This month marks the 40th anniversary of the “Massacre at Winged Foot,” the 1974 U.S. Open won by Hale Irwin at 7-over par. When senior USGA official Sandy Tatum was asked about the difficulty of the course setup, a setup at which not a single player broke par in the first round, he famously responded:

“We’re not trying to embarrass the best players in the world, we’re trying to identify them.”

With the U.S. Open at Pinehurst days away and golf’s two final majors of the year following in July and August, it’s good to recall Tatum’s memorable line and ask:

• How well does the U.S. Open or any major do at identifying golf’s greatest champions?
• Is there one that crowns the best golfers on a more consistent basis than the others?
• How would you go about proving that, or provide compelling evidence to support it, if that were the case?

To many readers, it might seem The Masters is an obvious choice for the best major at identifying golf’s greatest champions with six victories by Jack Nicklaus, four by Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer and three each by Phil Mickelson, Gary Player and Nick Faldo. But green jackets have also been won by Gay Brewer, Charles Coody and other players whose careers do not rank with the all-time greats. What about the U.S. Open, with four victories by Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Nicklaus, three by Tiger and Irwin and two by Lee Trevino, Billy Casper and Ernie Els? This article outlines an approach for determining what majors have done the best at identifying golf’s greatest champions an approach that consists of a few main steps:

1. Identify all major championship winners in a given period. Starting with 1960, there have been 110 individual winners of golf’s majors in 216 tournaments (54 years, four majors per year). The year 1960 is a good starting point for two reasons: first, the U.S. Open won that year by Arnold Palmer at Cherry Hills outside Denver is widely viewed as a crossroads between the modern game of Palmer and Nicklaus and the post-WWII era of Hogan and Snead. Second, in 1958, the PGA Championship shifted from match play to stroke play, so starting earlier than 1960 and still including the PGA Championship would pose an apples-to-oranges problem in comparing all four majors because we would not have comparable data for a full decade pre-1960 as we do for the 1960s, ’70s, etc.
2. Rank 110 major champions since 1960 based on a quantitative method that gives “champion points” for victories in the majors and for other tour wins across their career (e.g., PGA Tour, European Tour, etc). Note: If a major champion’s career accomplishments preceded 1960 — such as major victories by Arnold Palmer (1958 Masters), Gary Player (1959 Open Championship), Julius Boros (1952 U.S. Open) and a few others — these accomplishments are still counted in their “champion point” totals.
3. Based on the rankings in No. 2, group all 110 major winners into smaller and more manageable “champion tiers” and then apply these tiers to each of the four majors from 1960-to-2013 based on the champion who won the major that year. By adding the “champion tier” points (1-to-15 with 15 being the highest) during a given time period for all four majors — e.g. since 1960, a decade like the 1970s, etc. — the major with the highest number of champion points can readily be identified and compared to the others.

While this approach is straightforward in concept, subjective judgments still have to be made. For example, all non-major wins on the PGA Tour are treated the same, such as Davis Love III’s two stirring victories in the Players Championship (1992 and 2003) and his one-stroke win against Tommy Gainey in the Children’s Miracle Network Classic (2008). All three are each given the same number of “champion points” in step No. 2 above, as is every win on the European Tour. What about a player’s victories on senior tours, Asian and other pro tours, his amateur record, or performance in the Ryder Cup or President’s Cup? Answers to these and other questions are found in the accompanying box on methodology and assumptions. Obviously readers will have differing views on the approach used. There clearly are many ways to quantify a major champion’s accomplishments and slight changes in methodology can lead to significantly different results. The approach proposed here is by no means definitive, but hopefully provides a reasonable starting point that can be refined and improved in time with your input.

Methodology/Assumptions

1. What is counted and not counted in establishing a major champion’s record?
2. How are champion points accumulated?

Major Championship Wins

• 10 champion points for each major victory.
• +5 points for winning two legs of the Grand Slam.
• +5 more points for winning three legs of the Grand Slam.
• +10 more points for winning all four majors — the Grand Slam.

So if a golfer were to win all four majors, he would be credited with 60 total champion points consisting of: 10 for each major (40), plus 20 more for winning the Grand Slam (5+5+10). If a golfer were to win only the Masters or only the U.S. Open twice, they would be credited with 20 champion points — 10 for each major, whereas a golfer winning two different legs of the Grand Slam, say the U.S. Open and PGA Championship like Rory McIlroy has done, he would be credited with 25 champion points, +5 points for winning two legs of the Grand Slam.

• PGA and European tour wins: One point awarded for each win on the PGA or European tours, regardless of the prestige of the event, quality of field, etc.
• Other professional wins: For tours in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Web.com and other professional wins, the following scale has been developed.

• A snapshot in time, year-end 2013: No attempt is made to project a current player’s career beyond his accomplishments at the end of 2013. As a player’s record grows, results can readily be updated.

Key Findings

The resulting data is a veritable gold mine of information that can yield many interesting findings about golf’s four majors and the 110 players who have won them from 1960 to 2013. Here are a few highlights: Since 1960, the past 54 years:

• The Masters is the major with the highest number of champion points. The resulting data has the Masters with 516 champion points, an average of 9.6 points per year. This is equivalent to the winner of the Masters since 1960 being a champion ranked between Nos. 12 and 15 on average in terms of career accomplishments out of all 120 major champion winners. This is truly elite status (see Top 40+ Golfers chart).
• The Open Championship (British Open) is a close No. 2 to the Masters. The Open Championship is credited with 492 champion points, just 24 points below the Masters during the 54 years. This works out to an average of 9.1 champion points per year, equivalent to the average winner of the British Open being a champion ranked No. 15 in terms of career accomplishments out of all 120 major winners since 1960 (see Top 40+ Golfers chart).
• The U.S. Open and PGA Championship are nearly tied with the fewest champion points. The U.S. Open and the PGA Championship have very similar results with 407 and 400 champion points respectively. Both are more than 100 points below the Masters. This works out to 7.5 champion points per year, which is equivalent to the average winner of these two majors being a champion ranked between Nos. 16 and 29 in terms of career accomplishments out of all 120 major champion winners since 1960 (again, see Top 40+ Golfers chart).

Winning Major by Decade, 1960s to 2000s

• The Masters recorded the highest number of champion points in three of the five decades evaluated, the 1960s, ’90s and 2000s. The British Open won the 1970s and ’80s. The Masters never finished below second in champion points in any of the five decades evaluated.
• The U.S. Open finished as high as second in just two decades, the 1960s and ’90s, and finished last in champion points in the 1970s and 2000s.

Best Decade for Major Winners, the 1970s

• Both the British Open and PGA Championship had their highest number of champion points in the 1970s, more than any of the five decades evaluated.
• This contributed to the 1970s being a golden era for major winners. With 392 points spread among 40 majors, the average major champion ranked in the No. 12 to 15 range out of all 120 major champions since 1960 (see Top 40 +Golfers chart). The next best decade was the 1960s with 367 champion points.

1990s Recorded Fewest Champion Points of Any Decade

• The average number of champion points recorded in each decade, other than the 1990s, was about 360 points (362.5). This average is 77 points higher than the total number of champion points recorded in the 1990s — just 285.
• The average winner of a major in the 1990s was a champion ranked in the No. 21 to 30 range of all 120 major winners since 1960 (see Top 40+ Golfers chart).

Can a Non-Major Winner Still be Ranked Among the Greats?

• This is a controversial topic, but some insight can be offered through the method proposed here. For example, if we were to look at the record of Colin Montgomerie, he would have 32 champion points based on 31 Euro Tour wins and nine “other wins” worth one point.
• This would place him solidly in champion tier No. 6 alongside such players as multiple major winners Fuzzy Zoeller, John Daly and Rory McIloroy (each with two majors) and other players such as Tom Kite and Davis Love (see Top 40+ Golfers chart).
• Since Monty did not win a major, however, he is not included in this evaluation.

So given the USGA’s/Sandy Tatum’s stated goal of “identifying the best golfers in the world,” how well has the U.S. Open done?

The U.S. Open has had its share of highly accomplished champions since 1960 with multiple winners that include Jack, Tiger, Irwin, Casper, Trevino and others. But by most reasonable measures, and the methodology presented here, it is clear our national open often crowns champions whose career records are well below the all-time greats. Here are the U.S. Open victors since 1960 who amassed the fewest champion points in this evaluation, starting with the most recent:

Of course, we can expect some of the active players listed will add to their career accomplishments, taking them to a higher champion tier, but at a minimum the data shows that the U.S. Open crowns a “surprise champion” at least once a decade, or 1 in 9 on average (six in the past 54 years). This could go to 15 percent, nearly 1 in 6, if two of the five active players below age 40 don’t move up significantly in time and another surprise champion is crowned the next few years.

This is actually a more favorable percentage for the U.S. Open than it had in the 1950s, which saw three surprise champions: Ed Furgol, 1954 (five other PGA Tour wins), Jack Fleck, 1955 (two other PGA Tour wins) and Dick Mayer, 1957 (six other PGA Tour wins). It’s hard to go back further than the 1950s because the national open wasn’t played during World War II (1942-45), and pro golf tours were still in the early stages, so there were far fewer opportunities for a player to build his career accomplishments.

The facts are that the U.S. Open has long produced surprising winners starting with Francis Ouimet’s victory in 1913 that shocked the sporting world. It has also produced disappointments, even heartbreaks, with all-time greats like Sam Snead failing to capture the title and Phil’s six runner-up finishes to date.

This month golf fans are already focusing their attention on Pinehurst and asking if Phil will finally break through, will some other big name add to his career achievements, or will our national open crown another surprise champion? Whatever the outcome, the U.S. Open will again have identified the “best player in the world.” Maybe not the best over a full career, but certainly the best of the week just as it has many times before.