Ranking the 10 Least Suspenseful Majors of the Past 100 Years
As we tip our caps to Brian Harman for his superlative performance in winning the Open Championship, The Ranking requests a moment of silence to absorb what sportswriting legend Dan Jenkins wrote in Sports Illustrated about Raymond Floyd’s similar runaway 1976 Masters victory:
“A tournament in which a man out-distances the field with such monumental ease tends to get written off as the ultimate in boredom.”
Jenkins’ point? Great golf is a privilege to behold. Boredom is only in the eye of the beholder.
It’s safe to assume Harman didn’t think his six-shot victory at Royal Liverpool was boring even though his lead was barely challenged after he finished the second round Friday morning and posted at 9 under par. By Sunday, when the rains finally came, he had lapped the field so badly, all he had to do was not get hit by a stray Russian missile or a rogue asteroid and the Claret Jug was his.
A walk-off putt for the victory makes for more compelling TV, sure. But sometimes, lopsided wins happen. Nobody said Tiger Woods’ dominant performances were boring.
So in honor of the new Brian Harman Era, here are the least suspenseful wins in major championship golf over the last 100 years:
10. Henry Cotton, 1934 Open Championship: Admittedly, there was a smidgen of drama in the final round when it appeared England’s Cotton might do a Titanic impersonation (weak comparison but Jean Van de Velde wasn’t born yet) and hit multiple icebergs. It was all Cotton all the time until then. His opening 67 gave him a three-shot lead over Fred Taggart. His second-round 65 was a tournament record and he suddenly led by nine. Strong winds made the third round challenging but Cotton’s 72 put him 10 ahead of Joe Kirkwood. A 10-shot lead is a walk in the cake, right? Er, a cake in the park? Never mind. Cotton’s nerves kicked in and he posted 40 on the opening nine, then lost three strokes on the next three holes. Cotton picked himself up, however, and pressed on to shoot 79 and win by five. He was no Brian Harman-esque surprise winner. Cotton won three Opens and finished in the top ten in 17 others.
9. Cary Middlecoff, 1955 Masters: Go ahead with the dental puns. Middlecoff was a practicing dentist. So he drilled the field, braced himself, chewed up the competition and kept filling the hole with his putts. The Ranking leaves it to you to work in gingivitis, root canal, toothpick and wisdom tooth. A second-round 65 vaulted Doc into a four-shot lead over Ben Hogan. He and Hogan matched 72s in the third round. Sunday, Middlecoff shot 70 and pulled away to beat Hogan by seven. First-year pro Arnold Palmer was the only player to shoot in the 60s, posting 69 to tie for 10th in what was the last Masters Tournament that wasn’t televised. Middlecoff’s seven-shot margin of victory was a record that lasted until Jack Nicklaus eclipsed it 10 years later. If it takes Jack Nicklaus to top you, you’ve done something.
8. Martin Kaymer, 2014 U.S. Open: Pinehurst’s famed No. 2 course got a makeover, then Germany’s Martin Kaymer completed a takeover. He won wire-to-wire, leading by three shots after 18 holes; six after 36; five after 54 and eight after 72. Trivia: Erik Compton and Rickie Fowler tied for second. Kaymer shot 69 in the final round and was the only player in the last eight pairings to shoot under par. Yes, this was not exactly “The Duel in the Sun.”
7. Louis Oosthuizen, 2010 Open Championship: This Old Course Open had all the excitement of a rain delay. Except in this instance, it was a wind delay that halted play for 66 minutes in the second round when gusts blew so hard balls moved on greens. Rory McIlroy shot an opening 63 but trailed Oosthuizen, a little-known South African, by 11 shots after 36 holes. That’s because McIlroy followed it with an 80 and Oosty opened 65-67. By then it was all about finding a colorful nickname for the nice-but-somewhat-drab Oosthuizen, or King Louis. He led by five after two rounds and won by seven over Lee Westwood. King Louis eagled the ninth hole in the final round, which Paul Casey tripled, about the last time anyone so much as toyed with the idea of dethroning said King.
6. Raymond Floyd, 1976 Masters: All Floyd did was blitz Augusta National and tie Nicklaus’ scoring mark at 17 under. He won by eight strokes over Ben Crenshaw, who joked, “If you throw out Raymond, we’re playing a heck of a Masters.” Floyd used a secret weapon—a 5-wood—to attack the par-5s and he also wielded a strange new striped putter, the Ram Zebra. Floyd played so well that Hubert Green said, “I just want to get his autograph.” The Ranking gives the last word to Jenkins, who wrote in SI: “Well, let's put it this way: When did Nicklaus ever make three eagles in a major championship and finish 11 strokes behind the winner?” Enough said.
5. Rory McIlroy, 2011 U.S. Open: This was good timing for McIlroy, who’d kicked away a Masters two months earlier with an ugly closing 80 that featured an errant tee shot at the 10th hole that nearly hit one of the club’s cabins. McIlroy roared into the lead quickly, opening a six-shot edge after only 36 and pushing it to eight after the third round. Paired with former PGA champ (and Tiger-killer) Y.E. Yang in the final round, McIlroy birdied two of the first four holes and iced the win. His 16-under mark of 268 at Congressional beat Tiger’s 2000 Open record of 15 under par.
4. Tiger Woods, 2000 Open Championship: Somehow, Tiger turned butt-kickings into great viewing. He was only 24 but when he wiped out Ernie Els and Thomas Bjorn by eight strokes at the Old Course in St. Andrews, he became the youngest player to complete the career Grand Slam and was en route to what was dubbed the Tiger Slam after he won the 2000 PGA and the 2001 Masters—four majors in a row. His eight-shot margin of victory was the Open’s largest since 1913 and his 19-under total was the lowest at any major championship. His 67-66-67 start gave him a six-shot lead after 54 holes. In other words, same-old same-old.
3. Jack Nicklaus, 1965 Masters: You’ve got a Masters Tournament with Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player—golf’s Big Three—tied for the lead after 36 holes. How could this possibly make the Least Dramatic List? Because the big kid from Ohio dropped a record-tying 64 in the third round, opening a five-shot edge on Player and eight on Palmer, then added a 69 and won by nine. This dominant performance erased any remaining doubt that Palmer’s reign was over and the Age of Nicklaus was in full flight.
2. Tiger Woods, 1997 Masters: This finish was historic, given Tiger’s young age and his mixed ethnic background, but there was no drama. He won by 12 over Tom Kite. Colin Montgomerie was in the mix through 36 holes and talked up his chances against Woods, whom he was paired with in the third round. Monty shot 74, Woods shot 65 and Montgomerie changed his tune after witnessing his opponent: “There is no chance humanly possible that Tiger Woods is going to lose this championship.” He was right, of course. And so TigerMania became a thing for the next two decades. By the way, Woods played the last 63 holes in 22 under par.
1. Tiger Woods, 2000 U.S. Open: This was like a Monty Python comedy sketch in which a 10,000-ton prop falls on an annoying character in mid-sentence. That is, Tiger crushed the field at Pebble Beach and permanently broke the will of numerous contemporaries. He won by 15 shots, beating the major mark of Old Tom Morris set a mere 138 years earlier. Woods led by 10 after 54 holes despite a triple bogey Saturday at No. 3. He also posted the low round of the day, or tied for low round, in three of the four rounds. If this was a Presidential Election, it was Richard Nixon over George McGovern, 520-17.