have a modern era list as oposed to grouping everyone together. The modern day players are completely different from the old pros of the early 20th century.
I think a player needs to win at lease 3 majors (although not different ones) and add to that their record worldwide on some kind of scale (Todd Hamiltons 9 wins in Japan should not count as 9 wins, but maybe 3?).
To that you have to add their Ryder/President's Cups record too. Once again on some sort of scale. Ryder cup wins would be third in line after Majors and Worldwide wins.
I think longevity does count towards being "great". You may have a very short, dazzling career that may get you labeled as "the best" or "the best of your generation" but so what? Being "great" is cumulative.
Also, "great" is a comparative, subjective clasification. There is a set of top tier players, the A list, that can be objectively identified by the number and types of tournaments they have won, and the time period they were won in. The "great" players are a more subjective listing of the "A+" players. I have a american-centric view of golf. They play a completely different game on the other side of the pond (using the same rules) and I don't have the knowledge to judge players I haven't seen on familiar courses.
I would certainly agree that longevity should count towards greatness, I just don't think it should be determinative. If greatness is to be understood as something like an outstanding contribution to the game of golf (which is the approach I'd take, rather than settling on a more rigid number criteria of majors-won or wins-won etc), then it seems to me quite possible that someone could make such a contribution without enjoying the longetivity of a Player or a Palmer.
On geography-selective lists of greatness, although interesting (who are the great American players? who are the great European players), such an approach falls rather short of the sort of determination of greatness that I think we're searching for.
On a side point, for those looking to 'number-crunch' greatness - and as I say, this is not an approach i favour - then it's interesting to see the different criteria adopted by the LPGA's Hall of Fame re "active" and "inactive" players. Whilst the active players must accumulate a certain number of points gained through major-victories, LPGA titles etc, inactive players can gain entry to the Hall of Fame if they "have had an extraordinary career that significantly impacted the growth of the LPGA Tour". This seems quite a reasonable formula, although of course it'd have to refer to to the growth of golf more genereally...
I think it's a little tricky to set up a cut off line in regards to a number.
For instance, let's say Phil Mickelson wins the career Grand Slam but that's it...leaving him a total of four majors. I think this could happen, he's been really close at the U.S. Open many times and I think he'll start to play The Open better as well.
With that said, my standards are this. (1)Career Grand Slam. (2)Six majors without the slam. (3)5 majors with a solid background resume other than the majors.
Obviously, Seve would be an all-time great meeting my third criteria. He also came really close to atleast 3 more Masters as well.
It is quite complicated to compare the "Major" records of players from pre-WWII with those of post-WWII eras.
There are 3 main problems - 1) Number of Tournaments at each point in Time - The Masters did not start until 1934, disadvantaging golfers who's career's fell between 1860 and 1934 by 25%. In similar fashion, the PGA and US Open did not begin until the early 1900's. 2) Amateur vs. Professional Status - Pro's were looked down upon in the first few decades of the 20th century when many of the best golfers were amateurs. Many fine amateur golfers therefore did not compete in the PGA Championship. In similar fashion, many fine pro's like Hagen and Sarazen did not compete in the amateur majors. 3) Transportation across the Atlantic before WWII was primarily by steamship. Very few American pro's made the journey to play in Britain before Hogan went in 1953. Palmer popularized the practice in the late 50's. This disadvantages many of the British players the most, since 3 of the Majors are played in the US.
Given these obstacles, to compare players and there records, it is useful to look at three different lists. The first would be for post-WWII (1939) players including only the professional majors. The second list would be for players between 1900 and 1939 and include both amateur and professional majors. The third list would be for only British Amateur players before 1900 and include the British Open and British Amateur.
These three lists would be nearly impossible to compare, except to say that the top golfers on each list would truly represent the best players of their respective eras.
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