Golf is mostly an individual sport, but each year one of two biennial competitions pits 24 of the top pros in either the Ryder Cup (odd-numbered years) or Presidents Cup (even-numbered years). With competition most weeks being stroke-play based, the match-play team-format of the Cups has caused confusion regarding how to track player success.

For instance, a player’s official record in the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup makes no distinction between team events and singles events. For reference, the first days of competition are between 2-man teams who face off in 18-hole matches. Only on Sunday are individuals paired against each other. This distinction should matter. A player whose record is good (poor) in team-competition may be due to his partner’s play more than his own. Further, each match in a Cup is awarded 1 point which goes to the winner. A draw earns each team 1/2 a point. So if a player is part of a 2-man partnership which wins an alternate shot match on Friday, the 1 point he earns for his team (i.e. America, Europe, International) is partially earned by him and partially earned by his partner. Giving full-credit to both partners over-counts the actual number of points in the competition. This is non-sensical.

To rectify this, partner contests (best ball and alternate shot) should allocate 0.5 points to each member of the winning duo. If there is a draw, 0.25 points are awarded to each of the four competitors. This makes a player’s singles record accurately reflect this format’s added importance. The following tables will show players’ Ryder/Presidents Cup records using this adjusted counting system.

Ryder Cup – All Time Points Leaders

There are multiple ways to rank Cup success. The first way accumulates the points won over the course of a career. This list rewards success at the Ryder Cup, but also the success of getting on the team and getting numerous opportunities to earn points.

United States

Player	Points Won
Billy Casper	15.25
Arnold Palmer	15
Lee Trevino	13.5
Phil Mickelson	13.5
Lanny Wadkins	13.25
Gene Littler	12.25
Jack Nicklaus	11.75
Tom Kite	11.5
Tiger Woods	9.75
Hale Irwin	9

Europe

Player	Points Won
Sergio Garcia	16.5
Nick Faldo	15.75
Colin Montgomerie	15
Bernhard Langer	14.75
Lee Westwood	14
Rory McIlroy	13
Seve Ballesteros	12.75
Jose Maria Olazabal	11.5
Neil Coles	11.25
Ian Poulter	11.25

Ryder Cup – Net Points by Team

Another way to look at Ryder Cup performance is to view it as a zero-sum game. This list recognizes that if you lose a match, your opponent earns a point for his team.

United States

Player	Net Points
Arnold Palmer	+8.5
Billy Casper	+7
Lee Trevino	+7
Sam Snead	+6.5
Gene Littler	+6
Lanny Wadkins	+5.5
Tom Kite	+5.5
Hale Irwin	+5
Tony Lema	+5
Jimmy Demaret	+4.5
Gardner Dickinson	+4.5
Jack Nicklaus	+4.5
J.C. Snead	+4.5

Europe

Player	Net Points
Colin Montgomerie	+8.5
Ian Poulter	+6.5
Sergio Garcia	+5.5
Luke Donald	+4
Bernhard Langer	+3.5
Jose Maria Olazabal	+3.5
Peter Oosterhuis	+3.5
Seve Ballesteros	+3
Nick Faldo	+3
Paul Way	+3
Tommy Fleetwood	+3
Rory McIlroy	+3

The following tables show all players with a Ryder Cup net points total of -4 or worse. These are the worst performers in this competition.

United States

Player	Net Points
Jim Furyk	-5
Bubba Watson	-5
Fuzzy Zoeller	-4.5
Mark O’Meara	-4
Rickie Fowler	-4

Europe

Player	Net Points
Christy O’Connor	-9
Harry Weetman	-6.5
George Will	-6
Dave Thomas	-5.5
Neil Coles	-5
Max Faulkner	-5
Eamonn Darcy	-4.5
Bernard Hunt	-4.5
Mark James	-4.5
Alfred Padgham	-4.5
Sam Torrance	-4.5
Peter Townsend	-4
Tom Haliburton	-4
Matt Fitzpatrick	-4

Presidents Cup – All Time Points Leaders

United States

Player	Points Won
Phil Mickelson	19
Tiger Woods	17.25
Jim Furyk	13.25
Davis Love III	11.25
Steve Stricker	8

Presidents Cup – Net Points by Team

United States

Player	Net Points
Tiger Woods	+8.5
Jim Furyk	+6.5
Davis Love III	+5.5
Phil Mickelson	+4.5

Internationals

Player	Net Points
Mike Weir	+3.0
Steve Elkington	+2.5
Shigeki Maruyama	+2.0
Retief Goosen	+2.0
Geoff Ogilvy	+2.0
Louis Oosthuizen	+2.0
Christiaan Bezuidenhout	+2.0

The Americans haven’t gotten enough credit for their dominance in the Presidents Cup. While Team USA’s (road) Ryder Cup struggles are well documented, the fact it has gone 13-1-1 in the Presidents Cup gets explained away by the assumption the International Team is too overmatched to seriously compete anyway. This is not only circular, it is also misleading. Since 2000, International players (non-Americans and non-Europeans) have won 20 major championships compared to European players having won 23. American players top this list with 64 majors. Basically, while America’s struggles against Europe are surprising, their dominance against the Internationals is even more surprising (90.0% win rate). In Presidents Cups, there have been 20 American players with a net points of +2 or greater; compared to only 7 on the International side with that level of success.

Isolating a player’s contribution

Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup competitions differ from regular tour stroke-play in a number of ways. Players must qualify or be selected to even play. Match play is determined by holes won, not total strokes. The team portion means your partner can help or hurt your chance of winning, and likewise you have an effect on your partner’s record. Additionally, your record of success depends on how well your opponents play.

Further analytics can strip away these incidentals and calculate an estimate of each player’s value in the cup. The one problem is that detailed shot-level info is required. This info has been tracked over the last 6 cups (beginning at the 2021 Ryder Cup).

The below table looks at Net points for each of the last 6 cups and is sorted by Total Net Points.

Overall American Performances: 2021-2026

Patrick Cantlay has played in 26 matches over the course of the last 6 Cups (he’s one of four Americans to have qualified for each) and has added an estimated 3.06 points over this span. If we move further down the right, we can also see a Replacement point total for each player. This metric assumes that the “next man up” would score at the 20th percentile of a regular Cupper, in other words that if we judge each player against a hypothetical replacement player, how good has he been? Cantlay has added an estimated 8.48 points under this scenario, again tops for America since the 2021 Ryder Cup.

Despite facing a lot of criticism for his play in these events, Scottie Scheffler has been a positive factor for Team USA over the years. Not only has he added over 1 net point, he’s been positive in 4 out of 6 Cups he’s played in.

Most of the names at the bottom of this list were only 1 or 2-time Cuppers. Justin Thomas is the exception. JT has played in 5 of the last 6 Cups and only put up positive results in one of them. While Thomas’ overall record is quite good in these events (21-10-5), his actual play (at least since 2021) shows how much results can be dictated by “luck of the draw” elements such as opponent quality and the play of one’s partners.

Overall European Performances: 2021, 2023, 2025

Only playing every other year in Ryder Cups, Europe has collectively been a -0.01 team since 2021. Yes, they’ve gone 2-1 in the Cups, but in terms of overall golf, they’ve played almost identically to the Americans.

Jon Rahm has played the best of anyone for Team Europe, and it’s not particularly close. Justin Rose, third on this list, is a surprise if only because of his age. Ludvig Aberg (4-4-0) bringing up the rear wasn’t what we expected, but again it shows that a player’s W/L/T results in these Cups isn’t always indicative of his actual play.

Overall Internationals Performances: 2022, 2024, 2026

Si Woo Kim has been Team INT’s bright spot over the past few years, with Sungjae Im (and Tom Kim) not too far behind. The Internationals are a bit unlucky to have not won a Cup despite playing Team USA tough the last two Presidents Cups, but they’ve been far weaker at the bottom at the roster and this comes back to haunt them.

Over the past 3 Cups, the Internationals have played to a collective -6.11 points (this compounds when you realize their opponent is the inverse of this [+6.11] and that INT players are playing with weaker partners).

There have been 89 Masters tournaments (through 2025). The Masters is unique among the majors in that it has only been played on one course. While the course has been updated throughout the years, it is still routed the same way it was since its first year. Same holes, same pars, etc. Some have been lengthened, some slopes have changed, etc.

The first chart shows the winning scores (green), the average running of winning scores (blue) and the 10-year average winning score (yellow) by year.

There has been a downward trend in winning score. The lowest score, 268 (-20), was by Dustin Johnson in 2020. The current 10-year average is at 276.4 (-11.6).

Next, we look at the winning score distribution. Both total score and to par are shown.

The next chart shows how often the winning score is at a certain number.

288 is Even par. There have only been 3 winning scores over par at the Masters, with the most recent being Zach Johnson in 2007.

Through the 2026 British Open. There have been 478 total majors played among the four big events.

Winning a golf major is partly based upon luck. Not only does a player have to play exceptionally well, he also has to avoid another player having a career week. We know from history that some runners-up didn’t lose because of sub-optimal play, they just got beat by an exceptional performance. In the 2016 British Open, Phil Mickelson finished -17, or 11 shots better than everyone else except Henrik Stenson. The Swede, at -20, turned in an all-timer to win the Claret Jug. Most other years, Lefty’s performance would have been enough to win. Is there a way we can quantify this?

Yes. Enter expected majors. An expected major is a number between 0 and 1 telling us how likely it is that a player’s 72-hole performance was good enough to win a golf major. For most players in any major, this will be 0. Even players that reach as high up as 5th place after 72 holes aren’t really performing well enough to win. But for the top 3-5 spots in most majors, players will produce an expected major score above 0 (also called major share) which shows how good the performance is when judged across all other major championships throughout the years.

Expected majors, or major shares, are calculated using a blend of strokes-gained and an adjusted Gaussian distribution allowing us to place each major championship performance along a bell curve. Again, we really only care about the far right end of that curve…those who played well enough to hypothetically win.

These major championship shares are additive, meaning a player’s career can be analyzed by adding these major championship shares together across all his majors. Summing these expected wins into a total provides more context to major performance over the course of a career, highlighting the fact that some golfers’ major totals are at least partially “luck” derived.

We’ll first start with the list of active players, with active indicating a player who is younger than 50 years old and still competing for major championships. In order to qualify for this list the player also must have played well enough to generate at least 0.01 expected majors. The first table shows all currently-active major winners.

There are only four active golfers with more than 2 majors, showing how difficult it is for someone to truly have an elite career. Comparing Scottie Scheffler (4 majors) with Jordan Spieth (3), we see that they’ve actually been expected to win the same number (3.958). As one cannot win a partial major in reality, what this really shows is that Scheffler has been about right on track given his performance, and Jordan is actually slightly unlucky to have only won 3 majors. Looking at the 11 majors he’s played well enough in to potentially win, we can see that the 2021 British Open and 2018 Masters are the events that he has most been harmed by having done well in the same event where the champion played at an above-median norm.

2021 British Open

• Collin Morikawa: 0.865
• Jordan Spieth: 0.642

2018 Masters

• Patrick Reed: 0.627
• Rickie Fowler: 0.453
• Jordan Spieth: 0.280

Other notable things include the fact that one-time major champion Louis Oosthuizen has more expected majors (2.651) than 8 of the 9 active golfers with 2 majors. Look, luck is involved here. Louis winning the “runner-up grand slam” and playing well enough to potentially win in 9 separate majors shows he’s had a great career in the big events, even if his 2010 British Open is the only actual title. Jason Day and Justin Rose can make the same claim (single winners with better expected wins than 8 of 9 2-time champs).

The next table is of active players who have played well enough in majors to potentially win one, but just haven’t for whatever reason.

Rickie Fowler and Tommy Fleetwood have gotten some criticism of not having what it takes to “win the big one,” but both have had careers where you’d expect one of their fine finishes to result in a major. For Rickie, we saw he also played well at the 2018 Masters and would be expected to win 45.3% of the time given his 72-hole total, the average score that event, and standard deviation of scores. Other events where Rickie had a chance to win include the 2014 British Open (35.5%) and 2014 PGA (7.60%) alongside 3 others (albeit very low chances on these: 2011 British, 2014 U.S. Open, 2017 PGA).

Next we will look at all time rankings.

For all 21 golfers who have won at least 5 majors, we show each’s expected majors alongside his wins as well as the difference between actual and expected major championships.

Jack Nicklaus, the winner of 18 majors, played well enough to have “deserved” 18.8 majors. This validates what we all know. Jack, who also had 19 runner-up finishes in majors, has proven himself to be the best major champion golfer in history.

As we go through the list, look at the differences between a player’s actual career and what it “should” have been. Walter Hagen was able to get 11 wins despite only deserving 7.3, while Phil Mickelson has been an even better career player (8.1 expected majors) than his actual results (6 wins).

The first column, “Posts,” counts the number of majors a player finished that gave him at least a 0.1% chance of winning. Nicklaus’s completed 53 majors where his 72-hole total was good enough to at least give him a chance to win, 21 more than second-place Tiger Woods.

When it comes to winning majors, the era someone plays in matters. It is tougher to win a major today when compared to the earliest years of the British and U.S. Opens, although this isn’t linear as there was a dip in “competitiveness” in the 1940’s and 1980’s. This doesn’t mean that we’re assuming that golfers today are better or worse than those from other eras. Equipment changes, course maintenance evolution, economic growth and even the introduction of the airplane and speedy international travel allowing for deeper fields have made the game much different than what it was in 1860. We’ve kept all those variables as is. What we’re purely looking at it how difficult a major championship is to win based on how well the field plays. A small field (as the early British and U.S. Opens were) made these tournaments easier to win and harder for the winner to prove he actually separated from a full field. Additionally, when there are tournaments which don’t have much separation at the top, this indicates the lack of elite closing and widens the potential for a surprise winner. Geoff Ogilvy at the 2006 U.S. Open needed players around him to double-bogey the final hole to seal his win. The 2004 PGA Championship saw a number of players fail to close, leading to a 3-man playoff won by Vijay Singh¹. Some eras see majors that are like this…the 2000’s aside from the dominant Tiger Woods performances were often this way…while other eras seem to showcase elite golfers rising to the occasion and validating their major championships by strong finishes. The 2020’s are currently one of those eras, with recent winners nearly always separating themselves².

The most dominant performance in a major is Tiger Woods’s 15-stroke win at the 2000 U.S. Open. Unsurprisingly, this tournament “sets the curve” when it comes to grading other performances. It was truly historic. Henrik Stenson’s 2016 British Open victory comes in second, and the Golden Bear has three performances in the top 10. Note that Nicklaus’s 1977 British Open play, which is 10th in our all time list, came in a second-place finish to Tom Watson (whose play that week comes in fifth all time). Tiger’s 12-shot 1997 Masters “only” places 7th all time, in part due to the closest pursuers not playing as well as the field average would project³.

The top win share earners by particular major is shown above. Tiger leads in the Masters, Hogan in the U.S. Open, and Nicklaus leads in the British Open and PGA Championship. Among active players (those still competitive and relevant), Scottie Scheffler is already the 9th best Masters performer, and Brooks Koepka is the 4th best in the PGA.

Speaking of the PGA Championship, that major was match-play for its first 39 years. Win shares had to be calculated differently for those tournaments, but they are included as part of the estimated majors in the above tables.

The best anyone has done in any particular tournament is Jack Nicklaus at the British. Nicklaus performed well enough to win an expected 6.59 Claret Jugs, although in reality this was the major he won the least, finishing with 3 actual British Open championships.

A few other bits of info. The most-dominant performance in a decade was Tiger Woods in the 2000’s. Tiger won 12 majors, but he “earned” 11.07 of them. This is just further confirmation of how good he was in that era. He didn’t really luck out to get to 12 over that 40-major stretch⁴. Jack Nicklaus in the 1970’s didn’t quite match this feat, but at 9.52 win shares he too was incredible during his prime. Ultimately, Jack’s durability (he was highly competitive in the 1960’s and 1980’s as well) is what produced the greatest all-time career in the majors.

Only Ben Hogan has the most win shares in 2 separate decades, doing so in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The best major performer in the 2010’s may surprise some people. While Rory, Brooks, and Jordan gave it a run during their respective peaks that decade, they were all a bit behind Phil Mickelson, who should have won 3.47 majors (Lefty only won 2 from 2010-2019). Through 2026, Scottie Scheffler is at 3.96 expected majors. Should he continue on his pace over the next three seasons, he would land at about 5.7 expected majors over the 2020’s.

There’s a handful of one-time major champions who were incredibly fortunate to have won. The inaugural U.S. Open champ Horace Rawlins takes the cake here (his 2-stroke victory was in a limited and weak field and earned a 0.002 expected win share), but more recent examples include Keegan Bradley (0.331 win shares), Paul Lawrie (0.215), and Webb Simpson (0.138). Each of these men had one good shot to close a major, so good for them for doing so. On the flip side, the unluckiest non-major winner is Doug Sanders. Sanders played well enough to win 2.022 majors, but his best finish was only second place. Harry Cooper (1.885), the English-born American who was in his prime during the interwar period, was able to put up 12 posts good enough to have a shot, but none earned him a trophy. His closest chance was in the 1936 U.S. Open. In recent years, Colin Montgomerie (1.452) and Chris DiMarco (1.389) have gotten the short end of the stick. DiMarco in particular was hurt by having his best performances come up against Tiger Woods (at the ’05 Masters and ’06 British). In total, we’ve calculated that 618 golfers have put up a score that had a chance of winning a major, with 236 different men actually coming away with at least one.

Looking at expected majors only, here is the top 10 all-time. What a difference in perspective we might have had reality mirrored what was expected.

1. Jack Nicklaus: 18.84
2. Tiger Woods: 14.06
3. Ben Hogan: 9.26
4. Arnold Palmer: 8.18
5. Phil Mickelson: 8.14
6. Tom Watson: 7.85
7. Walter Hagen: 7.33
8. Sam Snead: 7.05
9. Gene Sarazen: 6.79
10. J.H. Taylor: 6.42

This list sees Phil as a top 5 golfer all-time (!) and Gary Player outside this list (11th). Bobby Jones is also down the list (16th), though he also had limited opportunities (never played the PGA, the Masters was started by him after his prime, etc.). In fact one area that makes comparing these things challenging is that the majors have developed over time. The game didn’t become as worldwide as it is until after WWII, the PGA used to be played simultaneously with the British Open, etc. Some of this works itself out well enough (majors in the past may have been easier to win, but players often had fewer opportunities to play in all four in the same season).

1. The winning score was -8, but that Sunday four different players were -10 or better at some point in their rounds. Stephen Ames, Chris DiMarco, Justin Leonard, and Vijay Singh himself had great chances to win before any potential playoff and couldn’t play well in that pressure. Ernie Els bogeyed 18 to finish -7, one spot shy of a playoff. After capturing this distribution of 72-hole scores, we estimate that Singh’s performance only wins 3.87% of the time in a major. ↩︎
2. Take 2024. Scottie Scheffler earned 0.9281 win shares by closing the door with a 4-stroke Masters victory over Ludvig Aberg. Xander Schauffele got to -21 at Valhalla to win by a stroke over an incredible charge from Bryson DeChambeau. Schauffele’s win share for his PGA was 0.7547. Speaking of Bryson, his U.S. Open wasn’t flawless but he still earned 0.5767 shares. Rory McIlroy’s late bogeys cost him a chance at a major. Last, Xander closed the British Open in style to win the Claret Jug. He earned 0.7849 win shares in his 2-stroke win, holding off charges from Justin Rose and Billy Horschel. Other years, the play of Aberg, DeChambeau (at the PGA), McIlroy, Rose, and Horschel would have been enough to get them majors, but instead they watched as someone else’s play exceeded expectation. ↩︎
3. Woods’ ’97 Masters performance would still be expected to win by 8 or 9 strokes in a median year. ↩︎
4. Woods only played in 38 of those majors, missing the 2008 British Open and 2008 PGA Championship due to injury. ↩︎

Updated after the 2026 British Open. What is presented below will be the betting market’s cumulative expected major wins for players. Note that historic betting odds only date back to 1985, so this won’t cover many of the greats, and that more than a few players have their careers intersected by beginning at this time.

Since 1985, the table below shows how many major championships the betting market predicted would be won by each golfer the morning the tournament began. For instance, Tiger Woods’s odds were such that the market collectively set him to have 11.265 majors over his career. The idea of using betting odds to predict major championship expectation stems from the belief that betting markets are at least moderately efficient. Bettors are trying to win money, so prices get shaved down to rational levels and this produces information that is helpful in understanding exactly how realistic it was for a golfer to win any particular major.

The list cuts off at Paul Azinger for the sake of space, but this shows the top 36 golfers in terms of predicted majors from 1985 – present. For more on the methodology, scroll to the bottom. For some names, such as Tom Watson, there will be a major total that is different from his actual career total (Tom had 0 majors?). But mentioned earlier, this is data from the period from 1985 and after. Some golfers have their careers intersected by this cutoff date.

The question often comes up, “who is the best player to never have won a major?” Looking at this list gives us a good answer, at least for the most recent 41 years of golf.

• Lee Westwood (1.578)
• Colin Montgomerie (1.349)
• Rickie Fowler (1.174)
• Luke Donald (1.024)
• Paul Casey (0.845)
• Matt Kuchar (0.837)
• Tommy Fleetwood (0.799)
• Patrick Cantlay (0.774)

Lee Westwood, with nearly 1.6 expected majors, is the definitive answer as to who is the best to never win one, at least in the modern era of golf. Monty is second, with Rickie (still in his 30’s) coming in as the highest on this list with a realistic chance to eventually come off it. Only four players over this era have been expected to win at least 1 major but aren’t major champions. Many of the “best to never win a major” haven’t actually had the types of careers expected to win one.

Methodology

Using betting odds as a corollary for projected winning percentage has a few assumptions. One is that the market is efficient (enough) to be useful. If a player is wildly misjudged by bettors, this would make his estimated majors won quite off-base. The second assumption is that the cut taken by the bookmakers can be accounted for. This is more than a math problem. Because each player’s betting odds will add up to more than 1, an adjustment factor has to be made. The question is whether this adjustment (which can be significant toward the top of the favorites) is accurate. While these issues could have an effect on the numbers, it’s likely that this effect isn’t large enough to matter.¹

While the odds are from 1985 and after, another issue is that before the mid-2010’s, not every tournament has a full set of historic odds. Many had only 30 to 40 golfers available for betting the further back you go in time. In other words, there wasn’t the option to gamble on any particular player in the field until recently, meaning we have a number of tournaments where there was a “Field” option and there have been 15 total major championships over this time frame which didn’t have pretournament odds listed. So, the historic odds data was supplemented by implementing artificial odds for players not listed in majors during these prior years. These artificial odds were applied based on a player’s Data Golf or OWGR ranking at the time of the tournament.

Since the Tiger Era

On Thanksgiving 2009, the Tiger era effectively ended (though we may not have known it at the time), as the scandal around his personal life affected his success on the golf course, particularly in majors. He was no longer dominant, and others took advantage. Here is what the market sees as the top 15 players from 2010 – on (beginning at the 2010 Masters).

15. Bryson DeChambeau (1.041 expected majors, 2 actual). Bryson has overperformed in majors, grabbing two U.S. Opens though his second was a bit closer than his 2020 victory. He has also played well in the PGA, finishing second in both 2024 and 2025.

14. Rickie Fowler (1.174 expected majors, 0 actual). Fowler is the only player from this specific era (2010 – present) to not record a major victory. Though he does have a Players, Rickie’s career will likely be a bit underrated if he never does win a grand slam event.

13. Xander Schauffele (1.234 expected majors, 2 actual). Xander made it count in 2024, grabbing two majors while playing his best golf.

12. Justin Thomas (1.235 expected majors, 2 actual). JT, Xander, and Bryson are all similar in terms of age, expected majors, and actual majors. It will be interesting to see which, if any, break from this group of 2-time winners.

11. Brooks Koepka (1.251 expected majors, 5 actual). Is Brooks actually done winning majors? The market never caught up to his major dominance, but since his 2023 PGA he hasn’t really contended in them.

10. Adam Scott (1.291 expected majors, 1 actual). Scott has played in more majors than just this era, and as he ages his overall ranking will only decline as he gets passed by those still in their 30’s.

9. Justin Rose (1.395 expected majors, 1 actual). Very similar to Adam Scott, though Rose has contended in quite a few majors recently. I doubt he gets another, but who knows.

8. Jason Day (1.465 expected majors, 1 actual). Even before winning the 2015 PGA, Day was a popular player to win a major given his competitiveness in them.

7. Phil Mickelson (1.470 expected majors, 3 actual). What’s crazy is that Phil turned 40 in 2010, so this is only a small part of his illustrious career. While his earlier days were tied to heartbreak in the majors, he captured 3 majors in his age 40 season or older.

6. Jon Rahm (1.865 expected majors, 2 actual). Rahm has been consistently good, and his 2026 season is projected to be his third-best overall per the betting market for majors.

5. Jordan Spieth (1.926 expected majors, 3 actual). Easily one of the more surprising drop-offs, Spieth hasn’t been a real factor since 2021. One can’t write him off completely, but he’s gone from elite to really good to now mediocre.

4. Tiger Woods (2.031 expected majors, 1 actual). The fact Woods has still been the fourth-best player in the game following the end of his “era” is kind of funny I suppose (and would be higher if we capped this from say, 2010 – 2019). Some of this may have been due to the market overvaluing his pre-2009 crash reputation, but he was an elite player in 2012, 2013, 2018, and 2019.

3. Dustin Johnson (2.197 expected majors, 2 actual). For all of DJ’s blown chances, him winning 2 is about where you’d expect a player of his caliber to be. DJ emerged as a potential “next Tiger Woods” at the 2010 U.S. Open but famously collapsed that Sunday. If he never wins another, he will still go down as a tremendous talent.

2. Scottie Scheffler (2.285 expected majors, 4 actual). Scheffler has emerged as the closest thing to Tiger in terms of the market’s predictions for a major. He has sped up this list to reach second place, and while he is a ways back from #1 still, will continue adding expected majors and likely actual ones as well. He is just 30 years old.

1. Rory McIlroy (4.038 expected majors, 6 actual). There is some argument to make that this has been the “Rory era,” though it has not been smooth sailing. McIlroy has had bouts as the #1 golfer but has also been behind (at different times): Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson, and Jason Day. He figured out Augusta National to complete the Career Grand Slam and hasn’t aged out of his prime yet. At the close of this year he will be a +4 expected major winner for his career.

Efficiency of the Market

If we break down the field into 11 “tiers” of golfers, we see that the break-down of winners for each tier tracks fairly well (but not perfectly) with who ended up winning.

The tiers toward the left, starting with “a”, see fewer cumulative expected and actual wins because there are so few times a golfer has had market-estimated win percentages above 20%. As we move rightward, there are more golfers with odds in the 10% range, then 5%, and so on to make the curves peak around tiers “e” and “f”, which corresponds to an average win range of 3.75% and 1.88% respectively. This declines as we get to the lower win estimates, as each golfer’s low win estimate drops the tier’s collective chance of winning despite there being more golfers at those levels. About 1/3 of all golfers in a major have a less than 0.08% chance of winning according to the odds (tier “k”), with only 2 actually having gotten it done from this tier.

Pre-Tournament Betting Favorites

Here is the list of players over this era who have been the pre-tournament favorite (lists those with at least 3 such instances):

• Tiger Woods (59)
• Scottie Scheffler (16)
• Greg Norman (15)
• Rory McIlroy (15)
• Nick Faldo (12)
• Dustin Johnson (7)
• Seve Ballesteros (5)
• Jordan Spieth (4)
• Ernie Els (3)
• Bernhard Langer (3)
• Jason Day (3)

Tiger accounts for nearly 36% of the total, despite not turning pro until 1997 (the list starts in 1985), battling injuries, and then aging out of his prime by his 40’s (he turned 50 last December). This is further confirmation of the impact he had in the minds of golf fans…he was the presumptive favorite for so long.

Scottie is on a decent pace himself, having passed Rory and Greg by the end of 2026. Will Rory ever add to this? He’s been playing very good golf, but unless Scottie comes back to the pack, it is tough to see how the older McIlroy would ever pass him again as the pre-tourney favorite. Perhaps his recent success at Augusta National will stick in bettors’ minds next April. Between the two of them, either Scheffler or McIlroy has been the pre-tourney betting favorite for the last 19 majors. Scottie is on a run of 12-in-a-row as the favorite, corresponding to 10 straight majors where he has market-derived winning odds of greater than 10%.

Long Shots

Aaron Rai’s 2026 PGA victory was quite unexpected. Rai came in with +30000 odds, which was tied for 67th pre-tournament. Phil Mickelson at the 2021 PGA was similar (+25000, T68), but before that you have to go back to Michael Campbell at the 2005 U.S. Open (unlisted, but estimated it would have been around +92000) to find someone a bigger underdog than Rai.

While going back throughout this era brings with it estimated odds (not all players were listed in older majors, as these events allowed you to bet on the “FIELD”, so we used stats to estimate odds for each player in the field), there was a period from 1999-2005 (smack dab in the Tiger era) which saw unlisted and unlikely golfers win majors. Paul Lawrie in 1999 at Carnoustie (estimated 0.12% win expectation), Shaun Micheel at Oak Hill in 2003 (0.16%), and Todd Hamilton at Troon in 2004 (0.15%) are just a few of the names. Others include the aforementioned Michael Campbell at Pinehurst (0.09%), Ben Curtis at Royal St. George in 2003 (0.04%), and of course Rich Beem at Hazeltine in 2002 (0.03%). Beemer was estimated to win that event only 1 time out of about 3,000 coming in and had a career major win estimate of 0.034 (over 41 events played).

Long shots make the game of golf more exciting. While rare, getting a super unlikely champion makes the event more serious (compared to say, tennis, where unranked contestants have almost no shot at winning the trophy). Even other events which feature upsets, such as the NCAA Tournament, rarely if ever award the trophy to a true long shot. In 2026, the winner of the PGA was the 67th-most likely to win, the winner of U.S. Open the 17th-most likely, and the British winner the 54th-most likely. A lot can happen over 72 holes that are tough to predict, making the sport compelling.

Here is the top 10 in the standings for 2026:

1. Jon Rahm – 1,057.54
2. Bryson DeChambeau – 788.70
3. Joaquin Niemann – 565.19
4. Lucas Herbert – 552.94
5. Tyrrell Hatton – 462.23
6. Thomas Detry – 363.55
7. Anthony Kim – 320.31
8. Sergio Garcia – 320.10
9. David Puig – 314.82
10. Scott Vincent – 299.46

For the third time in three seasons, Jon Rahm won the individual LIV Golf title. Rahm wrapped things up after 11 events. Rahm, DeChambeau, Niemann, and Herbert all won 2 events. Hatton and Kim also won an event. The two players to win an event but not finish in the top 10 of the standings were Elvis Smylie (13) and Michael La Sasso (14).

Strokes gained numbers (per event) on LIV are as follows:

1. Jon Rahm: +2.18
2. Bryson DeChambeau: +1.75
3. Lucas Herbert +1.37
4. Joaquin Niemann +1.30
5. Scott Vincent +1.30
6. Thomas Detry +1.24
7. Branden Grace +1.16
8. Tyrrell Hatton + 1.11
9. David Puig +0.99
10. Marc Leishman +0.99

Career Achievements

The points system internal to LIV changed in 2026, so we are now tracking career points in reference to first place that tournament. In other words, for each tournament in LIV, the winner receives 1 point and each subsequent place receives the proportion of actual points in relation to first. The below list is sorted in terms of wins then points.

LIV Golfer	Wins	Entries	Win %	Points	Avg. Pts.
Joaquin Niemann	9	55	0.164	17.2	0.31
Bryson DeChambeau	5	57	0.088	14.66	0.26
Brooks Koepka	5	45	0.111	9.95	0.22
Jon Rahm	4	38	0.105	16.82	0.44
Talor Gooch	4	58	0.069	12.52	0.22
Cameron Smith	3	55	0.055	11.64	0.21
Dustin Johnson	3	58	0.052	11.16	0.19
Sergio Garcia	2	58	0.034	11.51	0.2
Dean Burmester	2	51	0.039	8.77	0.17
Tyrrell Hatton	2	37	0.054	7.65	0.21
Lucas Herbert	2	38	0.053	5.75	0.15
Patrick Reed	1	45	0.022	9.18	0.2
Carlos Ortiz	1	57	0.018	8.8	0.15
Abraham Ancer	1	57	0.018	7.83	0.14
Sebastian Munoz	1	51	0.02	7.77	0.15
Branden Grace	1	57	0.018	7.32	0.13
Marc Leishman	1	55	0.018	6.69	0.12
Harold Varner III	1	55	0.018	6.65	0.12
Charles Howell III	1	52	0.019	6.25	0.12
Charl Schwartzel	1	58	0.017	5.37	0.09
Adrian Meronk	1	38	0.026	3.9	0.1
Brendan Steele	1	51	0.02	3.88	0.08
Henrik Stenson	1	43	0.023	3.19	0.07
Danny Lee	1	51	0.02	2.29	0.04
Eugenio Chacarra	1	32	0.031	2.27	0.07
Anthony Kim	1	36	0.028	1.6	0.04
Elvis Smylie	1	9	0.111	1.33	0.15
Michael La Sasso	1	12	0.083	1.29	0.11
Louis Oosthuizen	0	56	0	7.38	0.13
Anirban Lahiri	0	54	0	7.18	0.13
Peter Uihlein	0	58	0	7.07	0.12
Paul Casey	0	53	0	6.51	0.12
David Puig	0	53	0	5.71	0.11
Matthew Wolff	0	55	0	5.69	0.1
Richard Bland	0	58	0	5.68	0.1
Cameron Tringale	0	55	0	4.93	0.09
Thomas Pieters	0	51	0	4.44	0.09
Jason Kokrak	0	56	0	3.94	0.07
Mito Pereira	0	39	0	3.43	0.09
Scott Vincent	0	45	0	3.23	0.07
Bubba Watson	0	51	0	3.1	0.06
Lee Westwood	0	56	0	3.08	0.06
Graeme McDowell	0	57	0	3.01	0.05
Sam Horsfield	0	50	0	2.56	0.05
Phil Mickelson	0	46	0	2.52	0.05
Tom McKibbin	0	25	0	2.48	0.1
Kevin Na	0	46	0	2.45	0.05
Ian Poulter	0	58	0	2.26	0.04
Caleb Surratt	0	38	0	2.22	0.06
Josele Ballester	0	18	0	2.12	0.12
Jinichiro Kozuma	0	24	0	1.82	0.08
Thomas Detry	0	12	0	1.82	0.15
Martin Kaymer	0	54	0	1.78	0.03
Laurie Canter	0	31	0	1.64	0.05
Matt Jones	0	46	0	1.6	0.03
Pat Perez	0	32	0	1.44	0.05
Richard T. Lee	0	12	0	1.24	0.1
Andy Ogletree	0	29	0	1.21	0.04
Ben Campbell	0	24	0	1.09	0.05
Byeong Hun An	0	12	0	0.79	0.07
Bernd Wiesberger	0	20	0	0.75	0.04
Hennie Du Plessis	0	3	0	0.75	0.25
Younghan Song	0	13	0	0.62	0.05
Victor Perez	0	11	0	0.62	0.06
Sihwan Kim	0	19	0	0.6	0.03
Chase Koepka	0	20	0	0.53	0.03
Luis Masaveu	0	21	0	0.52	0.02
Justin Harding	0	3	0	0.5	0.17
Yosuke Asaji	0	12	0	0.45	0.04
James Piot	0	20	0	0.43	0.02
Bjorn Hellgren	0	12	0	0.39	0.03
Adrian Otaegui	0	3	0	0.38	0.13
John Catlin	0	8	0	0.35	0.04
Turk Pettit	0	7	0	0.35	0.05
Oliver Bekker	0	1	0	0.33	0.33
Travis Smyth	0	9	0	0.26	0.03
Miguel Tabuena	0	12	0	0.25	0.02
Minkyu Kim	0	13	0	0.24	0.02
Jediah Morgan	0	20	0	0.23	0.01
Chieh-Po Lee	0	13	0	0.23	0.02
Sadom Kaewkanjana	0	7	0	0.18	0.03
Yuki Inamori	0	2	0	0.18	0.09
Kalle Samooja	0	13	0	0.16	0.01
Doyeob Mun	0	5	0	0.15	0.03
Ryosuke Kinoshita	0	3	0	0.15	0.05
Pablo Larrazabal	0	1	0	0.15	0.15
Wade Ormsby	0	12	0	0.1	0.01
Phachara Khongwatmai	0	7	0	0.1	0.01
Hideto Tanihara	0	5	0	0.08	0.02
Martin Vorster	0	2	0	0.08	0.04
Kieran Vincent	0	13	0	0.07	0.01
Shaun Norris	0	7	0	0.05	0.01
Ben Schmidt	0	2	0	0.05	0.03
JC Ritchie	0	1	0	0.05	0.05
Jeong Woo Ham	0	1	0	0.05	0.05
Yubin Jang	0	13	0	0.03	0
Max Rottluff	0	3	0	0.03	0.01
Ollie Schniederjans	0	5	0	0.02	0
Hudson Swafford	0	20	0	0	0
Frederik Kjettrup	0	12	0	0	0
Blake Windred	0	2	0	0	0
Ian Snyman	0	2	0	0	0
Itthipat Buranatanyarat	0	2	0	0	0
Kevin Yuan	0	1	0	0	0
Oliver Fisher	0	1	0	0	0
Ratchanon Chantananuwat	0	1	0	0	0
Shergo Al Kurdi	0	1	0	0	0
Viraj Madappa	0	1	0	0	0

Not only does Niemann have the greatest share of LIV points in the league’s history, he also has the most wins with 9. No one else has more than 5 (DeChambeau, Koepka). Of the six players who have played in each LIV round since its inception; Talor Gooch, Sergio Garcia, and Dustin Johnson make the top 10 in point share. The others are Ian Poulter, Peter Uihlein and Richard Bland.

108 players have competed as an individual in LIV Golf (others may have competed as part of a team following a WD, but they aren’t included in the above list). Much has been said about the league, but what can’t be denied is that it has made an impact in the game and represents a different vision for professional golf.

What the future holds for LIV is TBD, with PIF funding going away and there likely being a number of players looking to leave the league after 2026. Can the league survive as (effectively) a player-run independent organization? How will the rest of the golf world react? Regardless, the first five seasons of LIV brought with it some interesting golf and off-course dynamics.

This landing page is for golf entries. The data presented is not likely to be easily found elsewhere. Click on links below for more detail.

Future Major Projections (for 2027)

Future Major Projections (for 2026)

Future Majors Projections (for 2025)

Future Major Projections (for 2024)

Expected Majors (Based Upon Pre-Tournament Odds)

Expected Majors (Based Upon Actual Play)

Top Major Performers

Masters Winning Scores

Team Golf – Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup

LIV Tour Achievements