After ranking the 10 best golfers of all-time last month, you knew another list was coming.
No, we aren’t talking about the 10 worst golfers in history, although I might know a guy or two from my Tuesday men’s league who would be contenders for that list.
We are talking about the most overrated golfers ever. This isn’t about players like Charles Howell III who underachieved relative to high expectations. This is about players who get talked about with reverence despite their résumé not deserving that level of praise.
Of course, anyone who reaches the PGA or LPGA tour is among the tiniest sliver of outstanding golfers on the planet. Just to make it there is a remarkable achievement. To win at that level puts you into an even more elite category very few golfers reach.
But golf, like all sports, is an entertainment product. A part of that entertainment product is judging performance. And when status, popularity and reverence exceed performance inside the ropes, it’s only fair to say that certain golfers throughout history have been overrated.
Without further delay, here are 10 players who get more credit than they deserve.
10. Rickie Fowler
I’m cautious putting Fowler here because I think most golf fans have come to recognize that he is a good player who falls well below many of his peers.
Fowler’s PGA Tour win rate is under two percent (six victories in 345 starts) and he has never closed the door on a major. His American teams are 1-4 in Ryder Cups he plays in so he isn’t bolstered by an outstanding team golf record.
He’s earned more than $50 million on the course, won a Players Championship and was consistently a top-10 player in the world throughout much of the 2010s but Fowler’s résumé is clearly behind the likes of Matt Kuchar and Webb Simpson. A lot of golf fans wouldn’t know that based on Fowler’s accolades.
9. Davis Love III
DL3 won 21 times on the PGA Tour and earned a major victory plus two Players Championships, getting his way into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
It’s a bit misleading, however, as he racked up a lot of wins on lower-tier events. Five of his wins came at Harbour Town, three in Greensboro.
And in 101 major starts, Love only managed eight top-five finishes during an era that wasn’t as deep as it is today. He missed almost 40 percent of his major cuts as well.
He was a very good player and certainly ahead of others on this list but Love is among the weakest HOF inductees in American golf. Dustin Johnson, for example, is at least one tier ahead of him.
8. Luke Donald
I reached out to a couple of people to hear whom they thought was overrated. The names Luke Donald and Lee Westwood came up multiple times. Both players reached No. 1 in the world but never won a major.
I think Donald is more overrated than Westwood. Donald gets tagged as “former No. 1” every time he takes a breath but he only won five times on the PGA Tour and 17 times around the world. He never had a realistic shot to win a major at any point. Donald had one great year where he won the money list but everything else was well below that standard.
Westwood won 44 times around the world and was constantly in contention at majors. You could make a case for him on this list but he was a significantly better player than Donald and they both get thrown into the same category.
7. Sergio Garcia
With a PGA Tour win rate of under three percent (11 victories in 406 starts), Garcia is definitely behind many of his peers in the one-major-win category. Love III and Tom Kite, for example, have better résumés than Garcia.
He does get considerable kudos for the 28.5 career Ryder Cup points, winning the Masters and capturing a Players Championship. But Garcia never ranked in the top three of the Tour money list for any given season and just didn’t win enough to be deemed a legendary player outside of the Ryder Cup.
6. Michelle Wie
Michelle Wie (now Michelle Wie West) figured to be a game-changing figure for women’s golf when she burst onto the scene as the youngest player to ever make the cut on the LPGA Tour.
While she did win the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open, Wie’s career really never got off the ground relative to the monstrous expectations. She won just five times despite regularly being talked about as one of the top players in women’s golf.
I do give her a slight pass because injuries played a big factor in limiting her career. And all of this means little toward her overall impact on the game which has been overwhelmingly positive.
5. Tom Weiskopf
The late Weiskopf is in the Hall of Fame for more than his playing accomplishments—he also designed more than 40 courses and did some great work as a broadcaster.
Having said that, his playing record is not indicative of a Hall of Famer or one of the game’s greats. He won only 16 times on the PGA Tour and has just one major despite having one of the most beautiful swings golf has seen.
He did almost win the Masters a few times and recorded 12 top-five finishes in majors but I think Weiskopf’s reverence is a little overblown for someone who didn’t win nearly as much as he could have.
4. Greg Norman
There is a debate to be had over whether Norman is overrated or underrated. Looking back on his career, so much of the focus is on his many shortcomings rather than the fact he held the No. 1 spot in the world for more than 300 weeks.
I ultimately fall on the side of saying Norman is overrated. He was rated as the top golfer in the world throughout the prime of his career and registered only two major wins and 20 Tour victories.
Yes, Norman did have 20 top-five major finishes and he won 88 times around the world. I just think that, relative to how he was perceived and ranked for so long, winning just two majors during the era in which he played was a massive disappointment.
3. John Daly
Without looking it up, how many Tour wins do you think John Daly had in his career?
My guess from memory was 10. I missed badly! He won just five times in his career. In two of those wins, Nolan Henke finished runner-up. They were second-rate tournaments.
Yes, Daly won two majors in epic fashion. Everyone loves him for being a Diet Coke-drinking, peanut M&M-eating country boy.
But Daly was mostly a flash in the pan. He had three top-10 major finishes in 80 starts and made fewer than half of his major cuts. He never finished any year in the top 25 in the world. The two years he won majors, Daly was barely a top-40 player in golf.
That’s a big discrepancy from how people view him.
2. Fred Couples
Largely given a pass because he is a cool dude with a buttery swing, Couples didn’t exactly light the world on fire the way some think he did. He is a classic “style over substance” example.
His longevity is undeniable—Couples played a stunning 622 Tour events—but his 15 victories only makes for a win percentage of 2.4 percent. That’s almost identical to Paul Azinger, a one-major-win player who (unlike Couples) is not in the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Couples won the 1992 Masters for his only major win and added two Players Championships but a lot of his other wins were underwhelming. The B.C. Open, Honda Classic, Bob Hope and Byron Nelson events weren’t exactly top-tier.
He’s a key figure in the game’s history but doesn’t deserve the elevated status given him by most golf fans.
1. Colin Montgomerie
Montgomerie is a World Golf Hall of Fame member who certainly accomplished a lot in his career. He won 31 times on the European Tour, factored heavily into European Ryder Cup dominance (winning 23.5 points) and snagged three senior majors.
At the same time, Montgomerie never won a major in 75 appearances and never won on the PGA Tour in 142 appearances. He had just 10 top-10 finishes in majors and missed nearly 40 percent of his major cuts.
I think it’s very borderline whether he deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. He played 19 years’ worth of majors and didn’t win a single one. He played in 15 Masters with only one top 10.
The European Tour dominance and Ryder Cup record are impressive but you shouldn’t be called one of the game’s greats if you can’t even win a Tour event in that large of a sample size.
Do you have any other suggestions for this list? Let me know below in the comments.
Top Photo Caption: Fred Couples only won 15 Tour events in his career. (GETTY IMAGES/Steve Grayson)
J Cragle
2 years ago
Couples was named the PGA Tour Player of the Year twice, in 1991 and 1992. He also won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average in each of those years. He has been named to the United States Ryder Cup team five times, in 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997.
In 1992, Couples became the first American player to reach the number one position in the Official World Golf Rankings (since the World Ranking points system debuted in April 1986). He spent 16 weeks at number 1, after one of the hottest ever starts to a season by a PGA Tour player.
Couples has nine top-10 finishes in the Open Championship, including tying for third in 1991 at Royal Birkdale, shooting a last round 64, and again tying for third in 2005 at St Andrews. In addition to his The Open Championship success Couples played well in many other international tournaments. He won two prestigious European Tour events, the Dubai Desert Classic and the Johnnie Walker Classic, in back-to-back weeks in 1995. He also finished runner-up in three European Tour events in his career: the 1989 BMW International Open, the 1994 Johnnie Walker Classic, and the 1997 Heineken Classic. He also finished runner-up on the Australasian Tour’s 1988 Johnnie Walker Australian Classic, Japan Golf Tour’s prestigious 1993 Dunlop Phoenix Tournament, and the Asian Tour’s 2005 SK Telecom Open.
I could go on, but why should I provide facts and statistics to a poorly researched article for free? I propose that whatever the author was paid for this trash should be donated to charity.