One of the pundits on the Golf Channel opined that the quality of the play on the PGA tour is inversely related to how often a 54-hole leader wins the tournament. The idea being that when talent is widely spread out among the tour players, this suggests that overall quality is low.

The pundit mentioned the influx of European and rest-of-world players undoubtedly raised the overall quality on the PGA Tour and, he opined that one consequence of the "bunching" of talent would make it harder for any one player to dominate. And it would be more difficult for a 54-hole leader to go on to win the tournament. There would be more good players on the leaderboard who could overtake him in the final round.

I hope to look into questions pertaining to 54-hole leaders on the PGA Tour. I have compiled a database of every tournament on the US PGA Tour going back to 1936. So we can get some historical perspective.

The table below shows how the percentage of 54-hole leaders winning tournaments has evolved over time. I have broken the past 80 years of play on the PGA Tour down into decades. Formatting tables on 2+2 is a challenge for me as you can see, but hopefully the data will be apparent.

Let me describe the first row of the table. As of today, there have been 466 tournaments in 2006-2016 on the PGA Tour for which the 54-hole question is relevant. This only includes official 72-hole (or longer), stroke play tournaments, with standard stroke play scoring. It excludes match play events, 54-hole (or shorter) events, team events, unofficial events, events using Stabelford scoring, round-robin events, etc.

By the way, if the event is a 90-hole event, I take the 72-hole leader to be what I am calling the "54-hole leader". That is, the leader going into the final round. I will use "54-hole leader" throughout these posts, but remember that caveat.

In these 466 tournaments, there have been a grand total of 625 54-hole leaders. Of course, this is possible since many tournaments have multiple leaders going into the final round. (We will see in the next post why it is important to take into account the number of multiple leaders.)

In these 466 tournaments with 625 54-hole leaders, a 54-hole leader has gone on to win the tournament 218 times. 218/625 = 34.9% which is displayed in the next column.

The average 54-hole lead in these tournaments was 1.7 strokes (where the average is the simple average not taking into account multiple co-leaders with a zero stroke lead) and is displayed in the final column of the table.

.............Num..Num.3rd.........Avg
..............Strk..3rd..Rnd.........3rd
..............Play..Rnd..Ldr.........Rnd
Decade...Trnys.Ldrs.Won.Pct...Lead

2006-2016 466 625 218 34.9% 1.7
1996-2005 439 562 241 42.9% 1.8
1986-1995 407 540 198 36.7% 1.5
1976-1985 424 541 236 43.6% 1.8
1966-1975 431 572 223 39.0% 1.7
1956-1965 433 554 243 43.9% 1.8
1946-1955 328 419 207 49.4% 2.1
1936-1945 218 256 142 55.5% 2.4
TOTAL...3146 4069 1708 42.0% 1.8

By reviewing the table we see that the "closing" percentage was indeed much higher in the early days of the PGA Tour. 55.5% of 54-hole leaders in 1936-1945 went on to win the tournament, over 20 percentage points higher than in the most recent decade. Of course, this time period saw the emergence and domination of Hogan, Snead, and Nelson. Byron's remarkable 1945 season surely contributed to the decade's high closing percentage.

While this closing pct has definitely dropped over time, the decade-to-decade fluctuation has not been smooth. The influx of Europeans and rest-of-world players on to the US PGA Tour began in the 1980's and picked up steam in the 1990's all the way to the present day. It is tempting to say that the dip in the 1986-1995 closing pct is at least partially due to this influx of talent. However, the following decade of 1996-2005 sees a dramatic upward spike which we will comment on in a subsequent post.

Bonus Trivia Questions
As a reward for any reader who has made it this far, here are a few trivia questions culled from my research. In order to allow others to "enjoy" the questions without answers being immediately provided, could I suggest that answers/guesses be put in spoilers?

1. Name the only golfer, other than Byron Nelson in 1945, who won PGA tournaments in four consecutive weeks.

2. Name the golfer who inadvertently entered his back nine score in the box for the 18th hole and was forced to accept the 30 stroke error after he signed his scorecard.

3. Name the golfer who in a tournament in the 1960's waited over seven minutes for a putt to drop from the lip of the 72nd hole (the ball never did fall in). [His putt had no bearing on the outcome of the tournament but his playing partner, who was forced to wait, did have a crucial putt to make.]

4. Name the 54-hole leader who finished the most strokes behind the eventual tournament winner (tournament was 72 holes).

Next post in this saga ...

Since I have all the data at hand, I looked at the pct that a 54-hole leader wins the tournament based upon the size of the lead. Of course, we would expect that the closing pct would go up with the number of strokes the leader is leading by.

Here is the collective data from the US PGA Tour from 1936-2016 (as of today). Again, table formatting looks like crap, but I hope you can make sense of it.

First row of table shows that there have been 692 relevant tournaments (described in my prior post) in which there were co-leaders going into the final round. Of course, in that case the LEAD is 0 strokes. In these 692 tournaments, there were a grand total of 1615 54-hole leaders as each tournament in this case had multiple co-leaders.

In these 692 tournaments with 1615 54-hole leaders, a 54-hole leader went on to win the tournament 408 times. 408/1615 = 25.3%. Note that if we had taken 408/692 = 59% we might have incorrectly inferred that 54-hole co-leaders win 59% of the time. The correct interpretation is that 59% of tournaments in which there are multiple 54-hole co-leaders are won by one of the 54-hole co-leaders. (They collectively have an "advantage", of course, since by definition there is more than one co-leader.)

Anyway, to get back to the table, the second row indicates that 54-hole leaders with a 1-shot lead won 37.7% of the time. The third row indicates that 54-hole leaders with a 2-shot lead won 49.0% of the time, etc.

The table shows that the largest 54-hole lead ever lost on the PGA Tour was six strokes, and it happened 6 times. Unofficial trivia question: name any of the six golfers who had a six-shot 54-hole lead and did not win the tournament.

L.Num..Num.3rd
E.Strk..3rd...Rnd
A.Play..Rnd...Ldr
D.Trnys.Ldrs.Won.Pct

0 692 1615 408 25.3%
1 1001 1001 377 37.7%
2 618 618 303 49.0%
3 384 384 245 63.8%
4 195 195 146 74.9%
5 135 135 114 84.4%
6 64 64 58 90.6%
7 25 25 25 100.0%
8 16 16 16 100.0%
9 10 10 10 100.0%
10 4 4 4 100.0%
11 1 1 1 100.0%
12 0 0 0 100.0%
13 1 1 1 100.0%
TOTAL 3146 4069 1708 42.0

In the next post, I will report the performance of specific golfers as 54-hole leaders.

Bonus: Two more trivia questions

5. Name the golfer who had a four-shot lead after two rounds but was disqualified for not signing his second-round scorecard.

6. Name the golfer who tied Tiger Woods after 72 holes but was disqualified giving Tiger the victory. Extra credit: why was he disqualified?

it's funny. i see so much collapse from the guys i follow hard... but i'm wondering if it's just fairly normal.

i follow canadians. delaet and now hadwin are having problems closing the deal. hearn had his high profile moment at the deere where he missed at least one 5-7 footer for the win. further down on web.com, i can think of 4-5 chokes by canadians, but then there have probably been 5 wins too......delaet is really really bad..... note: hearn and weir both had great chances to win canadian open (been 60 years+ for canadian to win), and missed. but of course there were probably 6-7 players at least with a chance to win both years.

i think around 2001, a local canadian golfer had a 4 or 5 shot lead going into sunday at a pga stop. by the time TV came on - maybe 10th or 11th hole - he wasn't on the first page of the leaderboard.

but you know, at a lot of these tourneys, there are at least 10 guys within 3 strokes to start sunday. and only 1 wins.... so maybe the canadian stuff i mentioned is pretty common.............. also, is it somehow easier to score a really low round not being in the last group or two? much more relaxed with spectators and pace of play

i know garry player won at least 3 in a row... i thought andy bean did too but apparently not...

wow, don't remember the TW win due to disqualification...

what about people blowing 3 or 4 stroke leads on saturday night? has that increased over time?

i also wonder if somehow courses have become more variable or maybe the player's play.... more likely to get birdies but also more likely to get bogeys i.e. much lower % of pars.

sorry, didn't see that you had done much of what i suggested... has the % win of 4 stroke - for instance - leaders decreased over time? i think you just did the entire period.

Next post in saga ...

Here is the table of all golfers in 1936-2016 who held at least a share of the 54-hole lead 10 or more times in their careers. The table shows how many leads (shares + outright leads) and how many of these tourneys did they win together with the pct. (Please, again, forgive the crappy formatting.)

You can guess who is number one on this list of all-time best Closers.

Name 54-Hole Share+Leads Wins Pct

Tiger Woods...............57 53 93.0%

Cary Middlecoff...........25 22 88.0%

Byron Nelson..............38 29 76.3%

Ernie Els....................16 12 75.0%

Ben Hogan.................43 32 74.4%

Lloyd Mangrum...........26 19 73.1%

Johnny Miller..............22 15 68.2%

Arnold Palmer............55 37 67.3%

Billy Casper...............45 29 64.4%

Adam Scott................11 7 63.6%

Dave Stockton............11 7 63.6%

Lanny Wadkins...........16 10 62.5%

Jim Ferrier................16 10 62.5%

Phil Mickelson............36 22 61.1%

Dutch Harrison...........18 11 61.1%

Hubert Green.............20 12 60.0%

Nick Price..................15 9 60.0%

Tony Lema.................15 9 60.0%

Johnny Revolta............10 6 60.0%

Rory McIlroy...............10 6 60.0%

Jack Nicklaus..............64 38 59.4%

Tom Watson................44 26 59.1%

Ken Venturi.................17 10 58.8%

Lee Trevino.................29 17 58.6%

Sam Snead..................72 42 58.3%

Henry Picard................12 7 58.3%

Mark Calcavecchia........12 7 58.3%

David Toms.................12 7 58.3%

Bobby Nichols..............12 7 58.3%

Andy Bean...................12 7 58.3%

David Frost..................12 7 58.3%

Curtis Strange..............19 11 57.9%

Bobby Locke................14 8 57.1%

Scott Hoch..................14 8 57.1%

Vijay Singh.................32 18 56.3%

Mark O'Meara..............16 9 56.3%

Doug Sanders..............18 10 55.6%

Jordan Spieth..............11 6 54.5%

David Duval................13 7 53.8%

Jug McSpaden..............15 8 53.3%

Jack Burke..................15 8 53.3%

Steve Stricker..............15 8 53.3%

Kenny Perry.................19 10 52.6%

Hale Irwin...................24 12 50.0%

Al Geiberger................20 10 50.0%

Larry Nelson................14 7 50.0%

Jason Day...................12 6 50.0%

Fred Funk...................12 6 50.0%

Harry Cooper..............10 5 50.0%

Ralph Guldahl..............10 5 50.0%

Calvin Peete................10 5 50.0%

Rory Sabbatini.............10 5 50.0%

Peter Thomson.............10 5 50.0%

Raymond Floyd............25 12 48.0%

Jimmy Demaret...........23 11 47.8%

Gary Player.................23 11 47.8%

Tommy Bolt................21 10 47.6%

Bruce Crampton...........19 9 47.4%

Ben Crenshaw..............17 8 47.1%

Dave Hill....................13 6 46.2%

Julius Boros.................20 9 45.0%

Art Wall......................20 9 45.0%

Bruce Lietzke...............18 8 44.4%

Gene Littler.................34 15 44.1%

Doug Ford................. .23 10 43.5%

Jay Haas.....................14 6 42.9%

Mike Souchak..............17 7 41.2%

Fred Couples...............22 9 40.9%

Tom Weiskopf.............30 12 40.0%

Tom Kite....................20 8 40.0%

Hal Sutton..................15 6 40.0%

Paul Azinger................15 6 40.0%

Gay Brewer.................15 6 40.0%

Fuzzy Zoeller...............15 6 40.0%

Corey Pavin.................10 4 40.0%

John Cook...................10 4 40.0%

Brad Faxon..................10 4 40.0%

Retief Goosen..............10 4 40.0%

Davis Love..................26 10 38.5%

Justin Leonard.............13 5 38.5%

Frank Beard................13 5 38.5%

Bert Yancey................13 5 38.5%

Craig Stadler...............24 9 37.5%

Ted Kroll....................16 6 37.5%

Jim Furyk...................27 10 37.0%

John Mahaffey.............11 4 36.4%

Bruce Devlin...............11 4 36.4%

Greg Norman..............25 9 36.0%

Dow Finsterwald..........15 5 33.3%

Paul Harney................12 4 33.3%

Don January................13 4 30.8%

Johnny Pott.................13 4 30.8%

Payne Stewart.............20 6 30.0%

JC Snead....................10 3 30.0%

Jeff Sluman.................10 3 30.0%

Fred Haas...................14 4 28.6%

Bubba Watson..............11 3 27.3%

Miller Barber...............15 4 26.7%

Johnny Palmer.............15 4 26.7%

Jerry Barber................12 3 25.0%

Justin Rose..................12 3 25.0%

Sergio Garcia...............13 3 23.1%

Tom Lehman................15 3 20.0%

Scott Verplank..............16 3 18.8%

Stewart Cink................11 2 18.2%

George Archer..............13 2 15.4%

Mike Weir....................10 1 10.0%

As you can imagine, some of the very best golfers of all time are near the top of the "Closers" table. I suppose there may be several reasons for this. First, players with the most career wins are apt to be the best golfers (duh). Second, players with many leads can "learn" to close out tournaments (learning by doing). Third, other players chasing these greats may self-destruct or even play for second place. Fourth, some players are just good front-runners (Johnny Miller and Lanny Wadkins come to mind, but there are surely others).

Bonus: Two more trivia questions

7. Name the only golfer to win a sudden death playoff on the PGA Tour with a double-bogey. Extra credit: name the golfer who lost a sudden-death playoff hole to a double-bogey.

8. Name the golfer who was paired with Tommy Bolt in the last round when Terrible Tommy missed an easy putt on the 72nd hole. Bolt, fearing another lengthy suspension should he throw another club, asked his playing partner to throw Bolt's putter into the lake next to the green for him (which he did).

P.S. I just saw rivercitybirdie's post. I will look at the Close Pct by Lead over Time later today.

great stuff...

some pretty good winners at the bottom of the "closing %" too.. are they good at "coming from a few shots back"?

i was going to say "coming from behind" but due to a childish prank - not involving me - in university i always laugh at that phrasing

Had no idea Middlecoff won that many tournaments.

Miscellany that is probably of little interest to anyone but me:

When a 54-hole outright leader is caught and forced into a playoff, how often does he win the playoff? Does the player who caught the leader have "momentum"? We know that in the final round the "chaser" had a lower score than the erstwhile leader. In any event, there may be different dynamics pertaining to a leader vs. a guy coming from off-the-lead. Anyway, my database can answer the question.

There have been 305 tournaments from 1936-2016 in which the 54-hole outright leader was caught and entered a playoff. In these 305 tourneys, the erstwhile leader won 142 times in the playoff. 142/305 = 46.6%.

I am a bit disappointed as this result is probably what most people would have expected. A little less than 50%. For all the obvious reasons. Plus, there may be more than one player who caught the leader which would also tend to make the leader's playoff win pct to fall below 50%. Oh well.

Bonus: Two more trivia questions

9. Name the golfer who has made the most cuts all-time on the US PGA Tour.

10. Five golfers shared/led three consecutive tournaments and went on to win those tournaments on the US PGA Tour. Byron Nelson (1944), Sam Snead (1945), Billy Casper (1960), and Hubert Green (1976) were four of the five who accomplished this. Name the fifth golfer who accomplished this in the 1950's (hint: he was born outside of the United States).

For sure the most over-looked all-time great players are Billy Casper (51 career victories on the PGA Tour), Cary Middlecoff (40), and Lloyd Mangrum (36).

Casper hung around a long time, including the Senior Tour, so is fairly well-known among golfers/fans of a certain age.

Middlecoff was a golf TV broadcaster for many years after his playing career, so again if you are old enough you at least remember him.

Mangrum, on the other hand, nobody remembers today.

interesting stuff on the winner of playoffs.... thank you.

brings to mind something i've wondered about the NBA: whenever a team makes a frantic 4th quarter comeback to force OT, they seem to get smoked in OT? like barely scoring for 3-4 minutes in some cases.

or another similar one is that in tennis - between equal players - it seems like the loser of the last set goes up a break early alot in the next set.

i.e. huge momentum changes.....

how many strokes did glen hnatiuk lead by on saturday night in 2001 or 2002 memphis open?.... i found the leaderboard online but all it showed was final score

was cory middlecoff a dentist later on? or dental school around same time?

played at mississippi........ how i know that is a long story funny only to those who were present....

I'll go with Bobby Locke.

Per request, here is the summarized "close pct" data by size of lead and by decade. We saw previously that the overall close pct has dropped dramatically over time. Here we break that down into the eight decades of US PGA Tour data that I have compiled.

54-Hole Leader Lead = 1+ Strokes

.............Num...3rd
..............Strk...Rnd
..............Play...Ldr
Decade...Trnys..Won..Pct

2006-2016 351 156 44.4%
1996-2005 346 178 51.4%
1986-1995 313 148 47.3%
1976-1985 334 182 54.5%
1966-1975 323 160 49.5%
1956-1965 342 192 56.1%
1946-1955 259 162 62.5%
1936-1945 186 122 65.6%
TOTAL....2454 1300 53.0%

54-Hole Leader Lead = 2+ Strokes

.............Num...3rd
..............Strk...Rnd
..............Play...Ldr
Decade...Trnys..Won..Pct

2006-2016 200 106 53.0%
1996-2005 204 121 59.3%
1986-1995 164 100 61.0%
1976-1985 191 129 67.5%
1966-1975 189 111 58.7%
1956-1965 205 134 65.4%
1946-1955 169 122 72.2%
1936-1945 131 100 76.3%
TOTAL....1453 923 63.5%

54-Hole Leader Lead = 3+ Strokes

.............Num...3rd
..............Strk...Rnd
..............Play...Ldr
Decade...Trnys..Won..Pct

2006-2016 116 71 61.2%
1996-2005 115 82 71.3%
1986-1995 85 62 72.9%
1976-1985 120 87 72.5%
1966-1975 106 76 71.7%
1956-1965 105 83 79.0%
1946-1955 104 87 83.7%
1936-1945 84 72 85.7%
TOTAL....835 620 74.3%

54-Hole Leader Lead = 4+ Strokes

.............Num...3rd
..............Strk...Rnd
..............Play...Ldr
Decade...Trnys..Won..Pct

2006-2016 59 48 81.4%
1996-2005 58 47 81.0%
1986-1995 40 30 75.0%
1976-1985 68 52 76.5%
1966-1975 53 44 83.0%
1956-1965 60 51 85.0%
1946-1955 62 57 91.9%
1936-1945 51 46 90.2%
TOTAL....451 375 83.1%

54-Hole Leader Lead = 5+ Strokes

.............Num...3rd
..............Strk...Rnd
..............Play...Ldr
Decade...Trnys..Won..Pct

2006-2016 31 25 80.6%
1996-2005 41 37 90.2%
1986-1995 15 14 93.3%
1976-1985 37 31 83.8%
1966-1975 27 23 85.2%
1956-1965 33 32 97.0%
1946-1955 38 36 94.7%
1936-1945 34 31 91.2%
TOTAL....256 229 89.5%

54-Hole Leader Lead = 6+ Strokes

.............Num...3rd
..............Strk...Rnd
..............Play...Ldr
Decade...Trnys..Won..Pct

2006-2016 17 16 94.1%
1996-2005 24 22 91.7%
1986-1995 7 7 100.0%
1976-1985 14 13 92.9%
1966-1975 13 12 92.3%
1956-1965 12 12 100.0%
1946-1955 16 15 93.8%
1936-1945 18 18 100.0%
TOTAL....121 115 95.0%

We see from these tables that at every size of lead the close pct has dramatically declined over time. The current decade (2006-2016) sports the lowest close pct in virtually every category.

Good memory (or bad)!

Hnatiuk had a 4-shot lead going into the final round of the 2002 FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis. Unfortunately, he shot a final round 77 and wound up in 14th place, six shots behind the winner Len Mattiace.

Mattiace started the final round in 9th place, 7 shots behind, and shot a 64. By my math that is a 13 stroke swing. Ouch.

Very good guess. Not correct though.

I'll guess Steve Stricker - he's had a long career and I vaguely remember him going a long streak of making cuts.

also excellent thread

I don't think it would be Stricker... not old enough or enough of a grinder. It has to be someone that was on tour for like 30 years and played almost every event, but was also a decent player to make cuts consistently. Someone like Mark Calcavecchia, but maybe a bit better. I'm thinking someone from the 70s through 90s, like Hale Irwin or Tom Kite. But I guess you could go back to the 50s and 60s, but I don't know if the PGA Tour schedule had the same number of events back then.

Jim Ferrier?

most cuts made ever........... davis love??

re hnatiuk and memphis........... he is local golfer. so it has/had significance

Stricker is not correct though he did have the longest active cut streak on the PGA Tour a few years ago. I think he has made 344 cuts in his career. Which is very good, but not in the all-time top 10.

Rexx is definitely on the right track. The all-time leader was a grinder who played from 1970's to the 1990's. People mentioned above:

Tom Kite 590 cuts made (2nd all time)
Davis Love 551
Mark Calcavecchia 527
Hale Irwin 526

The all-time leader has 592 (hint: he never won a major).

Excellent. Correct. Very well done. Few people know much about Ferrier nowadays.

Here are some additional hints in case anyone is mildly interested in those trivia questions. Hints are in blue.

1. Name the only golfer, other than Byron Nelson in 1945, who won PGA tournaments in four consecutive weeks.

He did it in the 1950's and he is still alive.

2. Name the golfer who inadvertently entered his back nine score in the box for the 18th hole and was forced to accept the 30 stroke error after he signed his scorecard.

He had an alphabetic nickname.

3. Name the golfer who in a tournament in the 1960's waited over seven minutes for a putt to drop from the lip of the 72nd hole (the ball never did fall in). [His putt had no bearing on the outcome of the tournament but his playing partner, who was forced to wait, did have a crucial putt to make.]

He won one major on the PGA Tour and had a great deal of success on the Seniors Tour.

4. Name the 54-hole leader who finished the most strokes behind the eventual tournament winner (tournament was 72 holes).

This occurred at a US Open since 1960.

5. Name the golfer who had a four-shot lead after two rounds but was disqualified for not signing his second-round scorecard.

This occurred in the 1960's. This colorful golfer was prematurely pulled away from the scorer's area (basically a card table) by the media who wanted to interview him.

6. Name the golfer who tied Tiger Woods after 72 holes but was disqualified giving Tiger the victory. Extra credit: why was he disqualified?

The player was actually disqualified midway through the 4th round for using a non-conforming putter but was allowed to finish his round so that he could "appeal" the suspension after the round was over.

7. Name the only golfer to win a sudden death playoff on the PGA Tour with a double-bogey. Extra credit: name the golfer who lost a sudden-death playoff hole to a double-bogey.

Both players have played on the PGA Tour in 2016. There is a very large disparity in the number of career wins these two players have.

8. Name the golfer who was paired with Tommy Bolt in the last round when Terrible Tommy missed an easy putt on the 72nd hole. Bolt, fearing another lengthy suspension should he throw another club, asked his playing partner to throw Bolt's putter into the lake next to the green for him (which he did).

This player had a nickname which would probably not have been used in today's PC times.

9. Name the golfer who has made the most cuts all-time on the US PGA Tour.

Player was a grinder in 1970's-1990's. He never won a major on the PGA Tour. It is not Tom Kite, Davis Love, Mark Calcavecchia, Hale Irwin (who all won majors, of course), or Steve Stricker.

10. Five golfers shared/led three consecutive tournaments and went on to win those tournaments on the US PGA Tour. Byron Nelson (1944), Sam Snead (1945), Billy Casper (1960), and Hubert Green (1976) were four of the five who accomplished this. Name the fifth golfer who accomplished this in the 1950's (hint: he was born outside of the United States).

MikkeD correctly named Jim Ferrier.

How is Bo not all over this already?

For #6 I was at that tournament. I believe it was Disney in '96 or '97. It was a longish name that started with an M (like McLoughlin or something), but I can't remember what it was. I was really confused because he was playing, and the scorer was carrying a placard with his name but there was no score there. Afterwards there was a delay before they gave Tiger the trophy because they were deciding what to do. When Tiger came out on the 18th green there was some booing....