Future Major Projections – 2024

The following table projects the career majors for 100 top and notable golfers. This projection was made as of January 1, 2024. The ages listed reflect the golfer as of this date.

Player	Age	Current Majors	Projected Majors	Est’d Total Majors
Tom Kim	21	0	2.23	2.23
Scottie Scheffler	27	1	2.17	3.17
Collin Morikawa	26	2	1.77	3.77
Gordon Sargent	20	0	1.60	1.60
Viktor Hovland	26	0	1.55	1.55
Jon Rahm	29	2	1.54	3.54
Jordan Spieth	30	3	1.43	4.43
Sungjae Im	25	0	1.42	1.42
Rory McIlroy	34	4	1.08	5.08
Joaquin Niemann	25	0	0.90	0.90
Rasmus Hojgaard	22	0	0.80	0.80
Justin Thomas	30	2	0.72	2.72
Xander Schauffele	30	0	0.69	0.69
Patrick Cantlay	31	0	0.69	0.69
Cameron Smith	30	1	0.61	1.61
Cameron Young	26	0	0.60	0.60
Brooks Koepka	33	5	0.56	5.56
Matt Fitzpatrick	29	1	0.55	1.55
Sam Burns	27	0	0.54	0.54
Nicolai Hojgaard	22	0	0.49	0.49
Will Zalatoris	27	0	0.44	0.44
Hideki Matsuyama	31	1	0.43	1.43
Bryson DeChambeau	30	1	0.41	1.41
Ludvig Aberg	24	0	0.37	0.37
Ryo Hisatsune	21	0	0.31	0.31
Tommy Fleetwood	32	0	0.30	0.30
Min Woo Lee	25	0	0.29	0.29
Sahith Theegala	26	0	0.27	0.27
Tyrrell Hatton	32	0	0.27	0.27
Si Woo Kim	28	0	0.21	0.21
Jason Day	36	1	0.21	1.21
Patrick Reed	33	1	0.19	1.19
Mito Pereira	28	0	0.19	0.19
Corey Conners	31	0	0.18	0.18
Wyndham Clark	30	1	0.18	1.18
Tony Finau	34	0	0.16	0.16
Cameron Davis	28	0	0.16	0.16
Beau Hossler	28	0	0.15	0.15
Denny McCarthy	30	0	0.14	0.14
Rickie Fowler	35	0	0.14	0.14
Max Homa	33	0	0.13	0.13
Russell Henley	34	0	0.12	0.12
Aaron Rai	28	0	0.11	0.11
Christiaan Bezuidenhout	29	0	0.11	0.11
Justin Suh	27	0	0.11	0.11
Emiliano Grillo	31	0	0.11	0.11
Shane Lowry	36	1	0.10	1.10
Dustin Johnson	39	2	0.10	2.10
Talor Gooch	32	0	0.10	0.10
Patrick Rodgers	31	0	0.09	0.09
J.T. Poston	30	0	0.09	0.09
Brian Harman	36	1	0.09	1.09
Taylor Montgomery	28	0	0.08	0.08
Abraham Ancer	32	0	0.08	0.08
Lee Hodges	28	0	0.08	0.08
Adam Svensson	30	0	0.06	0.06
Sepp Straka	30	0	0.06	0.06
Harris English	34	0	0.06	0.06
Vincent Norrman	26	0	0.06	0.06
Adrian Meronk	30	0	0.06	0.06
Keegan Bradley	37	1	0.06	1.06
Harold Varner III	33	0	0.05	0.05
Jordan Smith	31	0	0.05	0.05
Byeong Hun An	32	0	0.04	0.04
Adam Schenk	31	0	0.04	0.04
Adam Hadwin	36	0	0.04	0.04
Andrew Putnam	34	0	0.04	0.04
Cameron Tringale	36	0	0.03	0.03
Mackenzie Hughes	33	0	0.03	0.03
Billy Horschel	37	0	0.03	0.03
Yannik Paul	29	0	0.03	0.03
Adam Scott	43	1	0.03	1.03
Thorbjorn Olesen	34	0	0.03	0.03
Gary Woodland	39	1	0.03	1.03
J.J. Spaun	33	0	0.03	0.03
Nick Taylor	35	0	0.03	0.03
Alexander Bjork	33	0	0.03	0.03
Justin Rose	43	1	0.03	1.03
Mark Hubbard	34	0	0.02	0.02
Jason Kokrak	38	0	0.02	0.02
Dean Burmester	34	0	0.02	0.02
Chris Kirk	38	0	0.02	0.02
Stephan Jaeger	34	0	0.02	0.02
Alex Noren	41	0	0.02	0.02
Ben Griffin	27	0	0.02	0.02
Brendon Todd	38	0	0.02	0.02
Matthieu Pavon	31	0	0.02	0.02
Matt Wallace	33	0	0.02	0.02
Ben Kohles	33	0	0.02	0.02
Ryan Fox	36	0	0.02	0.02
Marc Leishman	40	0	0.02	0.02
Sam Ryder	34	0	0.02	0.02
Luke List	38	0	0.02	0.02
Matt Kuchar	45	0	0.01	0.01
Tiger Woods	48	15	0.01	15.01
Chesson Hadley	36	0	0.01	0.01
Eric Cole	35	0	0.01	0.01
Nicholas Lindheim	39	0	0.01	0.01
Lucas Glover	44	1	0.01	1.01
Phil Mickelson	53	6	0.00	6.00

The list is sorted in terms of projected majors from 1/1/2024 on. Tom Kim leads, with a projected 2.23 majors.

The Process for Determining Future Major Champions

Major championships are the defining feature of professional golf, defining a player’s career across generations. Debate about who the greatest golfer of all time generally ends once Jack’s 18 is brought up. When a golfer wins multiple majors, his career is almost always compared to others with the same major total. Brooks Koepka, once he became the 2023 PGA Champion, suddenly joined the echelon of Seve Ballesteros as 5-time major winners. Pundits discuss who the best players are to have not won a major, indicating that this accomplishment is what truly makes a golfer great.

In addition, young players’ careers are often forecast in terms of major championship potential. When we hear of a young new potential star, the question emerges naturally. How good is this new guy gonna be? Just good enough to win a handful of times on Tour and enjoy a profitable career good? Or multiple majors good?

What hasn’t been done, to my knowledge, is the creation of a systematic process meant to identify which golfers have the best potential to win majors. The goal of this process is to quantify a player’s major championship potential. This is no easy task, but there are five key factors that determine a player’s expected future majors.

• Skill level
• Age
• Past major performance
• Health
• Major Qualifying Status

Skill Level. As Data Golf has shown, the average major winner has been a player who was playing about 1.5 strokes per round better than an average PGA Tour player leading up to the event. In fact, only 6% of the last 113 major winners were playing worse than an average PGA pro in the onset of those majors. Additionally, pre-tournament models and betting odds reflect that the better the player is, the better his chance is at winning a major.

Age. When projecting out a career, age is also important. The vast majority of major champions have been between 23 and 39 years old. While there are a handful of 40+-year-olds who have won majors, only once as a golfer in his 50’s won a major (Phil Mickelson). As players age, their career windows for winning majors shrink. Historically, the prime spot in a career for golfers has been during their early-30’s (30-32). Lately, there are indications this number has moved toward younger golfers, i.e. those around 28-29. Whatever the case, age is a huge factor.

Past Major Performance. There is a tendency for some guys to play better in majors (than their record week-to-week would otherwise suggest), and for some to play worse in majors. Brooks Koepka is a paradigm example of this, having won 5 majors at this point.

Health. Health is similar to age, in that it determines the amount of opportunities left for a golfer to win a(nother) major. This is difficult to project, but the factor is implicit when we look at historic data.

Qualifying Status. This factor has grown in importance with the onset of LIV and the OWGR refusing to award points to these LIV events. Numerous LIV players without exempt status have lost and will continue to lose major opportunities unless something changes. Talor Gooch is a prime example. As a player in his 30’s, the next couple of years will be his best chance to win a major. Currently, he is not exempt in a single major for 2024 despite winning the 2023 LIV Golf individual title.

The five factors are accounted for in the model, which uses a player’s historic skill-level (using Data Golf public strokes-gained data), age (easy to get), and past major performance (using an internal model which projects estimated true majors won). Implicit in this data will be health data, with qualifying status being important mostly to the names on LIV that don’t have exemptions.

The most time-consuming part of the model was the creation of a player/age skill curve (PASC), which measures the normal career of a player as he ages. Regardless of relative skill level, the average player is at the top of his career during a period between age 26 and 35, normally peaking around 30-32. As mentioned earlier, the trend has been for players to peak younger.

The PASC allows us to project out a player’s remaining career. It is by no means perfect, but it does help to compare a player who is very good for 21 (like Tom Kim) vs. one who is in his prime years.

Independent of the PASC is the major performance chart, which looks at how a player has performed in majors so far using an in-house performance model. This is weighted to be important, but not overriding.

Analyzing the Results

Tom Kim is projected to win 2.23 majors in his career according to this model, the most of any golfer moving forward. The factors in Kim’s favorites are numerous. He is young yet still very skilled. Additionally, he has a T2 finish at a major (2023 British Open). Him being healthy and exempt in 2024 to the majors is also a plus.

Contrast Kim (2.23) vs. Ludvig Aberg (0.37). Aberg burst onto the scene with a solid rookie season, but there are some things that the model dislikes about Aberg’s chances. First, his skill-level has actually been worse than Tom Kim’s in each of the last 4 years. Kim has been better, in terms of strokes gained. Adding context to this is that Kim is three years younger than Aberg. Kim’s age 24 season is projecting out to be better than Aberg’s very good age 24 season. Aberg has also not had a top major finish. This leads to more uncertainty regarding his ability to contend in the biggest events. One might assume that Ludvig will contend in majors without problem, but this isn’t always the case. Max Homa didn’t earn his first Top 10 in a major until last year, during his age 33 season.

Gordon Sargent is also projecting out very high, as the model assumes he should win 1.60 majors in his career. At age 20, Sargent has shown elite potential. Collin Morikawa, who has won 2 majors already, is still only 26. He is just entering his prime. Don’t sleep on him. Of all players currently 30 or over, the model still loves Jordan Spieth to win another major or more. Spieth’s performance in majors is underrated. People forget his 2019 PGA and 2021 British Open battles despite not playing great during this point of his career. Even if Spieth has already peaked, he will have a chance to rack up another grand slam event somewhere along the way.

The LIV guy hurt the most by the current OWGR system is Joaquin Niemann. The model has him winning 0.90 majors, but if he can’t receive exemptions over the next couple of years it will hurt his chances (he has qualified for the 2024 British already). So, adjust this score down somewhat.

Lastly, the model is likely underrating Koepka’s major potential. The problem with any model is that it attempts to apply general factors to specific players, and Brooks is anything but general. Koepka’s career is special. He plays at an elite level in majors, and the major performance factor should likely be weighted more heavily for him. But coming into his age 34 season, he has fewer chances to add to his career than one might otherwise think.

Phil Mickelson is projected to win 0.002 majors moving forward. While I wouldn’t write him off completely (he did finish T2 at last year’s Masters), his 6 majors is a great career and likely the end result. However, his new nemesis, Rory McIlroy, has been sitting on 4 majors for 9 seasons. Rory, a consistent top player with strong major results is expected to win 1.08 more majors, which would be behind Mickelson’s career total. This is an interesting dynamic for sure.

Ideas for the Future

The plan is to do this projection yearly and eventually see how accurate these forecasts are. With time, it would also be enlightening to run this model from some point in the past (say 2000 or 2010) and see how accurate the model was.

Some intriguing bets for most career majors (which include majors already won) are:

• Scottie Scheffler (1) vs. Justin Thomas (2). Scheffler is projected to win 2.17 more; Thomas to win 0.72 more. Scheffler leads at the moment, but JT currently has a 1 major lead and there is a famous saying about 1 in the hand being worth more than 2 in the bush.
• Matt Fitzpatrick (1) vs. Viktor Hovland (0). Each is projected to finish with 1.55 career majors. Viktor looks to have more potential, but when can he get that first major?
• Bryson DeChambeau (1) vs. Sungjae Im (0). Sungjae is only 25, just a year older than Ludvig Aberg. Sungjae has a T2 in a major (2020 Masters). Sungjae has been a consistent performer on the PGA Tour. The model is high on Sungjae Im. Bryson, in contrast, has recently battled injury and is already 30. Right now, the model says Sungjae gets 1.42 majors and Bryson gets 1.41.
• Tom Kim (0) vs. Dustin Johnson (2). The model has Kim leading. Tom Kim has many years of prime golf ahead of him; Dustin Johnson has already started to slip. Dustin turns 40 in 2024. He might have one more left in him. But the model thinks Kim has a better chance to win more majors (2.23 vs. 2.10).

Closing Thoughts

Current LIV Golfers are projected to win 0.62 majors in 2024, and this works about to about a 50/50 chance that any current LIV golfer wins at least one major. This may seem small, but the PGA Tour has the larger quantity of top players. I would better the over (i.e., at least 1), in part because I think the model is overlooking Bryson DeChambeau’s recent improvement.

Not all golfers are included on the list above, just the top 100 (or top 98 + Phil & Tiger). There is still a chance a winner comes from outside this list. This model isn’t meant to downplay the chances of anyone left off, it’s just that for purposes of time and space we only included 100 names. If any 2024 major winner does emerge outside this list, we can backward forecast his chances (by looking at his career as of 1/1/2024) and update the table to reflect what his projected chances were coming into 2024.