Rory McIlroy, will Zalatoris make it to the top of the best major championship golfers of 2022 despite not winning a title
The big 2022 championship season is on the books, and four worthy champions have appeared at the Masters, PGA Championship, US Open and Open Championship. Much has been said, written and tweeted about all four, but there is also some curiosity as to who is the best performer. overall across four specialties.
There are many ways to measure this, but perhaps the best way is to look at all the golfers who have made it to the four major championships and compare their scores. Only nine years now, less than usual, and only four of them played the four events under them. Incredibly, the top two golfers of this year’s major championship season – Rory McIlroy and Will Zalatoris – went away with exactly zero titles. Here is the list of 9 players who have made it to all 4 professional leagues:
- Rory McIlroy: -29
- Will Zalatoris: -21
- Matt Fitzpatrick: -16
- Justin Thomas: -3
- Jon Rahm: +4
- Hideki Matsuyama: +6
- Joaquin Niemann: +13
- Patrick Reed: +15
- Tyrrell Hatton: +19
You could argue that this is the best golf McIlroy has played across the board at four majors. This is only the second time he’s been in the top 10 out of three for the year, and the first time he’s been in the top 10 of all four. His the worst major finished eighth at the PGA Championship.
“I can’t be too disappointed by how this year has turned out and how this year will turn out,” McIlroy said after finishing third at The Open. “I’m playing some of the best golf I’ve played in a long time. So just keep knocking, and eventually one will open.”
Zalatoris is close to having a good run in 2022. He finished T28 at The Open, but before that had three top-six finishes in the first three majors of the year, including a playoff loss. against Justin Thomas at the PGA Championship. Zalatoris has solidified himself as a major championship threat a year after finishing second to Hideki Matsuyama at the 2021 Masters.
Winning golf tournaments is extremely difficult, but for both of these golfers, it’s hard to go through such an amazingly long period of golf without a win. what big. In McIlroy’s case, he’s beaten or tied up 97.5% of the golfers he’s faced this big season and left them empty-handed. In fact, it was one of the two biggest seasons in the last 27 years for someone without a win.
Golf is weird. Technically, you’d have had a better season if you missed two professional league cuts and won the other two instead of finishing in the top 10 in all four like McIlroy – or even someone else. finished in the top six three times as Zalatoris. Such is the nature of four-day events. Consistency in events isn’t rewarded as much as hot-playing one of them, even if the previous event is perhaps a better representation of great golf over a long period of time.
If you’re measuring all of this by total earnings in majors (regardless of cut) – seems to be the only way to measure everything in golf these days – McIlroy and Zalatoris again works fine, but not quite as well. like Scottie Scheffler, who went away with that title. Here are all the golfers who made at least $1 million at professional tournaments in 2022:
- Scottie Scheffler: $4.4 million
- Matt Fitzpatrick: $4.0 million
- Will Zalatoris: $3.8 million
- Rory McIlroy: 3.7 million won
- Cameron Smith: $3.6 million
- Justin Thomas: $3.3 million
- Cameron Young: $2.3 million
- Tommy Fleetwood: $1.4 million
- Collin Morikawa: $1.3 million
- Hideki Matsuyama: $1.1 million
- Shane Lowry: $1.1 million
