The Masters: Five major champions co-lead, breaking decades-old record

The Masters boasts five major champions in a share of the lead at the halfway mark, breaking a decades-old record. It’s a leaderboard unlike any other.

If you think the 36-hole Masters leader board looks especially top-heavy, you are correct beyond your wildest dreams.

Five players, all former major champions, are tied for the lead at seven under par. It’s the largest logjam of major champions at the top of any round in Masters history and the first time in more than half a century that more than two major champions have ended any Masters round in a tie for first.

Among them Francesco Molinari, Jason Day, Brooks Koepka, Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen hold seven major championships. They also comprise a grand slam fivesome, since Scott is the 2013 Masters champion, Koepka holds the 2017 and 2018 U.S. Open titles, Molinari (2018) and Oosthuizen (2010) are both British Open champions, and Day (2015) and Koepka (2018) have both won the PGA.

The last time two players with major championship claims found themselves tied for the Masters lead was in 2002, when 2001 U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen and then-six-time major winner Tiger Woods deadlocked at 11-under par following the end of the third round. One day later, Woods shot 71 to beat Goosen by three strokes.

The last time more than two major championship winners were tied for the Masters lead was following the second round of the 1965 championship. That tie involved three of the game’s legends – Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus – who among them held 13 major championships at the time. Nicklaus pulled away on the weekend to win easily.

The only other time in Masters history that more than two major champions were deadlocked atop the leader board involved a five-way tie following the first round in 1964. Three of the five were Palmer, Player and 1960 British Open champion Kel Nagle. Palmer went on to win the tournament.

The 2019 fivesome’s combined seven major titles does not approach any sort of Masters record, but that’s largely due to the mass quantities of titles won by a handful of the game’s greats. Here’s a list of Masters tournaments featuring multiple major champions in ties for the lead ordered by the total number of major titles held at the time. Where non-major winners were also involved in the tie, that is indicated in the end-notes.

 Year     Round   Players (majors)                                            Total      Winner

1993¹     1st          Jack Nicklaus (17), Larry Mize (1)               18           Bernhard Langer

1954      4th         Ben Hogan (9), Sam Snead (7)                    16           Snead

1965      2nd        Arnold Palmer (7), Gary Player (3),

Jack Nicklaus (3)                                            13           Nicklaus

1952      3rd         Ben Hogan (6), Sam Snead (5)                    11           Snead

1964²     1st          Arnold Palmer (6), Gary Player (3),

Kel Nagle (1)                                                    10           Palmer

1985³     2nd        Tom Watson (8), Craig Stadler (1)*                9           Bernhard Langer

1962      4th           Arnold Palmer (4), Gary Player (2),

Dow Finsterwald (1)                                      7             Palmer

1989      2nd          Lee Trevino (6), Nick Faldo (1)                      7             Faldo

2002      3rd           Tiger Woods (6), Retief Goosen (1)            7             Woods

2019      2nd          Brooks Koepka (3), Louis Oosthuizen (1), Jason Day (1)

Adam Scott (1), Francesco Molinari (1)     7              ???

¹Also Corey Pavin, Tom Lehman, Lee Janzen.

²Also Bob Goalby and Davis Love Jr.

³Also Payne Stewart.