Golf: Ranking The Top Golfer From All 50 States

The famous words of “Be the right club today” from Hal Sutton’s win at the 2000 Players Championship will live in infamy

Kansas

Gary Woodland

Had 13-time PGA Tour winner, Bruce Lietzke, spent a little more time in Kansas (he moved to Texas at age nine) he would’ve earned the nod here. Alas, we’ll go with the fresher pick in big hitter, Gary Woodland. A gifted athlete, the Topeka native almost pursued a collegiate basketball career before making the switch to golf. It was a good choice. At Kansas University, he won four times and is a two-time winner on the PGA Tour, not including a World Cup of Golf win with Matt Kuchar in 2011. He’s struggled in majors (no better than T12 in 19 starts), but has spent dozens of weeks in the top 50 in the world and is a scary player when it all comes together.

Kentucky

Kenny Perry

Early in his career, Perry missed the PGA Tour via Q School two years in a row. The third time was the charm for the Franklin native, who rallied to become one of the PGA Tour’s more consistent names at the top of the leaderboard for decades. Perry’s won 25 times worldwide, including 14 on the PGA Tour. He’s played on six international teams (four Presidents Cups, two Ryder Cups) that have a 5-0-1 record. Unfortunately, most will remember his dashed attempt at becoming the oldest major winner at the age of 48 back at the 2009 Masters when he squandered a back nine lead to finish runner-up in a playoff to Angel Cabrera.

Louisiana

Hal Sutton

“Be the right club today!” Few could forget those famous words uttered by Sutton at the 2000 Players Championship as his ball landed feet from the pin to ensure his win at the age of 42 over Tiger Woods. Sutton will live in infamy for captaining the losing 2004 US Ryder Cup team and trying to pair Woods and Phil Mickelson together. Aside from that blemish, his résumé is otherwise pretty solid: 14 PGA tour wins, one major (1983 PGA Championship), Player of the Year (1983), Comeback Player of the Year (1994) and four Ryder Cup appearances as a player.

Maine

David Peoples Jr.

This was tough to decide between Peoples and once-dominant Maine amateur, Mark Plummer, who won the Maine Amatuer 13 times among other achievements. Since I’ve valued professional success in this ranking up until now, the same applies here. That gives the nod to Peoples, who has PGA Tour wins at the Buick Southern Open in 1991 and the Anheuser-Busch Golf Classic in 1992. The Augusta native peaked at 25th on the PGA Tour money list in 1992 and teed it up in eight major championships.

Maryland

Fred Funk

The Takoma Park native stayed in his home state to play collegiate golf at Maryland. Or at least he thought so until he was cut from the team in his freshman year in 1975. He came back a few years later after a community college stint to rise all the way up to the top spot on the Terrapins’ squad. The stops and starts continued, though, as Funk coached for the Terrapins for several years while his own career started out relatively unsuccessfully through the ’80s. Funk kept his persistence until he cracked the code in the ’90s. He racked up four wins by 1996 and was a constant name on leaderboards. At career’s end, he finished with eight PGA Tour wins, including at age 48 at the 2005 Players Championship.