The Top 10 Best Players From The 2023 Major Championship Season
By Bill Felber
Top Major Player: No. 1
1. Scottie Scheffler (-1.28)
Let’s get the negativity out of the way first. Scheffler’s average score of -1.28 is the worst average by a season-long champion since 2012 when Adam Scott led with a score of -1.26. In fact, there have only been 19 lower scores by season-long champions since the end of World War II.
Having acknowledged that, it’s time to give Scheffler his due. Like some of the other players we’ve noted, his hallmark was consistency. He joins Hovland, Schauffele, and Cantlay as the only players to have produced negative (good) standard deviations in all four events, and he was more consistent than any of them.
Scheffler tied for 10th at the Masters, for second (with Hovland) at the PGA, and he was solo third at the U.S. Open.
His t23 with a 284 total was 13 strokes behind Harman at the British, but hey – who didn’t finish 13 strokes behind Harman at the British? It still counted for -0.32 standard deviations superior to the four-round field average, and was just enough to keep him ahead of Hovland and Rahm in the tightly bunched season-long race.
Next. The Best Major Player of 2022. dark
It may be viewed as ironic that in 2022, when Scheffler actually won a Major, he only ranked sixth in the season-ending Majors rank. But that’s largely because he pulled a McIlroy in 2022, following up his Masters win with a missed cut at the next Major, the PGA.
So Scheffler got the green jacket in 2022, but his steadiness earned him the Major season trophy in 2023.