A list of top golfers I can't trust again
There's a clear difference between guys who earn, and guys who win
I was having a discussion with some fellow golf sickos recently, and someone started suggesting that Rickie Fowler was the best at “being out of contention and earning a big paycheck.”
Which is certainly a strength of Rickie’s - he has five wins on the PGA Tour (9 worldwide), no major wins, and he’s 23rd on the all-time Career Earnings with almost $41,000,000. (Again, that’s just PGA winnings.)
Career Earnings is a stat that heavily favors golfers playing today or very recently, both from inflation and heavily increased prize money. (Scottie Scheffler just won $2,700,000 for winning The Masters - spoiler alert - which is more than Arnold Palmer won in his entire PGA career. Don’t cry for Arnie - he made about $1.5 BILLION elsewhere.) That said, it’s an interesting proxy when you see certain players who have crept up and made a TON of money without ever doing what one would think is the most important thing - winning.
Matt Kuchar has nine PGA tour wins, which is impressive, and 10 wins on other tours. But he has only two top-3 performances in majors, never winning one. And my guy Kooch is the 9th leading money winner of all time on the PGA Tour, with over $54,000,000 in earnings.
Perhaps the poster boy for this, however, is Charles Howell III, who long ago was hailed as a young can’t miss player, someone who could give Tiger Woods a challenge, etc. It never worked out that way - Chuckie Three Sticks has but a single top-10 in a major, and only three professional wins. He does, however, have over 90 top-10s in other events, and he’s excellent at making the cut and getting paid. This is a true skill, by the way. And he’s 22nd all-time in career earnings, just ahead of Fowler, with $41.6MM in career earnings.
I want to be clear - I respect the HELL out of these guys. They’ve earned generational wealth despite not winning a ton or being a dominating factor on tour.
And the more I look around, and watch some guys I thought were “those guys” absolutely fade in the spotlight, I realize how few of them there are out there. The Masters really shown a light on this for me - watching Tiger battle to make the cut on one leg, with a fused spine and a knee that has had more surgeries on it than Chucky Three Sticks has wins was inspiring. And then, there are all the guys atop the OWGR rankings who just disappeared. Some had injuries (none as serious as Tiger’s), some just didn’t show up. And I’m out on the following guys until they show me something. And by something I mean showing up in the biggest tournaments - the four majors and, sure THE PLAYERS - and being in actual contention in the final round.
Patrick Cantlay (OWGR: 6). Yes, he’s currently 6th in the Official Golf World Ranking. I don’t care - sure, he wins some tournaments, including last year’s FedEx which netted him a crisp $15,000,000. He won four times last year, and has seven PGA Tour wins at the young age of 30. Guess what? The self-nicknamed Patty Ice (Editors Note: What a shitty nickname) might look like a killer with his stone face on the course, but when it’s majors time, he fades. His T39 yesterday was just another example of this. He has two top-10’s in his life, both in 2019. He has all the talent in the world, but I’m out on Cantlay until he shows me something.
Xander Schauffele (OWGR: 11) Xander and Patrick get lumped together for me all the time, which I think is part of their on-course demeanor (Xander smiles more), the fact that they were paired together at the Presidents Cup and … the fact that neither of them really wins when it matters. Xander has four wins on tour, two others elsewhere. Now … Xander actually has a LOT of top-10s in majors - nine in 19 major appearances thus far. But I’ve watched literally all of these events. His T2 at Carnoustie in 2018 had him tied with three other guys all watching Francesco Molinari win. His T2 at The Masters in 2019 (to some guy named Tiger) reminded me he was even in it - to me, Dustin Johnson was the real threat, along with Brooks Koepka, both who shared in that T2. Hey, he won the Gold Medal last year in the Olympics. But until Xander really grabs the mantle in bigtime tournaments and majors, I’m out. I think he can do it, and I’d bet more on him than Cantlay, but I’m not convinced.
Bryson DeChambeau (OWGR: 19) - Yes, he won a major, and yes he was totally dominant for awhile. He’s lost out there. He seems more interested in his TikTok fans than actually winning golf tournaments. Oh, and he’s a moron. So I’m out.
Daniel Berger (OWGR: 22) - I’ve always had a soft spot for DB Strait Vibin (his Instagram handle) as he seems like a guy who has every part of his game, but flies under the radar. Perhaps that is for cause - he has four PGA wins, and was on the Ryder Cup team last year. He has four top-10’s in majors, but no top-5s. He’s for sure in the “yeah he’s VERY good” tier, but I keep thinking he’s about to make the leap.
Other guys who don’t even deserve their own paragraph - I’m out on all these guys until they surprise me: Tyrrell Hatton (OWGR: 17), Matthew Fitzpatrick (OWGR: 23), Tony Finau (OWGR: 24), Corey Conners (OWGR: 31), Tommy Fleetwood (OWGR: 43). There’s other guys within there that I didn’t mention because I’ve never been fooled by them (I see you, Kevin Na, Harris English, Billy Horschel and Harold Varner III. Also, Kevin - that wardrobe is ROUGH.)
Notably absent from the discussion above are Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas. Both of them have really struggled to win a major in recent years - JT only has one, and while Rors has four, he hasn’t had one since 2014. But I’m encouraged by their performance in Augusta - Rory seems to have found something, and JT seems to understand that he is way too talented to have the same amount of majors as Charl Schwartzel. I hope they keep this firing and make something happen this year.