Ranking the Best Major Championships of 2023 Across Men’s and Women’s Pro Golf
That’s a wrap, people. The big tournaments of 2023 are done.
What about the FedEx Cup? That’s only 30 guys at the end. That’s barely a Monday night golf league.
Nope, Sunday saw the finish of this year’s 14th major championship—the AIG Women’s Open. There were 14 majors across the PGA Tour, LPGA and PGA Tour Champions. (Sorry, Canadian Tour. You’ll get nothing and like it.)
Here’s how the majors looked according to The Ranking and its crack staff of experts …
2023 Golf Major Championships Ranked
14. Regions Tradition
13. Evian Championship
Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
Céline Boutier took a three-shot lead into the final round in France, then ended any suspense with birdies on three of the first five holes en route to a six-shot victory in her home country. She joined Patricia Meunier-Lebouc and Catherine Lacoste as French women who won major championships.
Drama: 1
French factor: 10. Here’s a toast to the winner—yep, this is your clichéd French toast reference.
12. Kaulig Companies Championship
Jeff Lange, Imagn
As a senior tourist, Steve Stricker has become a Mariano Rivera–type closer. At Firestone’s South Course, Stricker had a one-shot lead over Harrison Frazar to begin the final round. Stricker sank a 40-foot birdie putt at 15, wedged to kick-in range at 16 and was suddenly three up with two kinda boring finishing holes to play. The win gets Stricker into next year’s Players Championship.
Drama: 7
Celebrity: 9. Stricker is the circuit’s most interesting superstar—uh, sorry, Bernhard Langer.
Headlines: 1. Come on, The Ranking banned those now-clichéd “Down Goes Frazar” headlines two decades ago.
11. British Open
It’s difficult for The Ranking to remember if anyone other than Brian Harman teed it up at Royal Liverpool. Harman’s second-round 65 crushed the field as he vaulted to a large lead and stayed there, eventually winning by six.
Drama: 3. Deep pot bunkers and in-course out of bounds on the final hole added a little tension, but Harman exhibited zero choke factor.
Celebrity: 4. Harman was not a household name in most American households. Or any British ones.
Tabloid factor: 10. The British tabloids went after Harman because (a) he wasn’t an Englishman like Tommy Fleetwood, and (b), he likes bow hunting. Hunting apparently equals blood-thirsty, crass American. Tabloids’ take: “Brian the Butcher.” That’s lame sauce.
10. AIG Women’s Open Championship
Andrew Redington/Getty Images
This final round turned into The Shootout That Wasn’t. Lilia Vu and Charley Hull shared the 54-hole lead with 11 players within five shots of them at England’s Walton Heath Golf Club. Vu had a five-shot lead when she reached the 11th hole Sunday en route to posting a 67 for her second major title of the year.
Drama: 3. Too much Vu.
Celebrity: 7. After a second major win, Vu takes over the No. 1 ranking—now she gets upgraded to a celebrity.
9. U.S. Senior Open
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Germany’s Bernhard Langer is Mr. Champions Tour. Langer, 65, outdistanced home-state favorites Stricker and Jerry Kelly to win the Open at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis. Langer had a two-shot lead to start the final round, then birdied the first two holes to jump four ahead of Kelly and five over Stricker.
Drama: 4. It was Wisconsin, so beer was involved in spectating, and, therefore, hope sprung eternal for the defeated—aww, Schlitz!!—Badger-staters.
Course factor: 8. SentryWorld was no pushover, as Langer won at 7 under par despite ranking No. 1 in driving accuracy (.873), greens in regulation (.732) and scrambling (.737).
History factor: 12. Langer passed Hale Irwin on the senior circuit’s all-time victory list with win No. 46 and also set a record for most years between Senior Open wins—12. The previous record was, no Schlitz, 4.
Suds factor: 9. A new beer from a brewery a few blocks away was created in Stricker’s honor, Strick9, and quickly sold out. How’s it taste? Like beer. No Schlitz, Sherlock.
8. Senior British Open
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Alex Čejka birdied the second playoff hole to beat Pádraig Harrington, runner-up for a second straight year, but it was so wet, windy and miserable at Royal Porthcawl it was hard to care. Harrington narrowly missed an eagle putt for the win on the first extra but lost to Čejka’s birdie while he made par after chunking a chip shot.
Drama: 8. Tense until the aforementioned duffed chip. Avert your eyes, kids.
Weather factor: 9. Bonus points for final round’s classic Welsh conditions. Don’t forget, let’s never play another Ryder Cup there.
7. KPMG Women’s PGA Championship
Seth Wenig/AP
China’s Ruoning (Ronnie) Yin led by one on Baltusrol’s 18th tee and saw Yuka Saso birdie it up ahead. Yin, 20, rolled in her own clutch birdie putt for the win.
Drama: 9. Another walk-off win. LPGA, this is your year!
Celebrity: 2. Geez, even diehard LPGA fans had to wonder, “Ronnie who?”
History: 9.5. Baltusrol’s list of major champs includes Phil Mickelson, Mickey Wright, Jack Nicklaus and now, Yin. Good company.
Comedy factor: 9. Xiyu Lin, who bogeyed the last hole to finish two strokes back, rents her second home in Orlando to Yin, who was asked whether she thought her rent might go up after the win. Said Yin: “Actually, I’m thinking about buying her house right now.”
6. Chevron Championship
David J. Phillip/AP
Lilia Vu relied on thoughts of her late grandfather to stay calm during the final round, birdied the last two holes and the first playoff hole for the win. Runner-up Angel Yin hit into the greenside pond in the playoff, then Vu, a 25-year-old Californian, holed a 10-foot birdie putt for her first major title.
Drama: 10. A walk-off winner, a crushed loser.
Celebrity: 2. Vu and Yin?
Tradition factor: 2. The event moved from Palm Springs’s Mission Hills to The Woodlands near Houston, but golf’s worst winner’s tradition—a leap into a greenside pond—continued.
Fear factor: 7. “We saw a snake on the pond the day or so before,” said Vu, who plunged in, anyway. “I was kind of thinking about that today.”
5. The Masters
No Masters is ever a dud, not with Augusta National’s back nine. However, Jon Rahm became the fourth straight Masters champion who led by at least four strokes with four holes to play. Brooks Koepka was ahead from Friday morning until Sunday’s sixth hole, when his birdies dried up. Rahm’s closing 69 slammed the door.
Drama: 7. A leader can always go all Billy Joe Patton or young Rory McIlroy on the back nine Sunday.
Celebrity: 10.5. Rahm is a deserving, likable two-time major champ; Koepka returned from LIV Golf anonymity; and Phil Mickelson, you can’t make this up, popped up from ObLIVion to tie for second.
4. Senior PGA Championship
The way Steve Stricker is playing, he could probably win with a 15-year-old kid as his caddie. Wait, he did! Daughter Izzi (a pretty good player already) filled in and watched Dad dispatch Pádraig Harrington on the first playoff hole in Frisco, Texas. Harrington birdied the 72nd hole to force a playoff but pushed his drive right into thick rough, failed to get out, took a penalty drop and then drilled a 270-yard 5-wood (no Schlitz!) shot to 15 feet. Harrington missed the par putt, though, so Stricker won.
Drama: 10. Clash of the Awfully Nice Senior Titans.
Feel-good factor: 10. A daughter on the champ’s bag? Happy early Father’s Day!
Almost factor: 9. “If I hole the putt, we could say it was the best shot I ever hit,” Harrington said. “I didn’t hole the putt so we’ll forget about it. Golf is cruel.”
Instant cash factor: 300. A stray Harrington shot hit a spectator in the final round and after signing a golf glove for the wounded man, Harrington whipped out his wallet and handed him $300. “It never seems adequate to give a grown man a glove,” Harrington said. “His wife was inside [the clubhouse]. I hope I gave him enough for dinner.”
3. U.S. Women’s Open
The first women’s major championship played at Pebble Beach was all that and a bag of chips. Allisen Corpuz had a three-shot lead in the final fairway and completed her weeklong ball-striking clinic. Corpuz, a USC alum, was ranked 29th in the world but played such eye-opening golf that she got a congratulatory message from former President Barack Obama, an alum of Corpuz’s Hawaiian high school.
Thrill factor: 6. It was a tense final round as observers—well, probably you—waited for the little-known Corpuz to crumble. Just the opposite occurred.
History: 11. She joins, oh, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods, among others, as Pebble Beach major champions.
Celebrity: 7. Her caddie was Jay Monahan. Not the PGA Tour commissioner, someone else named Jay Monahan. Wonder if her walking scorer was named Deane Beman?
2. U.S. Open
Late-bloomer Wyndham Clark held on to beat big names such as Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler to win at Los Angeles Country Club. His Father’s Day win was dedicated to his late mother, who died from breast cancer in 2013. “She called me “Winner” when I was little,” Clark recalled. “She would just say, I love you, Winner.”
Drama: 9. Clark opened a three-shot lead after a birdie at the 14th but needed to par the last hole to win, which he did, two-putting from 60 feet.
Celebrity: 10. Clark wasn’t widely noticed after his first PGA Tour win a month earlier at the Wells Fargo Championship, but the week’s leaderboard featured Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele, who shot the first 62s in Open history; Cameron Smith; Jon Rahm; Dustin Johnson; and Austin Eckroat. Hey, five outta six isn’t bad.
1. PGA Championship
Eric Gay/AP
Brooks Koepka looked like the No. 1 player in the world again as he out-toughed the field and stepped on their necks at the brilliantly renovated Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y. Koepka birdied three of the first four holes in the final round to jump four strokes ahead of Norway’s Viktor Hovland and Canada’s Corey Conners. Koepka closed the deal with a superb iron shot for a short birdie at the 16th after Hovland’s 9-iron shot from a fairway bunker buried in the bunker wall, the same place Conners did the same thing a day earlier.
Drama: 8. Koepka seemed to be just waiting for his usual mic-drop moment.
History: 10. That makes five major titles for Koepka. Who’s won more than that in the 2000s? That Woods fella, with 13, and Mickelson, 6.
Miracle factor: 12. Club pro Michael Block was the star of the week. He made the cut, sent club pro hearts a-racing and hit the Shot of the Week—an ace at the 15th hole Sunday while paired with Rory McIlroy. Block also made the Save of the Week, pulling off an unlikely up-and-down to par the 18th and finish top 15, earning a berth in next year’s PGA.)