The 2021 Major season: Winners and Losers
By Bill Felber
There were three classes of significant players during the just-concluded 2021 Major golf season.
A select handful of stars emerged, while an equally select handful revitalized careers that had seemed to be flagging.
The last category is less uplifting. Many of the game’s big names saw their reputations stand still or even retreat based on their 2021 play.
I evaluate the reputations, which is to say the relative greatness, of players based on two scales. The first is performance at the peak of their careers, a period consisting of their best period of five consecutive Major seasons.
The second evaluation system is career performance, which is exactly what it sounds like: a cumulative, career-based rating.
The systems are separate, and both are detailed in “The Hole Truth,” a 2020 book I wrote that explores the world of cross-era comparison in athletics and particularly in golf.
Which players did the most to improve their reputations among the all-time greats based on their 2021 play? Did any crack the all-time top 10 or top 20 for either peak or career performance? Which ones damaged their reputations?
The criteria I use is standard deviation as measured against the field average in each Major. Standard deviation is superior to score because it is condition-neutral: It normalizes performance to account for changing equipment, weather and course conditions over time.
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That makes it a good tool to compare performance by players across eras. Want to measure whether Jack Nicklaus was better than Tiger Woods or Bobby Jones? Compare the standard deviation of their play versus their peers to do so.
Golf being a game where low is better, negative standard deviations are superior to positive ones. With that in mind, here’s a look at how 10 players impacted – or did not impact – their reputations based on their play during the 2021 Major season.