Current Best Player to Have Never Won a Major?

As the 2016-17 PGA TOUR season enters its fifth week, there are always questions about the upcoming year.

Who will win the majors?  Who will have a breakout season?  Who will have their game abandon them?  And of course, will we ever see Tiger Woods on the golf course again?  As of this writing, Woods is set to return at the Hero World Challenge in four weeks.

One of the questions we often encounter as the calendar turns is who is, the best player to have never won a major golf championship?

Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson, and Jimmy Walker cleared their names from that list with wins last year in the US Open, the Open Championship, and PGA Championship, respectively.  Danny Willet hasn’t had the kind of career that would have put him on that list to begin with, so his win at the Masters relieved him of ever being looked at.

As I look over the FedExCup standings I see plenty of contenders to this dubious title.

Patrick Reed finished third in the FedExCup in 2016.  Could it be him?

A closer look at his career reveals that he probably hasn’t been good enough long enough to merit that title.

Reed has only been on Tour with any regularity since 2013 when he played in 26 events.  In the two years before that, he only played in 15 events total.

Blessed with enormous talent, and only 26 years old, he is still relatively young in golf years and has a long time ahead of him before he will be looked at as the best to have never won a major.

Paul Casey finished fifth in FedExCup points.  Casey has been a great player for a long time, but he has played primarily on the European Tour where he has amassed 13 wins to only one win on the PGA TOUR.

This is not to say those 13 wins are nothing.  A win on any major golf tour is impressive.  However, if you want to be considered one of the best, you have to play against the best on a regular basis.

Casey has only eight top-10 finishes in majors and only one of those is a top-3 finish.  Hardly an impressive resume in the biggest tournaments.  Sorry, Paul.

As we continue down the FedExCup points list from last year, we find names like Ryan Moore, Kevin Chappell, Russell Knox, Emiliano Grillo, and Justin Thomas.  Sorry guys, but household names you are not.

Brandt Snedeker is a name that will come up, and surely he has the resume.  He has nine career wins on Tour and is generally regarded as one of the best putters on earth.

However, Brandt seems to wilt under the pressure of major competition, having finished in the top-5 at a major only twice.

To be considered one of the best to have never won a major, shouldn’t you have had to be close to winning one?  I think so.

For me, the current player to have never won a major is Sergio Garcia.

At 36 years old, he is on the backside of his prime as a player.  Very few players are first-time major champions in their late 30’s.

He has had an excellent career, collecting nine PGA TOUR wins to go with 11 European win (and nine more in Asia.)

He has been close to winning majors, finishing second four times and third twice.

And, he has been an absolute beast in the Ryder Cup.  His career record in the team competition is 18-9-5.  By way of comparison, Tiger Woods’s Ryder Cup record is 13-14-2.  Keep in mind, Woods has long been regarded as one of the best match-play players in history.

Garcia is still winning on Tour, which is important to note since many players who might make this list have stopped winning (Looking at you, Matt Kuchar.)  That means he still has the game to play with the young guys as he turns 37 in January.

Garcia burst onto the scene in 1999 and had the misfortune to play when Woods was dominating golf.  Had he been 10 years earlier or later, he might have won several majors by now.

It might be dubious honor to him, but how many people can say they were the best to ever do, or not do, something?

Who is the CURRENT best player not to have won a #major?

— Golficity (@Golficity) November 3, 2016

Cover Photo via Flickr