It’s weird: I’m actually feeling sad for Adam Scott right now. Is that wrong? I mean, I know he just won his first major championship, but his amazing duel with Angel Cabrera – one of the best shot-for-shot finishes in Masters history – was overshadowed by the rules controversy surrounding Tiger Woods. And more importantly, if the history of other recent first-time major winners is at all relevant, Scott’s greatness may well prove fleeting.
Since Tiger won the 1997 Masters, 34 other golfers have won their first major titles. Of those 34, only seven have gone on to win another major, three of whom – Padraig Harrington, Angel Cabrera and Mark O’Meara – won additional majors but no other regular tournaments on the US or European PGA tours. Eleven of the 34 of haven’t won any tournaments in the US or Europe since their major successes. Collectively, the 34 averaged 5.6 tour wins before their major wins, and only 4.1 tour wins since; if you exclude Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen, the latter figure drops to only 2.3.
Obviously, golfers like Scott, Rory McIlroy, Webb Simpson and Bubba Watson are fully capable of adding a more favorable gloss to those statistics over time. But far more golfers than not seem to view major victories as the culmination of a journey instead of fuel to propel them to greater heights. Of the 18 golfers among the 34 who had won at least four tour titles before their first major, arguably only Mickelson, Singh and Goosen became demonstrably better after winning a major. Several others (David Toms, Jim Furyk and Davis Love) held steady and kept winning normal tour events, but many more (e.g., Harrington, Darren Clarke, Michael Campbell, Stewart Cink, Mike Weir, Trevor Immelman and David Duval) suffered alarming dips in form from which they may never fully recover.
The two most similar players to Scott among the 34 represent opposite extremes of his potential future. Vijay Singh and David Duval had both won 12 previous tour events when they won their first majors at the ages of 35 and 29, respectively, and they were the only two players to wrest the top spot in the world rankings from Tiger during the peak years of Tiger’s career. But while Singh’s personal drive and amazing work ethic spurred him on to win two more majors and 28 additional tour events, Duval lost his motivation amidst a series of injuries and personal problems and is now virtually out of golf; by the start of the 2009 US Open (which he somehow nearly won), Duval had fallen to no. 882 in the world.
Scott is now 32 years old. On the plus side, his talent is limitless, and his caddie (Steve Williams) is probably the best in the business. On the minus side, the long putter which helped him – like Singh – conquer his demons on the greens is soon to be outlawed, and the distractions he now faces as a national hero and global marketing icon must be very tempting. Will Scott win multiple majors in the future? I’d love to see it, but I’m saddened by how strongly the odds seem to be against him.