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The wildest Wikipedia major championship grids in golf history
Wikipedia, according to Wikipedia, went live on January 15, 2001. In the two-plus decades since it's been a tremendous research tool for both golf fans and golf writers. Big-J journos, of course, should always double check what they see on there, but for the most part, the site has great accuracy.
Wikipedia's launch also had great timing for golf, coming on the heels of Tiger Woods' historic season in which he won nine PGA Tour events, including three major championships. His arrival on the golf scene had ushered in a wave of new, mostly younger fans, and now they had another place to easily access his career record.
At some point after that, the phrase "major grid" became part of the lexicon of golf fans. Well, really on Golf Twitter, which didn't form until after Twitter (now X, but it will always be Twitter to us old heads) went live July 15, 2006. Which was also great timing.
Tiger won the British Open the following week as part of the most torrid stretch of his illustrious career so there was plenty to talk about in the golf community. Woods would win seven PGA Tour titles in a row, including another major at the 2006 PGA Championship, for the longest winning streak ever besides Byron Nelson's 11 in a row way back in 1945.
Unfortunately for Byron, neither Twitter nor Wikipedia was around back then to give him his props, but at least with the latter, we can check out his major grid today:
Impressive! Especially because as you can see he didn't play as much after that mythical 1945 season. But that's what's so great about the Wiki major grids. The yellow (good!) and the green (amazing!)—give you such a clean, quick snapshot of how golfers played in the four biggest events. Although, you don't want too much yellow without any green or you'll be labeled a fraud or a choker. Golf Twitter can be tough! Anyway, there are some player records that really stand out.
That's where Golf Digest's Jamie Kennedy comes in. He's been compiling some of the wildest Wikipedia major grids. And on Tuesday, he shared them in a thread that was the perfect meshing of Wiki and Twitter. Have a look for yourself:
You should go through the entire thread, including his Wyndham Clark add on at the end, but we want to highlight a couple in addition to Todd Hamilton, who won the 2004 Open Championship at Royal Troon, and, well, that's really it. Just look at that lonely green square in the middle of a sea of white and grey. Crazy.
Similarly, there was Rich Beem, who took down Tiger at the 2003 PGA Championship for a stunning highlight:
Of course, Tiger's peak major grid up until his scandal at the end of 2009 was pretty spectacular:
As was Jack Nicklaus' 20-year-run from 1962-1982:
And then there was Ben Hogan from 1946-1956. Keep in mind that greyed-out 1949 is when he was laid up after that car crash that nearly killed him.
Amazing. Finally, a personal favorite is Nick Faldo. An all-time great golfer for sure with six majors, but it's crazy that he won the Masters the only three times he was ever in contention at Augusta National:
Hey, like we saw with Wikipedia and Twitter taking off among the golf crowd, it's all about timing.