The best players never to have won The Masters

Most golf fans would agree that to be considered as one of the greatest of all time, you have to have pulled on the famous Green Jacket as a winner of The Masters.

Despite this, some of the best and most talented golfers in the history of the game – multiple major winners amongst them – have failed to win one of golf’s most coveted prizes.

We look back at several greats of the game who never got it done at Augusta National…

Lee Trevino

One of only four players to have won the US Open, The Open and the PGA Championship twice each – but he had a complicated relationship with Augusta National, posting only two top-tens in 20 starts. After the 1969 Masters, he famously said: “Don’t talk to me about the Masters. I’m never going to play there again. They can invite me all they want, but I’m not going back. It’s just not my type of course.” As a fader of the ball, he felt his game didn’t suit the course. He subsequently skipped several sedition of the event, which he has since described as “the greatest mistake I’ve made in my career”.

Greg Norman

What is there to be said about Greg Norman’s love-hate relationship with The Masters that hasn’t already been committed to the record many times over? The Shark’s 23 trips to Augusta National yielded three runner-up finishes, three other third place finishes and three more top-tens just for good measure. The most painful near-miss of the lot? 1996. Without doubt. Taking a six-shot lead into the final round, you could have forgiven the tailors for prepping the Green Jacket for him on the Saturday night. However, in rather painful fashion, the Australian laboured to a 78, turning a six-shot lead into a six-shot defeat at the hands of playing partner Nick Faldo. At the time, the former LIV Golf boss was acclaimed for the magnanimous manner with which he dealt with that sickening Sunday. “I just move through life and I don’t let things affect me,” he said in 2016. “You’re going to have good and bad rounds and the indication of someone’s character is shown on how you handle both.”

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Ernie Els

How does four-time major champion Els reflect on his 23 trips to The Masters? “It was a f***ing nightmare for the most part,” he has said. “I won’t ever miss the place. I’ve got a love-hate relationship with the place. It was always almost like a curse to me. It was not a romantic deal to me.” The ‘Big Easy’ twice finished runner-up at Augusta National: in 2000, when Vijay Singh beat him to the title; and 2004, when a final hole birdie from Phil Mickelson denied him a Green Jacket.

Johnny Miller

Johnny Miller’s résumé speaks for itself: two majors, 25 PGA Tour wins, the first player to shoot 63 in a major, two Ryder Cup appearances, a place in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Yet one thing that eluded him was Masters glory. That’s not to say he didn’t come close, however. On three occasions he finished runner-up, despite a bold prediction he made ahead of the 1974 event. “If I don’t win, I’ll be as surprised as anyone,” he declared, adding that he wanted a Green Jacket “very, very badly”. Alas, it wasn’t to be, his runner-up finish in 1981 proving to be his last top-ten finish at Augusta National.

Rory McIlroy

Oh, Rory. The Northern Irishman sure has put himself and his legions of fans through the wringer in this tournament. McIlroy should have pulled on the Green Jacket in 2011, but he blew up on the back nine and now Charl Schwartzel is forever a Masters champion. Since then, McIlroy has tried everything and practically manipulates his playing schedule around getting to Augusta with his game in the right shape. It’s sort of worked, in that he has had seven top-tens in his last 11 appearances, but he still hasn’t got over the line and into that blazer. Yet.

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Nick Price

Price had a small period of domination in the golfing world, where he was considered the best player around and delivered by winning three majors in two years, including back-to-back wins at The Open and PGA Championship in 1994. However, most experts were left scratching their head at the fact that his best-ever finish at Augusta was fifth in 1986, despite the fact he became the first player to shoot 63 on the famed course that same year. Twenty starts yielded 11 top-25 finishes… but it could have been so much better.

Colin Montgomerie

Forget the best players to never win a Masters, Monty has a good claim for the best player to have never won a major full stop. But the Scot’s record at Augusta is nothing to write home about, with more missed cuts (6) than top 20s (5) from his 15 starts and his best finish being a tie for 8th in 1998. The year before, ahead of a third-round pairing with leader Tiger Woods, whom Montgomerie trailed by three, he confidently declared: “I’ve got a lot more experience in major championships than he has, and hopefully I can prove that.” Woods went on to win by 12 and beat Montgomerie by double that.

David Duval

‘Double D’ has an Open Championship, a Players Championship and a Tour Championship on his impressive CV, but his inability to get the job done at Augusta has always been a thorn in the American’s side. Duval, who spent 29 weeks at the top of the world rankings in 1999, has a peculiar record at Augusta, with finishes of T18, T2, T6, T3 and 2nd flanked by six missed cuts from 11 starts. He doesn’t mince his words when it comes to his runner-ups, either: “Finishing second at the Masters is like getting kicked in the head.”

Hale Irwin

Irwin won a frankly ludicrous 83 times in his Hall of Fame career, including three US Open victories between 1974 and 1990 and a Champions Tour record that’s only been bettered by Bernhard Langer. One suspects Irwin would swap that for just one of the German’s two Green Jackets, though. His record at Augusta was exemplary, too, finishing T4, T4, T4, 5th and 8th in a five-year run from ‘74. He once said of playing the last nine holes of a Masters: “There’s going to come at least one point when you want to throw yourself in the nearest trash can and disappear. You know you can’t hide. It’s like you’re walking down the fairway naked.” Quite.