Who Had the Best Major Year Without a Win?

There are no fewer than three silly seasons in the professional golf calendar, and we just entered one of them. So on Monday I decided to test the internet waters with a simple question: outside of the three players who won majors in 2024, who would you say had the best men’s major championship season?

Outside of Xander, Scottie, and Bryson, who had the best men's major championship season?

— Fried Egg Golf (@fried_egg_golf) July 22, 2024

Now, there are two ways to answer that question. You can take it literally and look at which player had the best statistical season without holding a trophy. Or you can be more subjective with it, focusing on who walked away from this year having done the most for their career.

(Important note: we’re focusing on players only. Otherwise, as Seth Butler pointed out, the most correct answer would be Johnson Wagner.)

Looking purely at stats and results, the answer is undoubtedly Collin Morikawa. With two top-four finishes and no major result worse than T-16, Collin easily was the best of the rest. He was in the final group on Sunday in the first two majors of the year, even though he fell out of contention before making the turn in both events.

Morikawa reestablished himself as a legitimate threat in the biggest events, and will be one of the favorites for the early portion of 2025.

But golf is far more fun when you look at subjective metrics and not just the objective ones. Metrics like experience and heart. With those in mind, other names that come into the conversation, at least for me, are Ludvig Åberg, Russell Henley, and Billy Horschel. The latter two both recorded two top 10s in majors for the first time in their career. To put that in context, they had a combined two top 10s in their 81 previous major championship starts. And both were legitimately in contention for a major title the first times in their career. But my answer to the original question is Åberg.

He missed two cuts, but a runner-up at the Masters and 36-hole lead at Pinehurst are invaluable experiences for your first full season as a professional. Making the turn at Augusta National with a chance at a green jacket isn’t something that comes easily, yet he did it in his first major start. He has a lot of expectations on him to be sure, but he also now has good major memories and plenty of experience to lean on moving forward.

This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.