All-time ranking: Who moved up in 2020?
By Bill Felber
Patrick Reed, +10.66
The largely anonymous consistency of Reed’s 2020 Major season enabled him to walk, if not run, up the career chart.
Reed tied for 13th at both the PGA and U.S. Open, and for 10th at the Masters. Although he finished a cumulative 30 strokes behind the winners, that still enhanced his status on the all-time ranking.
He began 2020 ranked 133rd on that chart at +13.45. But those three top 15 showings improved his dominance score by nearly three points, lifting him seven positions to 126 all-time.
Reed passed Jay Hebert, Bruce Crampton, Vijay Singh, Kel Nagle, George Fazio, Fred Hawkins and Vic Ghezzi.
At age 30 and building on that kind of consistent if not spectacular Major season, it’s plausible to imagine Reed continuing his march up the all-time ranking in 2021. If he repeats his 2020 performance, he would climb another five positions to 121st, in the process passing Lawson Little, Bruce Devlin, Max Faulkner, Alf Perry and Ken Venturi.
That could be the upper limit of expectations for Reed. Acknowledging his 2018 Masters win, 2020 remains – start to finish – the best overall Major season of his career. Notably, it was the first time he had made the cut in all four Majors since 2015.
So while Reed’s consistent finishes between 10 and 15 may have been unspectacular, they were at least productive.