2022 Majors: The Nine Who Played All 16 Rounds

McIlroy, Zalatoris And Fitzpatrick played some incredible golf. And those who made all four cuts deserve recognition for the accomplishment.

In a world where Meltwater mentions and MVP Indexes get some pros paid it feels a bit peculiar to have no reward for major championship consistency. To make the cut in all four majors is a noble, typically underrated feat.

Players face wildly different settings, designs, grasses and weather over four events in a 100 days (or so). They need luck with tee time draws. But mostly they have to be armed with incredible all-around games.

Since I’ve been on the golf beat, the majors seem to end without proper recognition for the players who made all four cuts. A writer or two traditionally will do the math and get a good post-major story out of the tally. That continues with Kyle Porter offering the 2022 tabulation, plus other good factoids and perspective at CBSSports.com.

But why can’t we reward excellence in the quadrilateral? I get that the Five Families already pump every media rights dollar possible into purses. Attempts have been made to make the annual winner of this elite race a bigger thing but for whatever reason the tries have failed to gain traction. At the very least, the winner of this elite “season-long” race deserves some sort of award and chance to deliver an acceptance speech. One where they express how happy they are to be mentioned in the same breath as their peers, and what this season says about the work put in “by the team” to get through all sixteen rounds.

Maybe the one sponsor involved in all four men’s majors and valuing a perpetual excellence, would be a fit? Rolex? Of course there would be complications. Take 2022’s resounding winner: Rory McIlroy. He’s an Omega man. Though charitable donations could be made in lieu of receiving a premium timepiece signifying excellence.

This year, just nine players made all four major cuts. Ignoring 2020’s three-major, pandemic rescheduled weirdness, the last few years look like this (leader and runner-up noted):

• 13 played all 16 rounds in 2017 (Brooks Koepka -21 by one over Hideki Matsuyama)

• 11 in 2018 (Justin Rose -12 by one over Fowler)

• 16 in 2019 (Koepka -36 by 22 over Xander Schauffele and Dustin Johnson)

• 14 in 2021 (Rahm -24 by five over Collin Morikawa)

• 9 in 2022 (McIlroy by eight over Will Zalatoris)

The top two golfers in ‘22’s Grand Slam events did not win but came absurdly close (heartbreakingly x 2 in Zalatoris’ case).