8 Golfers Who Could Be Major Winners Had It Not Been For Tiger Woods

Just like lots of people forget the many players Jack Nicklaus bumped into second when he was picking up Major Championships for fun in his pomp, there is long list of players who’d have one of the game’s four biggest titles on their CV if they hadn’t run into a certain Tiger Woods.

Here is each one of those victims (players who have managed a Major title at least once are not included).

Miguel Angel Jiménez

Woods won the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach by 15 strokes. It was a procession. Ernie Els will always have his four Major titles, but Miguel Angel Jiménez never managed one.

Thomas Bjørn

“He was absolutely faultless. It was just a question of how many was he going to win by. There was almost a feeling he was saying, ‘I’m this good and the rest of you are this poor.’ . . . It was a case of him being so much better than everybody else at that moment in time.” Thomas Bjorn, runner-up at St Andrews, where Woods was dominant once again, winning by eight shots.

Bob May

Woods and Bob May finished 72 holes of the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla five strokes ahead of everybody else. It’s not to be for May, though, whose dreams are quashed in the resultant playoff.

Chris DiMarco

The American had the misfortune of running into Woods twice in the heat of battle of a Major Championship Sunday – first came the 2005 Masters, when he lost in a playoff, and then the Open Championship the following year.