If Golf’s Majors Awarded Olympic Type Medals

If Golf’s Majors Awarded Olympic Type Medals

Jamie Kennedy of Golf Digest posted this interesting chart on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The chart shows first (gold), second (silver) and third (bronze) place finishes in Majors since 1945.

The first thing I noticed is that it provides more evidence of just how far Jack Nicklaus is ahead of every other player. The Bear has 46 first, second or third place finishes. No one else is even close.

My second thought is that the chart shows just how hard it is to win a Major. Nicklaus had 46 legitimate chances to win a major and came away with eighteen. Tiger had 26 and won 15. Phil had 25 and walked away with six. Ernie had 15 and came away with four.

Golf is hard. Professional golf is harder. Winning Majors is more difficult still.

Tiger in the medal counts is only nominally ahead of Phil Mickelson. That shouldn’t come as any surprise. The story of Phil’s near misses before his first Major at age 34 is well known.

Player, Hogan, Watson and Palmer all cashed in between a third and half of their realistic opportunities. That’s pretty good.

Brooks is just a Majors savant.

I’m interested in others’ take on this. Let me know what you think about this chart in the comments.