Are Majors overrated?

In the context of measuring a golfers career, is too much emphasis given to Major wins?

A talented golfer can come under pressure early in his career to prove himself by winning Majors. This pressure will grow year after year until he lands a title or gets crushed by the weight of expectation.Is this justified?

Likewise if a top golfer finishes his career without a Major, that will always be a cloud hanging over his other achievements.

Consider 2 players: Padraig Harrington and Colin Montgomerie. Who in your opinion has had the better career and is your decision based on Majors?

If anything WGC's are underrated given some of the fields players beat in them, but that might be an issue for another day.


I dont think you can claim to be a top golfer from your era without a major but, I guess a little paradoxically, I am not sure a major win proves you are any better than those of your generation. Your monty and Pod example being very relevant to the above.

IMO Major's arent overrated, a player is always going to be judged on amount of majors won, but you take everything into context when measuring how good a player really is/was.

I would say as most of the top golfers schedules are built around peaking for the the four weeks of the year the Majors take place then no they arent overrated.

The players put as much Importance into winning them as we do in them being Won.

I also agree with Mac in that WGC's are underrated given some of the fields

It seems everybody, incl. the players, agree that the majors are the most important tournaments. Therefore they cannot be overrated as such. But if we talk about strength of field as a measure of the "rating", WGC's and Sawgrass are of course better.

Did I hear right Paul Lawrie not playing US Open.

I think the Masters is hugely overrated, but in general I don't think they are its a great achievement for any player but I don't think a player that wins none should be judged harshly, Monty's achievements in the European OOM and Ryder cup imo are far better than a major win by a Campbell, Hamilton type.

Luke Donald is undoubtedly the best golfer in the world at the moment. He hasn't (yet) won a Major

I think that answers your question

I don't believe Majors are overrated, but agree with those that are saying WGC's are underrated. But what was it Paul Azinger said, "The only thing that ever made me choke was money and prestige". Prestige... THAT'S what makes the majors special, and THAT'S what makes them so valuable to both the players and the fans.

and pedro... I can't agree that WGC's and the Players are necessarily better in strength of fields than the majors. IMO there are some of the WGC's that have been better than the Masters some years, but the WGC's aren't as strong as the other 3 majors. OWGR field strengths, sum of total field OWGR averages all support my claim.

Here's the WORLD event rating value totals the OWGR uses for field strengths for the 8 strongest events in 2011.

839 - PGA Championship
792 - Open Championship
762 - Masters Tournament
734 - U.S. Open
730 - WGC Bridgestone
719 - WGC Match Play
716 - PLAYERS Championship
692 - WGC - Cadillac

Here are 2012 events so far...

741 - WGC Cadillac
730 - Masters
710 - WGC Match Play
707 - PLAYERS Championship

EDIT: And by the way... don't look at the above in absolute terms but more in general terms. Just one or two missing or injured top players from one event or those players added to another can change the above orders greatly.

BUT... I don't necessarily agree that the OWGR World strength values are the "Holy Grail" to field strengths either because they only give field of strength value to a field for players ranked #200 and above. Using a sum of the OWGR averages for ALL players in the field... events like the PLAYERS moves up to the 2nd or 3rd strongest event behind the PGA and possibly the British Open. (but the WGCs fall behind all the majors)

I don't believe WGC's and Majors can ever be talked about in the same breath until WGC's have a cut.

If you told pros that they'd have to play Doral for 36 holes and could then go home with empty pockets if they were in the 60% of the field that didn't cut the mustard, how many do you think would show up? What about first round losers at Dove Mountain??

The WGC's are fine events, not close to Majors, The Players and BMWPGA or even many National Championships.

Spread them around the World and install a cut and then we can talk.

Kwini

WGC's may not be the honest old school golf tournaments that we are used to but in winning some of them you are beating some of the strongest fields in golf. I find tigers 16 wins in WGC's absolutely astounding, it is not clear that people really appreciate how amazing that record is?

As for the BMWPGA being close to a wgc or even a decent pga tour stop, not even luke donald or George O'Grady will buy that one.

Tiger's 16 WGC wins ARE "absolutely astonishing"! Doesn't alter the fact that they're not on a par with Majors or, I would contend, at least a dozen other events.

I would think most non-American pros would rank the BMWPGA very highly.

I meant overrated as a measure of a golfers career. Sometimes it seems this is the only consideration when assessing or comparing golf careers.

Anyone want to field the Padraig/Monty question?

"Anyone want to field the Padraig/Monty question?"


Yes, Monty is by far the better golfer in almost all aspects other than finishing off a major championship. To rank Harringtons career over monties based on number of majors won would be a big mistake. Monty was at the top of the European game for 15 or so years. Paddy flirted with the top of the game for a couple of seasons.


Kwini

I would imagine any non american player with a sense of perspective would realise too many top players, and in fact players ranked in the 100-300 range, are missing for it to be a truly big event.

McLaren wrote:"Anyone want to field the Padraig/Monty question?"


Yes, Monty is by far the better golfer in almost all aspects other than finishing off a major championship. To rank Harringtons career over monties based on number of majors won would be a big mistake. Monty was at the top of the European game for 15 or so years. Paddy flirted with the top of the game for a couple of seasons.

That is a completely unfair representation of Padraig Harrington's career. Someone may have the exact figures but I would guess that Padraig spent at least 70% of all weeks inside the World's Top 10 in the ten years from 2001-2010 inclusive. He also won the European Order of Merit title once and finished second twice in the years before he won his first Major. He beat Tiger Woods twice while going head to head with him over the final 36 holes and has won two regular events in the States, something else Monty never achieved.

I don't mean to denigrate Monty at all but Majors are viewed as important for a reason. Padraig, not once but three times, produced his very best when it really mattered. In 2008 he played the back nine on Sunday in 32 shots at both Birkdale and Oakland Hills while everyone else struggled to play par golf. That is what you might describe as delivering when it really counts. 2007 & 2008 were the best years of Padraig's career but they were hardly completely out of the blue. To imply that he simply flirted with the top of the game in these two years and did nothing beforehand is a blatant attempt to rewrite history. If Padraig had just the one Major, I could understand Monty being rated ahead of him. However, 3-0 is pretty conclusive in my opinion.

IMO, the Majors have everything the WGCs and Players have, and more. And yes even the Masters.

IMO, the WGCs would not get the fields that they get if they were a tournament with a cut. the guaranteed paycheck ($45k???) is an incentive to play.

The WGCs are nice wins, but not nearly as good as the Majors or Players.

If the Players had guarantee paychecks, I don't think it would get snubbed as much from the Euros.

Ask any player ranked 1 - 300 which tournaments they would like to win most and I would bet strongly the majors would dominate the top 4 positions.

I don't think the question is majors vs WGC's... it's are majors overrated... and as incontinentia clarified further... as in judging career's.

The Harrington/Monty example might not be the best... so let's try another a few more. Where do we rate Andy North. He has two majors. Does that mean he has a better career than majorless Westy, Monty or Luke? Does that mean North has a better career than 1 major winners like Duval, Lehman or Pavin? How about two time winner Lee Janzen? Is Janzen better than 1 major winners like Davis Love or Tom Kite.

In every case I've mentioned... IMO the player with LESS majors is/was the better player.

Now take some 3 win Jeff Maggert type and ask him if he'd trade all his wins for a Masters or a U.S. Open... and the answer would be HECK YES... But I still would rank Maggert's as a far better career than Todd Hamilton's.

I guess the bottom line for me is that majors need to be put in context of the player and where they are/were in their career. And at risk of being derided... when looking back historically... you have to look at what those events meant THEN compared to today. Yes... I do believe that in some instances today's 3 or 4 is equal to yesterday's 5, 6 or 7. For instance... AT THE TIME does anybody think that Jack coveted his '66 British win as much as his U.S. Open or Masters wins? NOT a chance... heck the Western Open was MUCH more valued a win in those days than was the British Open.

The fact is that the only people who are remembered 30 or 50 or 70 years later are those who won major titles, and even some of them are pretty arcane.

In 50 years, people might think of Colin Montgomerie as you might think of Guy Hunt or Ken Bousfield.

I don't necessarily agree with that. Will people remember the likes of Hal sutton, Todd Hamilton and Shaun Micheel over Monty, Sergio and Luke Donald. I wouldn't have thought so.

It's nice to win a major, just as its nice to appear in a major football tournament, but Ryan giggs, and George best are better remembered than stephan guivarch or basil boli.

A major win doesn't really make you a better player than someone who hasn't won one. It can mean you just had one very good week in a very average journeymen career.

Westwood v Furyk would be a good one. LW world number one but no majors, Furyk a US Open. Both good careers, who retires the more fulfilled man ?

That is a good one diggers, but not for Furyks solitary major, rather his longevity and consistently high ranking.
I think people remember people who win two or more majors, single winners are less well regarded and often forgotten. Mind you, has Cabrera had a better career than Monty or Westwood. Doubt it.

There are so many big events now , WGC's, majors, The Players, that my biggest issue is when a top player never beats a truly high class field. This for me is both Monty and LW's biggest failing.
I'd like to see Luke win some other than the Matchplay as well. Give Luke two majors and his career is top drawer, no majors and it's a different story.

Majors are only overrated if you are too lazy or unknowledgeable enough not to be able to put any major win in the context of all that a player has achieved in their career. For the guy above to say monty - 0 vs 3 - paddy, so paddy must be the better player is the sort of half assed analysis I speak of.

We must also decide what we are saying when we compare players and say one is better than the other. I am unsure what I am saying when I say Monty was the better player. Do I mean; he had a better scoring average, more wins overall, better swing, greater probability of winning any given event etc.

When I say tiger is better than someone it is clear there are so many ways he is better that the comment makes sense. When it comes to saying one of two players with closer skill levels is better I am not sure the comment makes much sense.

Diggers

Furyk will sleep easy the day he retires. Not westwood, unless he wins a major.

Also interestingly, both Furyk and Westwood have won their respective tours' wheelbarrow of money prize during the short-ish existence of FedEx Cup and RtD.

Compared to most of us, that would meant that both could retire very happily!

McLaren - I may be new around here but I've been following golf for over 25 years and I think it's fair to say that if there is any half assed analysis on this thread, it is all contained in your earlier post.

You correctly stated that Colin Montgomerie was in or around the top of the game for 15 years. You then claimed that Padraig Harrington "flirted with the top of the game for a couple of seasons". This is complete nonsense. I don't have the numbers in front of me but I would be willing to bet with you that Padraig has spent well over 300 weeks inside the Top 10 in the World Rankings. I would imagine Monty might have spent slightly longer in the Top 10, but only slightly.

Somebody else mentioned Andy North who only ever won 3 tournaments, 2 of which were Majors. There are several other examples of Major winners who were never in the World's Top 10. Your attempt to bracket Padraig alongside these players is completely disingenuous and yet you accuse me of being half assed!

It should not be down to luck for the elite players when it comes to winning majors.
They will enter enough of them through their careers to put themselves in strong positions to convert a win at least once. Thats why I see Els, Goosen, Mickleson and Singh as much, much better players than Monty or Westy or Luke.
You can also look at it another way, Norman for me is one of the biggest bottle jobs in sport, two majors are scant reward for his ability, he won for fun week in and week out but apply the pressure of a career defining win and he fell apart many times.
And its not just the obvious chokes, its the plain in ability to perform over the week. Monty record at the Open is shocking for a guy who grew up playing links, it should have been a gift tournament for him to at least be contending in year in and out......and therefore giving himself chances of winning a major. Instead the pressure got to him and he was often out of the running after the first round.
Did we see a bit of this from Luke at this years Masters ? Lets hope not but it was worrying.

Position	Weeks
Total top 10	265
10	51
9	34
8	74
7	33
6	29
5	15
4	17
3	12
2	0
1	0

I believe this is a decent description of Harringtons time in the top 10 since the start of 2003, where he entered the year as world number 8. So this in no way reflects his total career. The last time he was in the top 10 was week 14 in 2010 when he was tenth,

It seems he has been at the top for a long time but not really been a prolific winner like Monty. Anyway, when I said flirt with the very top I meant contend week after week with the likes of tiger, els, vijay and Mickelson.

Harringtons decent into mental illness has not helped his case, a very sad case indeed, but I am not sure Monty was ever as average – in his prime – as Harrington has been since has last major win. I really don’t like monty but other than choking in majors you could not ask for a better career. And for those who value the Ryder Cup (I don’t) you must surely have to consider that when judging monty?

But again, what do we mean by the better player?

Is there a way to compare career score averages or do we rely on models like the one robo posted where players head to head results are compare?

Monty didn't just choke in majors , he was rubbish on the PGA full stop which was by far the tougher tour when he was at his peak. Flat track bully basically.

McLaren wrote:

It seems he has been at the top for a long time but not really been a prolific winner like Monty. Anyway, when I said flirt with the very top I meant contend week after week with the likes of tiger, els, vijay and Mickelson.

Harringtons decent into mental illness has not helped his case, a very sad case indeed, but I am not sure Monty was ever as average – in his prime – as Harrington has been since has last major win. I really don’t like monty but other than choking in majors you could not ask for a better career. And for those who value the Ryder Cup (I don’t) you must surely have to consider that when judging monty?

Obviously Monty was a more prolific winner of regular events on the European Tour but the gap is not as big as you seem to think. It would probably be big enough to withstand one Major win for Padraig but certainly not three. At his best Padraig did contend week after week, didn't he have over 30 2nd place finishes in his career.

A few other facts I've just looked up. Including his three wins, Padraig has had 14 Top 10 finishes in Majors of which 9 were Top 5. Monty has had 10 Top 10 finishes of which 6 were Top 5. I wonder which of us is really guilty of the lazy analysis here? Although, going on the highlighted section above which shows your warped sense of humour, I don't think there's very much doubt.

Tinmar

My point was I agree with you, Harrington had a much longer stint at the top than I remembered.



I am no expert but the bizarre manner of his interviews where he rambles on without making any sense and with his tongue hanging out is not normal.

Anyway, you will come to learn that me sense of humour has not gone down so well on here in the past. In fact so badly on one occasion that a couple of former posters set up a competing forum. I believe the place is now dead and no longer in existence.

Mercurio was one (i think). Who was the other???

I've always thought that Padraig is one of the most interesting interviewees of all. He actually listens to the questions and gives considered answers rather than just spout platitudes.

"Mercurio was one (i think). Who was the other???"

No need to expose them, I hope to see them return one day.

Welcome to the forum Tinmar - Harrington certainly very popular over here.

Isn't comparison between Montgomerie's career and Harrington's at the very heart of the supposed "value" of a Major?

Apart from runner-up finishes, Monty rather pales into comparison at the Major level to Harrington's record.

Agree with Tinmar's analysis - and Monty achieves, for instance, Major Top Tens at a 14% clip, Harrington a 26% rate.

Of all the Majors they've both competed in, Harrington has finished ahead of Montgomerie 24 times, Monty ahead just 11 times.

I was surprised to see that, apart from his two second places, Monty's best finish in a Major since 1999 was 13th in 2001 Open Champ.

Their WGC records are uniformly poor!
Average finishes:
MatchPlay: Monty 21st, Padraig 23rd.
Cadillac: Monty 23rd, Padraig 18th
Bridgestone: Monty 31st, Padraig 28th.

Monty's Ryder Cup and Order Of Merit records are nevertheless fantastic.

Could monty be used to prove that the european tour was very weak in the 90's?

Tinmar wrote:I've always thought that Padraig is one of the most interesting interviewees of all. He actually listens to the questions and gives considered answers rather than just spout platitudes.

Definately interesting interviewee, sometimes makes odd comments, but in general i love listening to his interviews.

He does look at his own career/game completely differently to the way most would, but then again, a lot of his "odd" comments go unchallenged by weak interviewers................

Harrington has famousley NEVER read a newspaper article about himself following one written about him having "choked" in a particular event in his amateur days. He's NEVER watched any golf on TV either in case he heard anything about himself.........................

Wouldn't really agree with that Mac,
Faldo and Langer were there most of the time, Olazabal too, plus purple patches from guys like Rocca and Torrance.
But one could argue that present European Tour moneylists are distorted by WGC's.
Don't think Montgomerie's OOM record can in any way be diminished though, not to mention that he did a fantastic job of supporting the Tour when others were running to America.

The European Tour was very weak in the 80's IMO. The fact that it had a few very good players who won for fun simply highlighted this. However that bunch ofp layers did serve to drag the standard up from the mediocore to today where we have a much better quality of field.
Its still the poor relation to the PGA IMO, but there wasnt even a comparison worth making in the 80's.

Hi Kwini

More interesting stats and they further support my view that, if Majors are important at all, Padraig must rate ahead of Monty for his overall career. I don't know how Monty would feel about it but I think there's no way that Padraig would even consider swapping his career for Monty's.

Monty's peak years were probably in the gap between the gradual decline of the Big 5 from the 80's and the emergence of some real strength in depth over the past decade. Olazabal would probably have been his main European competition during this time but he unfortunately had health problems. Monty was one of the best players in the world from 1993-2000 and was unfortunate not to win at least one Major in that time. Maybe if he'd won one, he would have won several.

"Anyone want to field the Padraig/Monty question?"


Yes, Monty is by far the better golfer in almost all aspects other than finishing off a major championship. To rank Harringtons career over monties based on number of majors won would be a big mistake. Monty was at the top of the European game for 15 or so years. Paddy flirted with the top of the game for a couple of seasons.

Mac - Consider this hypothetical situation - Luke Donald wins this year's open - the Masters 2013 and the Open 2013. He then struggles with his game for the next 5 years gradually falling down the rankings although still appearing in the next 3 ryder cups. Would you say Luke Donald flirted with the top of the game for a couple of seasons?

Diggers wrote:It should not be down to luck for the elite players when it comes to winning majors.
They will enter enough of them through their careers to put themselves in strong positions to convert a win at least once. Thats why I see Els, Goosen, Mickleson and Singh as much, much better players than Monty or Westy or Luke.
You can also look at it another way, Norman for me is one of the biggest bottle jobs in sport, two majors are scant reward for his ability, he won for fun week in and week out but apply the pressure of a career defining win and he fell apart many times.
And its not just the obvious chokes, its the plain in ability to perform over the week. Monty record at the Open is shocking for a guy who grew up playing links, it should have been a gift tournament for him to at least be contending in year in and out......and therefore giving himself chances of winning a major. Instead the pressure got to him and he was often out of the running after the first round.
Did we see a bit of this from Luke at this years Masters ? Lets hope not but it was worrying.

Here, here. Couldn't agree more with this. Especially regarding Norman, who made it on to a few top 20 players lists here recently, which I couldn't believe considering how he has choked on the big stage.

As bad as Monty has performed in Majors, he has been brilliant in some of the highest pressure Ryder cups, maybe he is more comfortable in a team atmosphere.

Tinmar wrote:I don't know how Monty would feel about it but I think there's no way that Padraig would even consider swapping his career for Monty's.

I was thinking the same earlier. As an interesting twist, if you asked Paddy if he'd swap his career results for Monty's, or vice versa, what would they say? I agree with Tinmar, I think that Paddy would give you a very clear "no", he'll take his 3 majors thank you very much. As for Monty, I think this is an impossible question for him. He'd probably hesitate, then argue that he wouldn't want to relinquish his Ryder Cup and OOM records which he's quite rightly very proud of. And I think his hypothetical argument has some merit, but I think deep down he'd love to have Paddy's 3 majors....

Probably tells you all you need to know about whether the majors are over-rated. How can they be when the pros value them so highly?

Will just rise to the bait in defence of Greg Norman and suggest that, if just two of his desperately unlucky Major losses went the other way, he'd be rated at least on a par with Mickelson.

He may be the strongest argument against the "Are Majors overrated?" question! A resounding NO!!

And there is a case to suggest that if he hadn't such a "snakebit" history, more Majors other than just those losses in the '86 PGA and '87 Masters (and arguably Calc's '89 Open) might have come his way.

Could'ves, should'ves and would'ves, I know!

Norman must have seen more extraordinary shots holed by one of his opponents on the final hole than any other player, ever. I can recall Mize, Tway & Gamez and I think there may even have been one or two others.

For his number of victories and period as World No 1, he has to be respected. I think it would be fair to say though, that he did have a flaw in his make-up when the pressure was on. Is he the only player to have lost play-offs for all four Majors?

Here's one thing that's evident on this thread - if a very successful golfer does NOT win a major it certainly sticks out in their career. Monty being a notable example as well as Donald and Westwood (who I suspect will join the list of major winners soon).

Norman unlucky? I can see the logic, but I never lose sight of the fact that it's a 72 hole tournament and that's a lot of holes to decide a championship.

Can't wait for Olympic!

I think what I tried to say in one of the first posts on this thread is that you need majors to be considered great but are not guaranteed greatness by winning one, or even two majors.

Majors are a tie breaker when it comes to separating players with similar records on tour.

Does this make them overrated?

I dont really understand whats complicated about this.
To be a great player you need a consistently excellent ranking, lots of tour wins and you also need majors, multiple.
The major element is a huge part of greatness but not the whole story by any means. Is Monty a great...no, is Els a great yes. Is Cabrera a great no, is Harrington a great...you'd have to say yes really when you add everything up about his career.
So my opinion is that majors are not overated...........apart from The Open which is dull as hell to watch and too much of a lottery or someone like Fatty Clarke would never have won................

Digbert, Monty is a great. Being the dominant player in europe for a decade qualifies him as such, Major or not.

If dominating a weak tour makes you great then we'd better add Jumbo Ozaki to the list. Did he really support the European Tour or just realise early he would be nothing special in the States?

Just the fact that we all know how importanat majors are mean they are not overrated- the added pressure makes them so sought after. It is clear to me that westy,donald and monty are better than countless major winners. But the simple fact is you can be an avergae player with a major but you cant be a legend without one.