The Ghosts of Major Championships: What Golf’s Greatest “Nearly Men” Tell Us About Greatness

I’ve spent 35 years watching professional golfers chase excellence, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my vantage point – both as a caddie and a correspondent – it’s that talent alone doesn’t guarantee legacy. Some of the finest golfers ever to grip a club have walked away from their careers with a peculiar ache: the knowledge that they were good enough to win majors, just never quite good enough to actually do it.

That sobering reality hit me afresh reading through this list of golf’s greatest “nearly men.” And I think what strikes me most isn’t the heartbreak – though there’s plenty of that – but rather what these careers reveal about the narrow margin between immortality and being forgotten.

The Cruel Mathematics of Major Championships

Here’s what I’ve observed from my years on tour: winning 25, 30, even 31 times on the PGA or European Tour commands respect. It puts you in rarefied air. But in golf – perhaps uniquely among sports – it’s the major championships that carve your name into the record books. Everything else becomes context.

That’s why the article’s ranked list bothers me in the most fascinating way. Consider Harry Cooper, a man who won 30 times on tour, topped the rankings in 1937, and finished top five in a major 11 times. In my experience, that résumé would make most modern tour players jealous. And yet his name barely registers outside golf history circles. Why? Because he never won a major.

“He was good enough to win 30 times on the PGA Tour including no less than seven of them in 1937 when he ended the year top of the rankings.”

That’s excellence by any reasonable measure. But it’s not immortality.

When Bad Luck Becomes a Pattern

What separates a career mishap from a tragedy is repetition. Lee Westwood, the article’s number one pick, had the misfortune – or curse – of compressing his near-misses into an almost unfathomable sequence:

“Between 2008 and 2013 he was particularly close to glory, collecting eight top three finishes in just 21 starts. His greatest run started in late 2009 when he was tied third in both the Open and PGA Championship then opened 2010 with second at the Masters. After T16 at the US Open he was second in the Open. Yes: four near-misses in just five starts.”

I’ve caddied in pressure situations. I’ve watched great players fold and handled my own disappointments. But four chances to win a major in five events? That’s the kind of statistical storm that would drive most players to contemplate whether the golf gods are conspiring against them.

What interests me most isn’t Westwood’s failure to convert – it’s the consistency of his excellence that made those failures so visible. He proved he belonged in the conversation. He just never quite finished the sentence.

The American Problem

Colin Montgomerie’s story is particularly instructive because it reveals something I’ve observed repeatedly during my tenure on tour: excellence doesn’t always travel well. Monty was magnificent in Europe. Absolutely dominant. But transatlantic golf – especially the major championships – has historically favored American-born and American-trained players.

The Scotsman’s second-place finishes in the US Open – three times – tell you something about the nature of his particular curse. He could compete. He just couldn’t quite close the deal stateside. And in golf, where margins are measured in strokes and majors are won by one, that’s the difference between a Hall of Famer and a career marked by “what if?”

I think what’s especially poignant about Monty’s near-miss in the 1992 US Open is that he was third – not second. He had the clubhouse lead early enough that Jack Nicklaus himself offered congratulations. Had he won that day in his fourth major championship, everything changes. The psychology shifts. Confidence replaces doubt.

The Heartbreak That Defines an Era

Then there’s Doug Sanders at St. Andrews in 1970. I won’t dwell on it because the pain is too acute, but this passage captures the essence of why that moment transcends golf:

“Before his attempt he nervously leaned down to remove debris. And then he wafted his putter at the ball in a manner that left those watching gasping in horror.”

That’s not analysis. That’s heartbreak crystallized into prose. I’ve covered 15 Masters. I’ve seen championship pressure do strange things to good golfers. But Sanders’ final hole at the Old Course might be the single most consequential moment in golf’s history of near-misses because it was so visible, so public, and so utterly avoidable.

What We Should Actually Take Away

Here’s what I think matters about this list: it’s not a celebration of failure, but rather a meditation on how extraordinarily difficult it is to win major championships. These aren’t mediocre players who couldn’t get the job done. These are among the finest golfers of their generations.

Cooper, Smith, Sanders, Montgomerie, and Westwood belonged in major championships. They proved that repeatedly. The gap between belonging and winning – between excellence and immortality – is so gossamer-thin that sometimes luck, nerve, and timing matter as much as skill.

What strikes me most, having been around this game for most of my adult life, is that we remember these men not for their failures but for their quality. That’s worth something. Maybe not a major trophy, but it’s not nothing either.