How Level Par Fared In Every Men's Major This Past Decade

Major championship golf offers up the world's best players the toughest of tests, with long courses, narrow fairways, thick rough and fast, sloping greens...and that's without the added pressure of history and many millions on the line.

Majors are designed to find out who the best golfer is that week, and winning scores tend to be significantly higher than in regular PGA Tour or DP World Tour events.

The old adage of 'level par is a good score' works quite well in Majors, with cut lines usually three-or-four over par and a score of par never doing you a great deal of harm.

So how would shooting level par every day in a men's Major work out for you? We looked back over the last ten years and 39 Majors (due to the 2020 Open being cancelled) in the men's game and the results were interesting.

The first question many will be wondering is whether the level par shooter can call themselves a Major champion..? The answer is yes.

If you shot a round of level par in every men's Major over the last ten years, you would have a single Major championship to your name. That would have come at the 2018 US Open at Shinnecock Hills, which was infamous for brutally difficult conditions, and it was that week when Zach Johnson said that the USGA had "lost" the golf course.

Brooks Koepka won his second successive US Open with a score of one-over-par, the only over-par winning score in a men's Major over the last decade. He bagged a check of $2.16m that week.

The US Open is regarded as golf's toughest test, and it is only this Major where level-par has placed inside the top-five over the last decade, and it's happened three times.

Level par would have won in 2018, finished 2nd to Bryson DeChambeau by six strokes in 2020 and T5th in 2016, four back of Dustin Johnson at Oakmont.

Away from the US Open, the closest that level-par has got to winning one of the other Majors was at the 2016 Masters. Danny Willett shocked the world to win the Green Jacket with a score of five-under-par after THAT Jordan Spieth capitulation, with level par finishing in a tie for seventh-place.

A score of level par made the cut in every single Major with the 2022 Open Championship's cut coming on the number. Surprisingly, if you shot level par in every men's Major, The Open would be the one where you wouldn't have recorded a top-seven finish, with a best result of T10th at Royal Troon last year.

So, while level par in every round of the last decade in men's Major Championship golf wouldn't earn a Green Jacket, a Claret Jug or a Wanamaker Trophy, it would have earned a US Open trophy and 39 healthy paydays, which would likely be into eight-figures.

See for yourself how level par fare in the men's Majors over the past decade...

How level par fared in the men's Majors from 2015-2024

• Wins: 1 (2018 US Open)
• Runners-up: 1 (2020 US Open)
• Top-fives: 3
• Top-10s: 11
• Cuts made: 39/39