2011 Majors Aggregate Champion

Charl Schwartzel is the Majors Aggregate Champion of 2011! That means that among the golfers who made the cut in all four major championships Schwartzel used the fewest strokes over the 16 round marathon. In fact I'd love to see more made out of this "event" which entails 288 holes played on 16 days spread over a period of 5 months. What do you think? Read on.

Schwartzel bested Steve Stricker and Sergio Garcia by 10 strokes. This year there were only 11 golfers that made the cut in all four majors - an average number. Charl actually made the cut in all four majors last year too!

Here are the standings:

Charl Schwartzel: 274-280-285-279--1118 Steve Stricker: 283-283-283-279--1128 Sergio Garcia: 288-279-282-279--1128 Rory McIlroy: 284-268-287-291--1130 Y.E. Yang: 284-278-285-292--1132 Ryan Palmer: 282-284-289-280--1135 Phil Mickelson: 287-291-278-280--1136 Gary Woodland: 286-285-289-279--1139 Bill Haas: 290-285-294-279--1143 Bubba Watson: 289-293-289-281--1152 Edoardo Molinari: 283-291-297-292--1163

I was surprised by the finishes put up by Sergio and Ryan Palmer - might be a sign of things to come.

Colin McGillivray tracks the majors aggregate each year on his website www.golf-majors-champion.com and has compiled the annual results going back to 1960.

Here are a few interesting points:

Largest margin of victory - 35 strokes Tiger Woods (2000)

Could this be the greatest year of golf ever? I believe so.

Most wins - Jack Nicklaus (10)

Who is the greatest golfer of all time? Tiger Woods has won this "event" 5 times - good enough for second best, and while he's not done (maybe?) it's a tall order to expect him to do this 5 more times. Not even close folks - Jack rules!

Most golfers to qualify - 2000 18 players

Fewest golfers to qualify (in the modern era) - 1988 4 players

Highest winning total - Gary Player (1963) 1156

Lowest winning total - Tiger Woods (2000) 1095

Longest timespan for qualifying - Jack Nicklaus 29years (1962-1991)

Most times qualified - Jack Nicklaus 21

Highest recorded score while qualifying - 1182 Arnold Palmer (1983) and Tommy Aaron (1970)

Looking through the list of qualifiers it is uncanny how many exceptional golfers appear on a regular basis. Based on this year's Majors a few players are moving up while some notable players are moving down - and just about out.

Up - Schwartzel, Yang, Bubba, Garcia, McIlroy, Woodland, Watney, Stricker, Kuchar, D. Johnson, J. Day, Karlsson and Scott.

Down - Woods, Stenson, Els, Goosen, Villegas, Weir, Casey and Vijay.

Do yourself a favor and take a look at the list of results over the years. It really does speak to the quality of the players that appear on the list time and time again. In my opinion measuring a golfers play in the year's four biggest events is an excellent barometer of who has had an exemplary year. Thoughts?