out in 30 back in 33, what a very special round for me

It seems a little churlish to criticise Louis Oosthuizen for making most of the last round of the Open Championship a bit of a triumphal procession, and therefore devoid of as much cut-and-thrust, excitement and tension as the non-partisan observer might have been wanting, especially since it was Oosthuizen’s own unexpected excellence and resilience that made it so (with a bit of help from his pursuers, Paul Casey in particular, who were unable to mount a serious charge). But it’s nonetheless true that it would have been more exciting had it been a bit closer, so I was obliged to muse on other golfing matters instead.

One of the things I was thinking about, after watching curly-topped 7-year-old Northern Irish golfing prodigy Rory McIlroy fight his way back up the leaderboard to finish in a tie for third, was how often people who’d shot 63 in a golfing major (as McIlroy did in the first round at St. Andrew’s) went on to win the tournament. And having done a bit of research I can now tell you: not as often as you might think. There have been 24 such rounds in major championship history – here’s a chronological summary:

Player	Tournament	Year	Round	Result	Winner
Johnny Miller	US Open	1973	final	WON	Johnny Miller
Bruce Crampton	USPGA	1975	second	2nd	Jack Nicklaus
Mark Hayes	Open	1977	second	tied 9th	Tom Watson
Jack Nicklaus	US Open	1980	first	WON	Jack Nicklaus
Tom Weiskopf	US Open	1980	first	37th	Jack Nicklaus
Isao Aoki	Open	1980	third	tied 12th	Tom Watson
Raymond Floyd	USPGA	1982	first	WON	Raymond Floyd
Gary Player	USPGA	1984	second	tied 2nd	Lee Trevino
Nick Price	Masters	1986	third	5th	Jack Nicklaus
Greg Norman	Open	1986	second	WON	Greg Norman
Paul Broadhurst	Open	1990	third	tied 12th	Nick Faldo
Jodie Mudd	Open	1991	final	tied 5th	Ian Baker-Finch
Nick Faldo	Open	1993	final	2nd	Greg Norman
Payne Stewart	Open	1993	final	12th	Greg Norman
Vijay Singh	USPGA	1993	second	4th	Paul Azinger
Michael Bradley	USPGA	1995	first	tied 54th	Steve Elkington
Brad Faxon	USPGA	1995	final	5th	Steve Elkington
Greg Norman	Masters	1996	first	2nd	Nick Faldo
Jose Maria Olazabal	USPGA	2000	third	tied 4th	Tiger Woods
Mark O’Meara	USPGA	2001	second	tied 22nd	David Toms
Vijay Singh	US Open	2003	second	tied 20th	Jim Furyk
Thomas Bjorn	USPGA	2005	third	tied 2nd	Phil Mickelson
Tiger Woods	USPGA	2007	second	WON	Tiger Woods
Rory McIlroy	Open	2010	first	tied 3rd	Louis Oosthuizen

So there have been five winners out of 24, for a total of 20.8%; of the rest a further eleven finished inside the top ten, with the remaining eight trailing in lower down the field, with the lowest finisher being Michael Bradley in the 1995 USPGA, who followed his opening 63 with 73-73-74 to finish sixteen shots behind the winner in a tie for 54th place.

That’s the meat, now here’s a few bits of statistical garnish: the only people to appear twice on this list are Vijay Singh and Greg Norman, the course with the most 63s is Baltusrol with three (Nicklaus and Weiskopf in 1980 and Bjorn in 2005), the second round is the most popular time to shoot 63 with eight entries on the list, and Nicklaus and Weiskopf in 1980 and Faldo and Stewart in 1993 shot theirs on the same day. Also, the only man to shoot a 63 in the final round to come through and win the tournament was Johnny Miller at Oakmont in 1973, the very first entry on the list.