PGA Tour: Do We Put Too Much Weight On The Majors?

When discussing whether a player is amongst the best to ever play the game, the first question that comes to mind is “How many majors has he won?”.

Golfing greatness tends to be based on a player’s performance in four tournaments rather than a compilation of his achievement over the course of his career.

Winning a major is obviously a tougher task than winning an average PGA Tour event due to the depth of the fields, difficulty of the courses, and the immense pressure that surrounds these four tournaments.

But, should a player’s career and position in the history of the game be judged almost solely on his performance in these four events? 

I don’t believe it should. 

I believe that too much weight is put into a player’s performance in four tournaments rather than an overall snapshot of their career accomplishments. 

Padraig Harrington now has two major victories.  Not to take anything whatsoever away from Harrington’s tremendous accomplishment, but according to our current standard of measuring golfing greatness, this now puts Harrington in a class with the likes of Ben Crenshaw, Greg Norman, Johnny Miller and Curtis Strange; a list that also amusingly contains John Daly and Lee Janzen. 

Although Harrington is only 36 years old and is right in his prime, unless his career really takes off and he starts winning numerous tournaments, I wouldn’t place him in the same category as Greg Norman, Ben Crenshaw and Johnny Miller.

Harrington currently has 4 PGA Tour wins compared to Crenshaw’s 19, Norman’s 20 (87 professional wins worldwide) and Miller’s 25 tour wins.

Harrington, along with Janzen, Daly and Jose Maria Olazobal, is one major victory away from joining the likes of Tommy Armour, Billy Casper, Phil Mickelson and Nick Price; another group of players that I would not place Harrington in the same class with.

Some information you might not know is that Billy Casper is seventh on the all-time PGA Tour win list with 51 wins.  A player by the name of Cary Middlecoff is ninth on that list with 40 career PGA Tour victories.  Harry Cooper has 31 Tour victories and Johnny Miller has 25. 

Yet, these players are never mentioned in the conversation about golf’s all-time greats solely because of their performance in four tournaments.

I personally think a career that contains 51 PGA Tour wins is more impressive than a career that contains 4 major victories and far less overall tour wins.  

Golf is a game of consistency and longevity, which is why a golfer’s career should be judged more on his overall performance throughout the course of his entire career, rather than his performance at four tournaments each year.

Baseball, basketball and football players are judged on their overall career statistics. World Series, Super Bowl, and NBA Championships do come into consideration when measuring the greatness of a player’s career, but they are considered more icing on the cake rather than the end-all in measuring the greatness of a player’s career. 

Winning a major championship is a tremendous accomplishment and is what every kid who ever picks up a golf club strives for. 

But as far as difficulty, winning 50 PGA Tour events would have to be considered more difficult than winning 3, 4 or 5 majors. 

Padraig Harrington currently has two major victories.  If over the next ten years Harrington happens to get hot during two more weeks and win two more majors he would enter that conversation of golf's all-time greats, even if he doesn’t win another PGA Tour event.

I believe this measurement of golfing greatness is very skewed, and that there are numerous golfers who have had illustrious careers but have since been lost in the history of the game due solely to their performance at 4 tournaments out of 36 or more tournaments that are played each year on the PGA Tour.