An appreciation for underrated golfer
A few weeks ago during The Players Championship the television announcers kept bringing up the anonymous player survey that had Rickie Fowler tied for the PGA Tour’s most “overrated player.”
During the telecast, my brother-in-law asked me who I thought was the most “underrated” player. That got me thinking.
So I did a little reading and I’ve decided on two players to nominate: one present and one from the past.
PRESENT
Although this player has just two PGA Tour victories, I think he owns the undesired “best player to have never won a major” title.
Born in 1973, he started playing golf with his grandfather as a teen. By 23, he won his first professional event, The Volvo Scandinavian Masters.
By 25 he cracked the top 10 in the official golf world rankings. After taking some time off for the birth of his child in 2001, he returned and came roaring back by the mid-2000’s to become one of the most successful, consistent and well-traveled golfers of our generation (and one of the top five most entertaining golfers to follow on Twitter).
All in all, he has been on nine Ryder Cup Teams, seven of which were victorious (a European record). He has won 42 worldwide events. He has spent more than 310 weeks in the OWGR top 10. He has eight top-three finishes in majors. And he became the official world No. 1 in 2010.
If you still haven’t identified him, it’s Britain’s Lee Westwood. That may be a surprise pick to some, but if I were to ask 50 golf fans to name the top 10 players of our generation, I don’t think Westwood’s name would make too many of those lists.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are the easy 1-2. Vijay Singh and Ernie Els are 3-4. Jim Furyk’s been relevant for so long he’d have to make it by default. But after that, it gets tricky.
And although Westwood hasn’t won “the big one,” I still think he’s worthy of being considered the most underrated top-tier player out there.
And then there is my former teammate at Kent State, Ben Curtis. After some research, I could only find four people on Earth under 40 with at least five PGA Tour victories and at least one major championship — Rory McIlroy (11 Tour wins, four majors), Adam Scott (11 and one), Bubba Watson (seven and two), and Justin Rose (seven and one).
Curtis has four wins, including the British Open in 2003.
PAST
As for my all-time most underrated player, I have to go with Dr. Cary Middlecoff. That’s right, doctor.
After graduating from the University of Tennessee with a dentistry degree, Middlecoff joined the U.S. Army Dental Corps and served in WWII through 1945. In 1947 he turned professional and played through the 1950’s before a bad back forced him out of competitive golf in the early 1960’s.
Middlecoff won 40 PGA Tour events (10th all-time), including one Masters and two U.S. Opens. He made three Ryder Cup teams (all three victorious). His 28 victories during the 1950’s were the most of that decade. He was elected into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1986.
Middlecoff was noted as one of the sport’s best early television broadcasters. And in his spare time he wrote a newspaper column called “The Golf Doctor.”
Few of today’s golf fans know about Middlecoff, but his career compares favorably to some of the most well-known players of the past.
Jonah Karzmer is a former golf professional who writes a Sunday golf column for The Vindicator. In his spare time he sells commercial insurance and loves getting feedback on his weekly columns via email at Jonah@thekarzmerinsurance.com.