The 2021 Major season: Winners and Losers

Collin Morikawa

I do not calculate either an official peak or career rating for players with fewer than 10 Major starts. The data base is simply too volatile.

Morikawa has made eight Major starts. He will hit 10 starts at the 2022 PGA, and presumably will finish next season with a dozen data points.

But I can informally calculate where Morikawa would rank based on what he’s done to data, and where the trend lines point.

Given his 2021 showing, the presumption would be that if we were to calculate a score for Morikawa, already a two-time Major winner, it would be close to off the charts. It wouldn’t.

For all his excellence since last summer – wins in his PGA and British Open debuts, fourth at the U.S. Open, eighth at the 2021 PGA – it also needs to be noted that he missed the cut at the October 2020 U.S. Open and was a non-factor in his first two Major efforts, the 2019 U.S. Open and 2020 Masters.

Were we to run a rating for Morikawa based on his eight starts to date, it would work out to -0.60, not even close to top 150 status all time.

But that will almost certainly change as Morikawa builds up appearances, and in doing so gets to cast aside some of the worse ones such as that 2020 U.S. Open missed cut. So let me cut to the chase: If Morikawa reprises his 2021 season in 2022, he would conclude that season with a peak score in the range of -1.38. That would rank in or close to the top 75 all-time for peak performance.

At his age, calculating Morikawa’s career score is a meaningless exercise, so let’s stay with the peak projections for a moment. Push forward one more year to the end of 2023, and give Morikawa one more victory, two top fives and two more top 10s.

That may be generous, but hey, it’s not out of line with what the guy just did.

By that scenario, it’s plausible to score Morikawa’s peak rating as high as -1.85. That would be top 20 turf, in the company of greats of the stripe of Jim Barnes, Jock Hutchison and Tom Weiskopf.