Column: Best to never win major label starting much earlier

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Jerry Barber holds a definite place in historical past on the PGA Championship. He was 45 when he received an 18-hole playoff at Olympia Fields to turn into the oldest first-time winner of a significant.

Viktor Hovland already is being requested about successful his first main.

One large distinction, after all, is that Barber was not often on anybody’s radar on the majors. He had received 5 occasions in his 12 years on tour earlier than all of it got here collectively for him one week in late July within the south suburbs of Chicago.

Hovland does not have that luxurious. By no means thoughts that he is a month away from ending his third full 12 months on tour. The Norwegian star already has six victories worldwide and has reached as excessive as No. 3 on this planet rating.

Majors are the following step, and the golf public is watching.

That goes for Xander Schauffele (28), and most prominently — for the time being, anyway — for Patrick Cantlay, who turned 30 a couple of months in the past. Due to a again harm that just about ended Cantlay’s profession earlier than it bought began, that is solely his fifth 12 months of a full slate of majors.

Time waits for nobody, particularly now.

Golf has been getting youthful for a very long time, most of them impressed by watching Tiger Woods set the usual by successful so many majors.

Simply two months in the past, the highest 5 gamers on this planet had been all of their 20s.

That may be one cause why nobody actually talks concerning the one label in golf that all the time felt like a back-handed praise: the perfect to have by no means received a significant.

The reply might be Lee Westwood, primarily as a result of he is been across the longest — he’s closing in on 750 tournaments courting to 1994 — though he hasn’t significantly contended in a significant since Danny Willett beat him to the Masters inexperienced jacket in 2016.

Rickie Fowler? He could be a good candidate at age 33. Although he has 9 wins around the globe, and in 2014 completed among the many prime 5 in each main, he’s on the verge of falling out of the highest 150 on this planet rating for the primary time since his rookie 12 months in 2010.

Are gamers underneath stress to ship a significant at a youthful age?

“I am unsure. I do not know what the media protection was like earlier than,” Cantlay stated. “I do know Phil (Mickelson), that was the narrative with him for a very long time, after which he knocked off a bunch in his 30s. I believe that is simply sort of the way in which that individuals discuss.”

Media protection as soon as was all about that, particularly with Mickelson, who did not bag the primary of six majors till he was 33.

Tom Kite, twice the main cash winner on the PGA Tour and now within the World Golf Corridor of Fame, did not get his first main till he was 42 within the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Seashore. He was thought of among the many greatest to have by no means received a significant till then.

Paul Azinger received the PGA Championship in 1993 for his first main at age 33, getting off the listing. Corey Pavin received his first at age 36 within the 1995 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. The latest was Sergio Garcia successful the Masters in 2017 at age 37. Nobody ever performed extra majors as a professional (70) earlier than successful his first one.

Cantlay had stated even earlier than the Masters when requested about his main document — two prime 10s, just one good likelihood at successful — that it wasn’t a very good pattern measurement. “Ask me in 15 years and we’ll see,” he stated in March.

“With everyone there’s completely different narratives, they usually all the time attempt to select the place you assume this particular person ought to have carried out a little bit higher,” Cantlay stated. “Not often do you hear the other. Perhaps the one particular person you hear the other about is Scottie Scheffler proper now.”

Scheffler received the Masters at age 25, making him the fifth participant within the final eight majors to have received his first main in his 20s. Even with a continuing inflow of youth, that makes the listing of these with out a main get a little bit smaller.

Justin Thomas received his first main 5 years in the past within the PGA Championship when he was 24. The previous few years, he has been grilled about when he’ll get the following one.

Not misplaced on Thomas: That query is rather a lot higher than the choice.

“I certain as hell would fairly have one than zero,” he stated with fun.

Successful the second has confirmed to be simply as tough, maybe a reminder that successful majors is tough at any age.

Woods simply made it look straightforward for therefore lengthy.

And since Woods impressed so many gamers, the questions on successful that first main are beginning sooner than ever.

“I am certain for Viktor Hovland to come back out right here, and it is like, ‘When are you going to win a significant?’ And he’s been out right here for 3 years,” Thomas stated. “I have not been out right here that lengthy. However the age of after I first got here out right here of asking when guys had been going to win their first one versus now could be fairly a bit completely different.”