Ranking The Best PGA Championship Competitors Of All-Time
By Bill Felber
PGA Championship Era: 1980 to 1989
Based on the rules for this exercise laid out in the introduction, Lee Trevino reigns as the dominant player of the 1980s, and not by a small margin.
Here is the decade’s top 10.
1. Lee Trevino, -1.53
2. Payne Stewart, -1.13
3. Jack Nicklaus, -1.00
4. Fred Couples, -0.82
5. Larry Nelson, -0.79
6. Seve Ballesteros, -0.73
7. Peter Jacobsen, -0.71
8. Andy Bean, -0.62
9. Calvin Peete, -0.62
10. Tom Kite, -0.61
The on-course reality is that the 1980s set of PGA Championships lacked a truly prominent figure. Only one person, Larry Nelson, emerged with two titles, and Nelson’s other finishes were ordinary enough to lift him no higher than fifth.
Trevino made five cuts, the minimum required for consideration. To his credit, all five were strong, including his 1984 victory by four strokes. One year later he lost to Hubert Green by two strokes. He was seventh in 1980 and placed just outside the top 10 in 1983 and 1986.
But Trevino also missed two cuts, failed to participate in either the 1982 or 1987 events, and in 1981 was disqualified for failing to sign his scorecard. So his resulting -1.53 dominance score is, in some respects, compromised.
The problem is the decade produced no other plausible heroes. Nelson may have been a two-time champion, but he also missed four cuts and failed to finish among the top 20 when he didn’t win.
The 1989 champion, Payne Stewart, also made just five cuts. Jack Nicklaus was superb in his 1980 win, and he did finish second in 1983. But he had only one other top 15 during the decade.
Four players –Bruce Lietzke, Tom Kite, Peter Jacobsen, and Don Pooley – made all 10 cuts. But Pooley only made one top 10, and Lietzke’s play was too inconsistent to qualify. Jacobsen did the best of that quartet, placing third in 1983 and again in 1986. A final 65 in 1983 just failed to catch Hal Sutton, who held him off by two shots.