They faltered, one by one: the underdogs, the rank-and-file competitors, and those obscure names you had to Google just to verify their identities. They might claim they were defeated by the course’s brutal closing stretch, the fierce competition, or the crushing pressure of what was at stake—and perhaps there’s something in each explanation. But in truth, none of that mattered. Because for all our belief that this sport thrives on unpredictability, their fates were etched in stone before the day even began.
RELATED: Scottie Scheffler wins a third career major
That assessment may seem unforgiving to pursuers like Jhonattan Vegas, Alex Noren, Ryo Hisatsune, Alex Smalley, Si Woo Kim, Ryan Fox and Ryan Gerard—all undeniably gifted competitors who have claimed wins and will continue to triumph on golf’s top circuits. Yet majors are a club reserved for the game’s true elite. The championships’ velvet rope cannot be circumvented and its members-only status isn’t breached by fortune or circumstance. The initiation fee is paid in excellence, collected over four merciless days that expose every weakness and celebrate only the most complete mastery of the craft.
It seems easy to say in hindsight. Just Thursday, this PGA Championship appeared a major in name only, peculiar names weighing down its prestige, and leaderboard remaining stubbornly odd through Friday—Scottie Scheffler the lone Goliath swimming in a sea of Davids. Those unfamiliar players served as an indictment of Quail Hollow itself, a course notorious for crowning improbable champions. Yet when the pressure crystallised by Sunday afternoon, only Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau remained—all former major winners, all luminaries of the sport. The pretenders had vanished. No disrespect to those Davids, but certain forces transcend chaos.
RELATED: Rory McIlroy’s weird week ends with skipping media 4 straight days
Not now, at least. Golf is no longer in a stretch where its biggest tournaments are won by its best players. It’s now an era into itself. The past 13 years have witnessed an unprecedented concentration of power—only two players outside the world’s top 40 have hoisted major trophies: Phil Mickelson’s defiance of time at the 2021 PGA Championship and Jimmy Walker’s solitary breakthrough at the 2016 PGA. Even broadening the scope to include those beyond the top 30 adds just three more names to this exclusive fraternity. Those results are seismic when contrasted with previous eras—the decade from 2005 to 2014 produced 10 champions ranked outside the top 40, while the 1995-2004 period yielded an astonishing 12 such victors. Moreover, these earlier outsiders weren’t established players navigating temporary fluctuations—they were genuine bolts from the competitive wilderness like Shaun Micheel, Ben Curtis, YE Yang and Paul Lawrie. Their triumphs were earned yet they remain singular moments frozen in time—cosmic anomalies in the sport’s cosmos that explain why lightning doesn’t strike the same flagstick twice.
Scheffler. Photo: Ross Kinnaird
This evolution defies convention. Golf’s talent pool has never been deeper, with more skilled players competing than ever before. Modern equipment supposedly levelled the playing field, narrowing gaps between the elite and the very good. Yet these beliefs crumble against hard evidence—if truly democratised, we’d see more surprise major winners, not fewer. So what gives? Power and athleticism have overwhelmed nuance and experience in today’s game. It’s no accident that golf’s current stars are its longest hitters, most still in their athletic prime. This shift springs from several sources: set-ups favouring distance, unchecked driving advances, lax equipment regulation, and transformed physical training. The stark contrast between regular tour events, winnable by many, and majors conquered by few, tells a compelling story as well. These points may spark heated debate, but the numbers speak an undeniable truth.
Is this a bad thing, golf’s kingdoms being ruled exclusively by kings? The game has evolved into something akin to men’s professional tennis—the vast field merely numerical wallpaper behind the handful of players with legitimate championship aspirations. This transformation defies one of sport’s most magnetic forces: the unpredictability that elevates underdogs into crowd darlings. Yet professional golf has developed an almost pathological allergy to these Cinderella stories. Unlike other major sports that celebrate the little guy, golf’s entrenched power structure—its governing bodies, broadcast partners, and even its audience—actively recoils from narratives featuring journeymen or rank-and-file professionals, particularly at its most prestigious gatherings. Instead, the sport demands predictable dominance. It is funny, really; a game theoretically built on meritocracy calcified into a stratified competition. It’s not wrong; there was collective worry earlier this week when Thursday’s leaderboard emerged crowded with unfamiliar names, the angst directed not merely at the presence of these interlopers but at the conspicuous absence of golf’s stars.
Inevitably, another outlier will someday break through. Not at Augusta National, where the field is curated with aristocratic precision. Likely not at the US Open, where despite its open qualifying system, those lacking brute force serve as mere ceremonial participants. The Open Championship remains the last bastion of possibility—its emphasis on course management and links experience occasionally neutralising raw power, and the unpredictable weather sometimes banishing half the field to competitive oblivion.
But even this will represent the exception that proves the rule. What we’re witnessing at majors is not a string of coincidences but reality itself. There’s a reason “Tin Cup” is a fictional movie—and an increasingly dated one at that.
