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Four continents, four Major champions?

By Bill Felber

Jul 16, 2021; Sandwich, England, GB; Louis Oosthuizen looks over his putt on the sixth green during the second round of the Open Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Peter van den Berg-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 16, 2021; Sandwich, England, GB; Louis Oosthuizen looks over his putt on the sixth green during the second round of the Open Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Peter van den Berg-USA TODAY Sports /
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For the first time ever, golf’s status as a world-wide game could be ratified in the four Major championships this weekend.

If third-round leader Louis Oosthuizen, a South African, completes his task of winning the British Open Sunday evening, it would be the first time the champions of the four Majors represented all four corners of the world.

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In April, Hideki Matsuyama, from Japan, won the Masters. One month later, American Phil Mickelson took the PGA. Then in June, Jon Rahm, a Spaniard, birdied the final two holes to win the U.S. Open.

That’s a Major win for Asia, North America and Europe, all in the same season. There have only been 14 occasions in Major championship history when the titles were spread among as many as three continents. Only four times has a calendar year’s final Major even been played with a chance of adding a fourth continent that list.

Oosthuizen, in fact, was a participant the last time before 2021 that scenario presented itself. In 2010, American Phil Mickelson won the Masters, European Graeme McDowell won the U.S. Open, and Oosthuizen won the British Open for South Africa.

But the possibility of winners from four continents evaporated when Martin Kaymer won the PGA, becoming Europe’s second Major titlist that year.

The only three other times in history when a fourth Major was held with the possibility of victors from four different continents occurred in 2008, 1991 and 1965.

The closest brush with champions from four continents occurred in 2008. That year South African  Trevor Immelman won the Masters, American Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open and European Padraig Harrington won the British Open. But Harrington also won the PGA that August, defeating, among others South American star Camilio Villegas, who tied for fourth.

Two years later, Australian Steve Elkington also came close to making it four winners from four continents. After Mickelson, McDowell and Oosthuizen took the first three titles, he tied for fifth at the PGA, two strokes behind Kaymer.

In 1991, Welshman Ian Woosnam, American Payne Stewart and Australian Ian Baker-Finch won the first three Majors before American John Daly brought a second Major to North America, winning the PGA.

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And back in 1965, American Jack Nicklaus, South African Gary Player and Australian Peter Thomson won the first three Majors. American Dave Marr won that year’s PGA.

Oosthuizen is hardly the only candidate in the Open field with a chance to make it four winners from four continents in 2021. Fellow South African Dylan Frittelli begins final round play tied for sixth, and Australian Cameron Smith stood tied for ninth with South African Justin Harding.

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