In praise of the great Jack Nicklaus

I have developed a method of ranking the greatest PGA golf careers as determined by majors victories, top-ten places at the majors, total victories, and cuts at the majors. I will share a more detailed look at the methodology at a later date. So impressive was Nicklaus’ career that I thought it would be fun to disaggregate Nicklaus’ career and see how these various “parts” would stack up against the entire careers of others. It turns out that Nicklaus’ career in his thirty’s is the 8th best career of all time (not including the real Nicklaus). Likewise, Nicklaus in his 20’s is the 10th best career, and Nickluas’ career without having won any majors would also be the 8th best.

The strength of my methodology is that it rewards both peak excellence as well as longevity. Basically, what I do is treat every golf “accomplishment” as a ribbon or trophy, then I add up all the hardware for one’s career. Therefore it has a slight bias in favor of longevity over a spectacular but relatively short career, such as that of Johnny Miller’s. Its obvious weakness is that it doesn’t take into account amateur or international performances--note that Bobby Jones doesn’t crack the top twenty. Again, I will share how I achieved the actual numbers at a future time. Here goes:

1) Nicklaus 97.26
2) Sam Sneed 58.84
3) Ben Hogan 53.65
4) Arnold Palmer 53.13
5) Walter Hagen 49.91
6) Tom Watson 48.85
7) Gary Player 47.72
8) Tiger Woods 46.57
9) Nicklaus in his 30’s 44.41
10) Nicklaus had he won no majors 42.26
11) Gene Sarazen 39.06
12) Byron Nelson 36.78
13) Nicklaus before age of 30 36.06
14) Lee Trevino 33.94
15) Billy Casper 33.73
16) Ray Floyd 30.16
17) Cary Middlecoff 25.33
18) Seve Ballesteros 24.55
19) Greg Norman 24.53
20) Hale Irwin 24.09