Ranking The Best PGA Championship Competitors Of All-Time
By Bill Felber
PGA Championship Era: 2000 to 2009
So we arrive finally at the Woods era. Yes, Tiger is a comfortable No. 1 for the decade, his -1.60 dominance score ranking with Snead in the 1950s and Nicklaus in the 1960s among the best of all time.
Woods repeated his 1999 victory in 2000 – thanks to that memorable playoff with Bob May. He was runner-up to Rich Beem in 2002, fourth to Phil Mickelson in 2005, champion in 2006 and 2007, and famously runner-up to Y.E. Yang in 2009.
For the record, here’s the roster of guys who trailed Woods across the decade.
1. Tiger Woods, -1.60
2. Sergio Garcia, -1.00
3. Ernie Els, -0.88
4. Phil Mickelson, -0.85
5. Vijay Singh, -0.71
6. David Toms, -0.67
7. Adam Scott, -0.65
8. Geoff Ogilvy, -0.64
9. Steve Flesch, -0.62
10. Stuart Appleby, -0.60
Woods’ margin over the decade runner-up, Sergio Garcia, is the largest for any decade leader in PGA Championship history. So in that very real sense, one could make the argument that Woods in his prime was the tournament’s most dominant presence.
Since Garcia never won the PGA, how did he manage to rank ahead of Els, Mickelson, or Singh, two of whom (Mickelson and Singh) did win the PGA during the decade?
Let’s start with Mickelson. He made all 10 cuts, winning in 2005, tying for ninth in 2000, finishing second to David Toms in 2001, and tying for sixth and then seventh in 2004 and 2008.
But Mickelson’s record in the championship is tempered by his other five finishes, none of them inside the top 15.
Singh made six cuts, winning in 2004. But he had only two other top 10s. Despite not winning during the decade, Els edges ahead of both of them by dint of three top fives, a fourth top 10, another top 15, and no finishes below 35th.
Garcia’s status is enhanced by the scoring system, which discounts missed cuts. He had four of them, plus a disqualification, during the decade. His 2008 tie for second, two strokes behind Padraig Harrington, was strong as was his tie for third in 2006.
But the real lesson to be drawn from the above top 10 list is how little separates the challengers, and how far they were behind the decade’s alpha male. Less than three-tenths of a standard deviation separated Singh in fifth place from Garcia in second; Woods’ margin over Garcia was more than twice that large.