Some careers are built on a cabinet full of majors. Others are defined by a single week. Golf’s history is full of players who beat the strongest field in the sport once, lifted the trophy and never repeated it.
Their stories are also a reminder, for anyone betting with Virgin Bet on the majors, that the names at the top of the market do not always finish there.
Ben Curtis, 2003 Open Championship
Ben Curtis arrived at Royal St George’s ranked 396th in the world and playing in his first major. Thomas Bjorn held the lead late on, but took three shots to escape a greenside bunker on the 16th. Curtis finished one clear of Bjorn and Vijay Singh. He was the first player since Francis Ouimet at the 1913 US Open to win the first major he entered.
He went on to win more PGA Tour titles and shared second at the 2008 PGA Championship. The Claret Jug remained his only major.
Todd Hamilton, 2004 Open Championship
Todd Hamilton spent years on the Japan Golf Tour before earning his PGA Tour card at 38. At Royal Troon he took Ernie Els to a four-hole playoff and beat him. His habit of chipping with a hybrid from off the greens became the talking point of the week. The Open was his second PGA Tour win of that season, and his last.
Shaun Micheel, 2003 PGA Championship
Shaun Micheel stood on the 72nd tee at Oak Hill with a one-shot lead over Chad Campbell. He then hit a 7-iron from 175 yards that finished inches from the hole. The tap-in birdie gave him a two-shot win. It was the only PGA Tour title of his career, and one of the finest finishing shots a major has produced.
Rich Beem and Y.E. Yang, Hazeltine
Hazeltine produced two one-time winners in seven years, and both beat Tiger Woods. In 2002, Rich Beem, a former car stereo and mobile phone salesman, held off a late run of birdies from Woods to win the PGA Championship by one.
The 2009 PGA Championship was an even bigger shock. Woods had converted all 14 of his previous majors when leading or sharing the lead after 54 holes. Y.E. Yang started the final round two behind, hit a hybrid over a tree to the 18th green and won by three. He became the first Asian-born man to win a major. Neither Beem nor Yang won another.
Paul Lawrie, 1999 Open
Paul Lawrie began the final round at Carnoustie 10 shots behind Jean van de Velde. It remains the biggest final-round comeback in major history. Van de Velde reached the 18th tee three shots ahead, made a triple-bogey seven and fell into a playoff with Lawrie and Justin Leonard.
Lawrie won the four-hole playoff and became the first Scot to win the Open in Scotland since Tommy Armour, who also won at Carnoustie, in 1931. He went on to play in two Ryder Cups, in 1999 and 2012, but never added a second major.
Jack Fleck, 1955 US Open
The oldest story is still the most remarkable. Ben Hogan was chasing a record fifth US Open at the Olympic Club, and many thought he had it won when he finished. Jack Fleck, who ran a municipal course in Davenport, Iowa, birdied two of his last four holes to tie.
Fleck then beat Hogan 69 to 72 in the 18-hole playoff the next day. Hogan never won a fifth US Open. Fleck never won another major, and he did it all with a set of clubs made by Hogan’s own company, including two wedges Hogan had delivered to him by hand that week.