Who is the best golfer to have never won a major?

First topic message reminder :

Simple question - who do you think is the most talented player, past or present, who never (or has of yet to) win a Major?

I have put up a few names in the poll but I am sure that I will have missed some!

Let us hear your thoughts and why.

(apologies if they have won one and I missed it!)

I am sure McLaren or chili would be happy to give you chapter and verse on him, DTW also.

But all your options are current players - there are plenty other to players who just never won a Major from earlier generations.

A few others have been suggested in that vein:

Harry Cooper
Bruce Crampton
Christie O'Connor

You are right Kwini - all current, I dont know enough pre 80's to make suitable suggestions unfortunately.

Interesting debate between Monty and Perry - can't agree that Perry deserved to win a major more. He seems like a bit of a journeyman pro to me and maybe deserved a major as the pinnacle of his career but Monty could have really won a couple with his domination of Europe for so long.

Neither had the natural talent and at as young an age as Sergio though. I remember hearing about him when I was a junior as being touted as a future world number one and multiple major winner. Sadly I think he also believed that this was a given and I think that his poor form recently prior to this season has been due to a bit of soul searching as to why that didn't happen. It must be tough for him to be told that he will be something special from a young age and for it not to happen. Hopefully it still might...

It is strange, cos when sergio was 16, he was playing from a +6 handicap, and his putting was superb, I have no idea what happened to him

I reckon Monty has read this poll! He is currently 5 under through 11 at the Scottish Open. First the Scottish Open then the Major!

All down to my poll! Get your bets on now!

Crampton is a good call. Second four times in Majors, in his day the leading PGA Tour career money-winner without a Major, and a stellar (but Major-less!) Senior career. Beset with acute depression throughout much of his career, we'll never really know how good he could have been.

When looking back at Christy O'Connor's career, and that of many others of that era, Neil Coles especially, we should remember that access to the US Majors was much more restricted than it is today. Only those "International" golfers who played the PGA Tour (like Crampton, Jacklin, Player etc) really had the wherewithal to play any more than The Open Championship. (Of course, some, incl Neil Coles, wouldn't fly so that further restricted opportunities!

Regardless of who the best non-Major winner is, we shouldn't forget Bangor's Errey Ball, 100 years young and the only living survivor from the very first Masters tournament! He may not be the best, but he's certainly the oldest!!

I'd have to say Monty right now. Though if the unthinkable happens he 'could' almost certainly be replaced with Westwood and / or Garcia.

Garcia far superior to Westwood - amazing that he has come so close to winning despite his obvious handicap

Monty for me, by a mile (Kenny Perry?? Seriously?). Sergio is up there but he could still win one, I seriously doubt Monty can. If Sergio never wins one by the time he retires, I'll change my vote.

Wow, that's a big debate I caused there with my Perry pick

As I said in the post yesterday, my initial querry there was with the 'relativity' of the choices on the list (from many points of view) and I'm afraid a lot of my pick/choice was more to do with the fact that Perry was standing out there as the only one who was 'officially' retired from the main tours and in that sense his chances of getting a major are basical all but gone. Almost all the others are still more than able and have plenty of time to get a major before they retire. Monty in that sense is the only one that comes close to Perry's situation, although as Hobo says, Monty still has another chance next week...

But that's an interesting debate that resulted there and I would certainly back Diggers in his argument on the strength of the wins these two guys have achieved. In those years the PGA Tour was indeed way stronger than the ET and not only that, but the owgr system was quite clearly skewed in favor of ET. A very clear example of that is the BMW PGA Wentworth event (Volvo PGA in those years), which Monty won 3 consecutive years (those were his biggest wins), which was rated at 64 points, but in reality its strength wasn't higher than 44-46 points at best (there were no US players in those years either in Europe's flagship event and the ET was much weaker than it is now). People like Peter Jacobsen would have been quite entitled then to moan about that aspect, but it's certainly not the case anymore nowadays. Just did a quick review of the wins and owgr points earned for their wins by Monty and Perry (starting from 1996 - before that year the point allocation was different than it is now).
Between 1996 and present Monty won 22 tournaments with an average owgr points earned of around 33. Perry won half of that, 11 events, with an average owgr of 52!! 2005 is probably a good year to make another comparison as both players won 2 events each that year and Monty had a very good year wining his last order of merit. So in 2005 Monty (42 years old) won the Dunhill Links (worth 38 owgr points) and the Hong Kong Open (28 pts). Perry on the other hand (45 years old) won Bay Hill (70 owgr points!) and the Colonial (56 pts).

Just as an illustration, these are two LBs so you can check the relative strengths of the fields:

Memorial 2003 won by Perry (not his biggest win - 'only' 66 owgr points):

http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/leaderboard/2003/22

Volvo PGA Wentworth 2000 (practically Monty's biggest win):

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2000/tournamentid=2000037/index.html

Anyway, for what it's worth, I think both guys deserved to win a major, let's hope that Monty can still do it...

Perry never challeged in a major though did he?

JD, think he was well in the hunt when Cabrera won his Masters.

Prince - great analysis and would certainly agree that during Monty's time the PGA tour was superior. But it would seem to me you can only truly compare the two players by looking at the tournaments they both played in. Looking at Majors only Monty has the far superior record.

Contrarian view would suggest that Kenny Perry underperformed in Majors, apart from his two play-off losses, he only had four top ten finishes (two of them were T10's) against Monty's ten, incl five 2nd places, a 3rd, 6th and 2 x 8th.

Would think that's more accurate in comparing apples and apples?

Plus, there is no comparison in their respective Ryder Cup records, Perry only good enough to compete on two teams.

Well, I suppose he did, losing in a playoff, but has he really ever been at the top of his game, has he ever been considered a betting front runner for a major?

Thomond wrote:Dracula,Donald has been consistent in regular tournaments but his best major finish is third and while he has acheived that twice does that really mean he is one of the best to never win a biggie?

Donald is the current No 1, did any of the rest manage that ?

Not even Monty got to No 1...

The WR are losided due to the fact Woods is no longer top, or playing for that matter (which he was when Monty was playing) Lets not forget Woods was so far ahead, it took him nearky 2 years of not playing to relinquish no 1 spot

SetupDeterminesTheMotion wrote:

Thomond wrote:Dracula,Donald has been consistent in regular tournaments but his best major finish is third and while he has acheived that twice does that really mean he is one of the best to never win a biggie?

Donald is the current No 1, did any of the rest manage that ?

Not even Monty got to No 1...

Westwood!

JD, 2008 and 2009 I believe he was 4th and 2nd in the Fedex Cup and won 5 events so I would reckon he was definitely up in the betting for the American majors.
I dont actually believe he was particularly a better player than Monty but I do believe people have in Perry scoffed at a guy with some good wins and overplay (IMO) the wins that Monty had in Europe.
Both lost 2 play offs for majors which is the closest you can get without winning but would agree that Montys record re top 10's is much better.

This will surely change, but right now Montgomerie and Perry are tied 5th in their respective Tour events. Tie-break to Monty as there are more owgr points at Castle Stuart.

Sorry about that!

Good spotting kwini (Perry just got a bogey though). Coincidentally the owgr value of those two tournaments this week is matching more or less those carreer averages I was mentioning for the two guys in question: Scottish Open ~52 and John Deere ~30/32. You could say also that Monty has to win this week to match in some way one of Perry's last achievements...

In 2009 at 49 years old (!), Perry won both Scotsdale (54 points) and Travellers (48 pts). Monty's last win was the European Open (32 pts) at the 'tender' age of 44. Now he's 48, so he needs to win this week the 52 pointer in Scotland to just about match Perry in that respect...

Mind you, if you look at the early part of their carreers, Monty certainly comes up trumps...

On your list, Monty stands out by a country mile.

Who voted Paul Casey and did so without an explination??

Q: Who voted for Paul Casey?
A: Paul Casey.

kwinigolfer wrote:Q: Who voted for Paul Casey?
A: Paul Casey.

...or someone working for this NUUN stuff...

http://vimeo.com/23860302

Diggers wrote:but failure to win in the States marks him down for me

Monty won the Accenture World Championship of Golf before it became a WGC event. Don't think it was a regular PGA Tour event if that's what you really mean.

Price

When you say that the OWGR was skewed in favor of the ET what do you mean? Are you basing this on the fact a lot of events received the minimum points allocation despite not really being worth those points?

But remember points are assigned based on the strength of players playing in the event. If from day one, or at least a point long before montys time, there was an assumption that the PGA tour was stronger then your point is not quite correct.

If the PGA was assumed to be stronger at some point in the past then having to compensate the ET was almost inevitable because the quality of player on the ET was not fully valued.

unless we know for sure that the original basis for handing out OWGR points was correct and unbiased then comparing OWGR points to determine career success may be a little misleading.

Kenny Perry just by a browse at Wiki seems to have been quite a streaky player. A hot summer in 2003 with 3 wins and 3 top 10's at the majors, again two close wins in 2005, and then that hot year from June 08-June 09.