How Often Does the Third Round Leader Win a Golf Major?

There are few sports that demonstrate the importance of a strong mentality quite like golf. It is just the player, their club and the ball on the course for most of their time there, occasionally accepting guidance or suggestions from their caddy but knowing that the ultimate decision lies with them. It is a sport that takes extreme mental fortitude to win, especially when the pressure comes on the player as the final holes approach.

Elsewhere on the site you can read about the number of golfers that have gone on to win a Major after leading on the opening day, so on this page we’ll tell you all about those that lead at the start of the final day and go on to win the trophy. The pressure of leading can be just as crushing for some golfers as the pressure of chasing a leading pack, so it’s fascinating to see how often the leader wins out.

Winning 3rd Round Leaders in 20 Years’ Worth Of Majors

The four Majors in golf, namely the Masters, PGA Championship, US Open, the Open Championship, are some of the most popular events on the golfing calendar. The Ryder Cup is one of the few events that can match up, but the fact that it only takes place biennially and is formatted in an entirely different way means that it is treated differently to the Majors.

Typically speaking, the Majors take place over four days and feature 18 holes of golf per day for the participants. As with other golf tournaments, there is a cut off point at which the number of participants is culled, with only those that have managed to score fewer shots than a given number proceeding to the final half. It is common for the leader on the final day to go out last, meaning that he knows that his target is as the game progresses.

Given that the Open Championship, often also referred to as the British Open, began in 1860 and therefore offers nearly 170 years’ worth of results, we are going to slim things down to the 20 years between 2000 and 2019. This will still give us a really solid basis on which to base our thoughts and will give you plenty of ideas when it comes to placing a bet on the leader of any given Major before the final day gets underway.

Golf Majors: Winning Third Round Leaders – 2000 to 2019

There are a few notable things straight off the bat, including just what an incredible player Tiger Woods was. The 2009 PGA Championship was the only time when the American was either in the lead going into the final day or else was tied for the lead and didn’t go on to win the Major he was playing in. It’s little wonder, then, that so many people talk about Woods as having a truly elite mentality.

On 48 occasions, the player that was either in the lead on the final day or was tied for the lead went on to win the Major in question. That is 48 out of 80 occasions, meaning that the final day leader has gone on to win the Major that they’re playing in 60% of tournaments. That suggests that a bet on the final day leader is one well worth placing, especially if they’re ahead by more than a few shots and seem to playing well.

When you consider that the number of Day 1 leaders that go on to win the Major is around 17.5%, it’s a significantly higher number that have one hand on the trophy that go on to win it. It’s fairly clear that playing consistently well over four days isn’t easy, whereas keeping yourself within reach of the leaders and then peaking at the right time is the way to get yourself in with a shot of winning one of the Majors.

Which Major Does The Final Day Leader Win Most Often?

Now that we know how many final day leaders tend to go on and win the Major, the next interesting question to look at is whether there is one Major that tends to favour a player leading the way more than the others. Here is the breakdown of the tournaments, showing how many times the final day leader or joint-leader has then gone on to win the Major itself when all of the relevant golf has been played:

Whilst far from conclusive, it is fair to say that all of the Majors are essentially quite level when it comes to the number of times that the leader on the final day has gone on to win the tournament. The PGA Championship is slightly ahead of the others with 13, but any notion that that might be because of US courses being more generous than British ones is put to bed by the fact that the Open Championship comes in joint second with 12 winners leading on the final day alongside the Masters. The US Open is notorious for picking tough course though they third round leader/joint leader still won on 11 occasions.

Notable Final Round Leaders

It’s perhaps not all that surprising that, in the world of golf, the same names tend to come up time and again. It is, as mentioned in the introduction to this piece, a game that requires a degree of mental fortitude in order for a golfer to win a Major. Resilience in the face of adversity is important, which is why it’s rare to see a golfer’s name only come up once in the tables below.

It’s not a shock to see Tiger Woods’ name come up time and again, such is the extent to which the American golfer dominated the sport for a time. It’s also interesting to see some names have a brief run before falling away slightly, with the likes of Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen and Pádraig Harrington falling into this bracket. They were golfers that shone brightly for a time before others came in to take their place.

The other thing that the table shows us is the name of golfers who stood the test of time. Names such as Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson come up repeatedly, sometimes as nearly men and others as those that were able to get themselves across the line at the moment that it mattered. If golf is game in which the player has to play against himself, those that managed to translate their final day lead into a Major are the ones that won the toughest battle of all.

Finally, it’s interesting to note that there have only been three occasions on which all four of the Majors have been won by either the leader or the joint-leader on the final day within the same year. Perhaps if you’re thinking of betting on the leader after Day 3, it might be worth checking out whether or not that has already happened in one of the other Majors earlier that year.

Full List of 3rd Round Leaders & Their Finishing Positions

Below, for each of the four golf majors, we have full lists of the third round leaders between 2000 and 2019 and their finishing position at the end of the final day’s play.

The Masters | PGA Championship | US Open | Open Championship

Masters 3rd Round Leaders – 2000 to 2019

PGA Championship 3rd Round Leaders – 2000 to 2019

US Open 3rd Round Leaders – 2000 to 2019

Open Championship 3rd Round Leaders – 2000 to 2019