I’m not questioning his place in this exercise, but Jerry Pate’s sadly curtailed career tracks very closely with BDC. Pate won 8 titles by age 28, including the US Open and Players. He also made a playoff at the ‘78 PGA and posted a third place in the Open Championship. Before turning pro he won the US Am and was runner-up in the NCAAs. At 27, BDC has 8 wins including a US Open, plus a US Am and the NCAAs. Interestingly, BDC has only one other top 10 in a major besides his US Open, whereas Pate had 10 top 10s along with his title in ‘76. What could have been but for the injuries...
So agree... it calls to mind the other aspect of improved performance reflected in the health medicine/special surgery advances (in all sports). I mean you need look nowhere but Woods... he might've never gotten to Torrey in 2008...certainly not the recent back surgery comeback... So many of these wrists and backs and knees and elbows would've had us saying Pate-like things about so many players in the last 25 Woods-era years.
And as to this exercise, its brought me very in tune with appreciating the greatness of players, even as they perhaps rose one-time on the biggest stage, and how great they were/are even when they fall short of that one time. It makes me remember that even the guy who misses the cut at a major, is PLAYING a major, and that likely means he was the hottest shit guy in his hometown or local region, probably his state and maybe in college... how hard it is to win a professional golf tournament at all, no less a major. I don't mean that like Jim Nantz or Dan Hicks or Terry Gannon; it's just the talent level is off the charts.
Trainwreck though he be, when we get to the 2x and Best 1x major winner comparisons later on, I hope it influences the board to marvel that John Daly won two majors and had a career, and is not just some Wild Bill story of yore, he was at Bethpage in a cart just two years ago!... that Angel Cabrera was smoking like a chimney while shot making like a Latin Minnesota Fats... and had a career. And Greg Norman...gawd, he's the Could Have Been Kid....