We”re less than one month away from the commencement of the Masters at the venerable Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. The Masters marks the beginning of golf”s major championship series alongside the United States Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship. It is a wide-open Masters field this time around, featuring past multiple champions such as Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, past champions Mike Weir Charl Schwartzel and Trevor Immelman, and greats of the modern era who maybe should have won a Masters by now such as Ernie Els, Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott and Jason Day.
Yet when you think about it, why is it that Keegan Bradley has a major championship to his name, the 2011 PGA, and Dustin Johnson does not, even though Johnson has been in the final pairing on Sunday in three different majors? Why is it that Louis Oosthuizen, Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel have won major titles while Steve Stricker, Aaron Baddeley and Robert Allenby have not? The same question could have been asked some 40 years ago when you consider that Orville Moody, the 1969 U.S. Open champ who never won another tournament, won his major during an era when Bruce Crampton, Doug Sanders, Frank Beard and Bert Yancey did not.
In the end, for most rank-in-file professionals, there is a thin line between major champion and best player to have never won a major. Maybe it”s just a matter that all the stars were aligned and that it was a magical ball striking and putting weekend. After all, Paul Lawrie, a European Tour journeyman, does have that 1999 British Open title to his name although most golf fans will recall that he won that Open Championship because Jean Van de Velde threw away his chances of victory on the final hole. In comparison, Colin Montgomerie has a Hall of Fame golfing resume except for the fact that Lawrie has one more major title than he has. How is it that someone as talented as Montgomerie couldn”t have that one magical weekend simultaneous to the playing of a major and yet Jeff Sluman or Larry Mize of Todd Hamilton could?
It”s hard to believe that it is a response to pressure or the inability to perform at a high level on golf”s biggest stage. Colin Montgomerie is the poster boy for the best golfer to have never won a major championship. Monty was the European Tour”s top star, winning its Order of Merit as the circuit”s top player for seven consecutive years from 1993 through 1999. From 1989 through 2007 Monty won 31 times on the European Tour and accumulated nine international wins.
Most telling is that Colin Montgomerie played on eight Ryder Cup teams and holds a very impressive 20-9-7 record. Monty was also the captain of the victorious European team at the 2010 Ryder Cup in Wales. He always seemed to rise to the occasion with brilliant shotmaking and steady putting during the Cup”s most pressure-packed moments.
Yet Montgomerie came up just short in the windswept final round of the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach when Tom Kite hung on to win his only major title. In 1994 he lost a National Open playoff to Ernie Els in stifling heat at Oakmont. The next year Monty lost to Steve Elkington in a playoff for the PGA at Riviera. He was second in the 2005 British Open at St. Andrews, finishing behind Tiger Woods. In 2006 Montgomerie stood in the final fairway on the final day of the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. He had a 7-iron in his hand and all he needed was a par to win the Open. Monty fanned his 7-iron approach, came up short, chipped onto the green and three-putted for a double-bogey six, losing to Geoff Ogilvy by one shot. He”s never been a factor in a major since then as his career starts to wind down.
Steve Stricker is Monty”s American counterpart as far as the best player to never win a major. Stricker finished second to Vijay Singh at the PGA at Sahalee, but otherwise he has never been a factor in a major. Stricker”s majorless career is most surprising in that he has a solid swing and a beautiful putting stroke. He has 12 wins on the PGA Tour, one of those victories in the World Golf Championship Match Play, along with two wins in the Fed Ex Cup playoff tourneys. From 2007 through last year, Stricker has made a lot of money playing professional golf, finishing fourth, 22nd, second, fifth and eighth on the money list. A stalwart of team events, he has had a solid partnership with the mercurial Tiger Woods. Stricker has played on two Ryder Cup teams and four Presidents Cup squads. Yet he too remains without a major title.
Two others to join Montgomerie and Stricker on the best golfer to never win a major list are European Tour regulars Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood. Sergio has 10 Euro Tour wins to go along with seven PGA Tour victories and five international titles. As a teenager, he lost a spirited battle to Tiger Woods at the 1999 PGA at Medinah. He lost to Padraig Harrington in a British Open playoff at Carnoustie in 2007. Lee Westwood, who was the world”s No. 1 golfer last year, has won 21 times in Europe, twice in America, and has 14 international wins. Westwood recorded third-place finishes at the 2009 U.S. Open and PGA and was runner-up at the 2010 Masters and British Open.
Yet neither Garcia nor Westwood is a great putter. While it”s easy to say that big-time golfers such as Garcia and Westwood along with Adam Scott and Ian Poulter will never win a major because they are not great putters, that”s not a valid argument. Questionable putters do win majors as evidenced by Vijay Singh”s two PGAs and one Masters alongside Bernhard Langer”s two green jackets. Still, it”s hard to explain how someone with a great putting touch like Ben Crenshaw could win two Masters titles whereas mediocre putters such as Langer can do the same, yet Stricker can do no better than a sixth-place finish at Augusta National.
In the end, the winner of the 2012 Masters will be the golfer with the lowest score. How they get there is up for interpretation. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson can win by overpowering the course, but Zach Johnson can win by laying up on the par-5s and wedging it close. Crenshaw can putt to victory but Stricker cannot. Langer and Singh can win without a great putting stroke. That”s why they tee it up and play 72 holes. You just never know and there is no exact formula other than lowest score wins.
