The Top 10 Best Players From The 2023 Major Championship Season
By Bill Felber
Top Major Player: 3rd
3. Jon Rahm (-1.17)
The battle for the top three positions was a close one, decided by barely more than one-tenth of a standard deviation. And despite his Masters victory, Rahm ended up on the short end of the measurement.
The problem was Rahm’s mediocre showing at the PGA in May, when he finished in a tie for 50th, 16 strokes behind Koepka. He was really done in by one round, an opening 76 that left him fighting merely to make the cut. A Friday 68 accomplished that goal, but he was never positioned to push any of the leaders.
He tied for 10th at the U.S. Open, then for second – albeit a distant second – at the Brit.
In those three good finishes, Rahm came home at least one standard deviation ahead of his peers (-2.67 at the Masters,-1.00 at the U.S. Open, and -1.67 at the British). But like McIlroy (although not as bad), it was that albatross score – in Rahm’s case +0.36 at the PGA — that did in his overall average.
Rahm can take solace in the fact that as recently as 2021, he ranked No. 1 in the average standard deviation of his Major showings. He’ll have to live with the fall to third place, at least until next year, when he could climb to No. 1 again.