Australia has a history of producing great golfers with 31 Majors from 16 different players. BRENDAN BARRATT looks at some of the best to emerge from the region.
Ranking golfers from different eras and different genders is an unenviable task. Australia is a prime example – how do you compare a player who spent 331 weeks on top of the World Ranking, yet collected only two Majors against one who peaked at third in the Rolex Rankings, yet has seven Majors to her credit? And what about a five-time Open champion who played long before the notion of world ranking even existed?
10. Jason Day
For a while Day threatened to challenge for the title of best Aussie golfer. In a five-year stretch from 2014 to 2018, he won 11 times, including the 2015 PGA Championship, 2016 Players Championship and two WGC-Match Play victories. He also racked up four runner-up spots at Majors and reached No 1 in the World Ranking. Injury halted his march to greatness, but recent form suggests he’s not quite done yet.
9. Jim Ferrier
Many will not have heard of Ferrier, who won 14 times on the PGA Tour, including the 1947 PGA Championship, which officially makes him Australia’s first Major champion.
8. Adam Scott
While Scott may top the list of best-looking golf swings, the Queenslander fails to break into the top five Australian golfers. The former world No 1 was the first Aussie to win The Masters, in 2013, and has 14 PGA Tour wins, including the 2004 Players Championship, when aged just 23.
7. Minjee Lee
Former amateur world No 1 Lee, from Perth, is already an Australian golfing superstar, aged just 27. With two Majors and 10 LPGA Tour titles to her name, Lee will likely go on to climb the Aussie ranking. She might even be joined by younger brother Min-Woo, a three-time DP World Tour champion.
6. Jan Stephenson
Stephenson may have ‘only’ won 24 tournaments, but she left her mark on the game. Of her 16 LPGA Tour titles, three were Majors, and she was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2019. Of course, who can forget her efforts to raise the profile of women’s golf by posing nude in a bathtub full of golf balls?
5. David Graham
Another Hall of Famer, Graham is a two-time Major champion, a World Cup winner and the 1976 World Match Play champion. Graham ultimately claimed eight PGA Tour titles, including the 1979 PGA Championship and the 1981 US Open. He retired having won a total of 38 professional titles.
4. Kel Nagle
The Open champion of 1960, Nagle won 96 professional titles. Seventy-seven of these came in Australia and New Zealand, including the New Zealand PGA when he was 54 years old. Other than his Open triumph, where he edged out Arnold Palmer in the centenary championship, Nagle also lost a playoff for the 1965 US Open to Gary Player and finished runner-up to Palmer at the 1962 Open.
3. Greg Norman
It’s hard to put a player who dominated the men’s game for such a large period of time in the bronze medal position, but a lack of Major titles counted against Norman. The Great White Shark collected 76 professional wins, including 20 on the PGA Tour. Arguably the greatest-ever driver of the golf ball, Norman won two Open Championship titles and has been a driving force behind Australian golf for decades. He also has the unenviable record of having lost all four Majors in a playoff, among eight Major runner-up finishes.
2. Peter Thomson
The master of links golf, Thomson won five Open Championships, including three in a row, and finished runner-up three times – twice to Bobby Locke. Thomson was so good at links golf that between 1952 and 1958, his worst finish at The Open Championship was second. Thomson collected 10 national championships, including the Australian Open three times and NZ Open nine times, and one title in South Africa. Thomson had 102 professional victories but only managed one win on the PGA Tour – outside of his Majors. He did, however, notch up nine wins on the Champions Tour, including the Senior PGA Championship, a senior Major.
1. Karrie Webb
Webb claims top spot courtesy of seven Major titles, including the Super Grand Slam of five different Majors. Although history will tell you Webb peaked at third in the women’s ranking, there is no doubt that had the rankings been around during her peak, she would have been at the summit for a lengthy period. Webb became the youngest living person to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, at age 30. She counts 41 LPGA Tour titles among her 57 professional victories. Outside of her seven Majors, she has six runner-up finishes in Majors and topped the LPGA Tour moneylist three times and is a three-time Vare Trophy winner for best scoring average.
– This article first appeared in the June 2024 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
