Stewart Cink, Y.E. Yang, Even Jack Nicklaus: Here's the Biggest Spoilers in Majors

New British Open champ Cameron Smith cracks Gary Van Sickle's list of 10 players who won majors where fans had other rooting interests.

You can’t always get what you want. A great philosopher said that. I forget whether it was Benjamin Disraeli, Carl Spackler or Mick Jagger.

Anyway, major championship golf is full of surprises. Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods didn’t win every Masters or U.S. Open, even though many wanted them to. Sometimes, an interloper plays the role of spoiler and prevents the marquee player, the public’s favorite, from winning.

Exhibit A is the recent British Open at St. Andrews’ Old Course. The Scottish galleries were pulling for Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, who had the 54-hole lead and was driving par-4 greens as easily as making microwave popcorn. McIlroy couldn’t buy a putt in the final round (technically, they weren’t for sale, a wrinkle maybe the LIV Golf folks should consider). McIlroy got passed by the mullet-wearing Cameron Smith, who shot 64 in a round that featured a daring stroke for the ages, a bold putt around the Road Hole bunker.

Smith wasn’t a spoiler in Australia, he was a national hero. Well, a spoiler is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe Jagger said that, too.

One more thing before you check out The Ranking of the 10 biggest spoilers in men’s golf since 1960, according to a panel of experts (me and two chimps) and a complex algorithm calculated by a Radio Shack computer powered by Ray-O-Vac batteries — Hey, you, get off of my cloud!

Billy Casper in 1966 and Scott Simpson in 1987 took down a pair of American golf legends / Sports Illustrated

10. Scott Simpson, 1987 U.S. Open

Olympic Club is golf’s Spoiler Central. There was Ben Hogan and Jack Fleck in one U.S. Open (the guy you don’t remember is the guy who won); No. 2 (see below) and Simpson and Tom Watson. I always liked Simpson, a nice guy with a syrupy swing tempo, and his heroic run of three birdies in a row starting at the 14th was what won him this Open over Watson, the 54-hole leader and one of the game’s legends. If Watson had made those three straight birds, it would be golf lore to pass down to your kids. When Simpson does it, not Watson, Americans are less interested.

9. David Toms, 2001 PGA Championship

Imagine if Phil Mickelson played it safe on the last hole of a major, laid up and made a clutch par putt to win. Yes, we all know that would never happen — the laying-up part. Mickelson was The Show at Atlanta Athletic Club. He chipped in at 15 to tie for the lead, then was thrown off guard at 16 when a greenside fan who was trying to help Lefty finally get his first major warned him about the speed of his 45-foot birdie putt. Phil three-jacked, then Toms did the layup-thing to win. Ground control to a major, Toms …

8. Nick Faldo, 1996 Masters

We’ve lately taken a different view of Greg Norman but in the 1980s and early ‘90s, the Great White Shark was a larger-than-life fan fave, despite his Charlie Brown-like bad luck. Everyone found ways to beat him, from Larry Mize chipping in at the Masters to Bob Tway holing a bunker shot at the PGA. In Augusta, Norman had already shot 63 and built a six-shot lead through 54 holes, surely insurmountable. Nope, it was totally mountable when Faldo, who was unpopular with American fans, shot 67 and Norman golfed like Charlie Brown pitched. Even Faldo felt sorry enough to give Norman a defining hug on the final green after this Debbie Downer moment that was one Great White Shock.

7. Y.E. Yang, 2009 PGA Championship

Hazeltine National in greater Minneapolis would not be on Tiger Woods’ list of places he loves. He lost the 2002 PGA there to Rich Beem, a former car stereo salesman. Back in ’09, this PGA marked the end of the Tiger Woods Era, some pundits say, mainly because Yang played with the confidence of Tiger in the final round while Woods played the challenger-in-the-headlights role his pursuers usually played. Who is Y.E. Yang? No one knows anything about him except that he’s the guy they wanted Tiger to beat like a drum.

6. Cameron Smith, 2022 British Open

The best part of Smith’s win was comedian David Spade, who wore a giant mullet to play “Joe Dirt” in a movie of the same name, tweeting after Smith’s win by tweeting, “We did it!” Rory McIlroy didn’t do it, finishing third when what the Scottish fans dreamed of was something that might have been dubbed "The Rors By The Shore." Still, they gave Smith the authentic ovations he deserved for his fine play because if we ranked golf fans, the Scots would be Nos. 1, 2 and 3. They’re that good.

5. Jack Nicklaus, 1962 U.S. Open

How could the great Jack Nicklaus be a spoiler? Only when it was early in his career, his uncomplimentary nickname was "Fat Jack," he wore a flattop haircut and he was trying to beat Arnold Palmer at Oakmont, basically Arnie’s backyard. This was one of the most one-sided galleries in American golf history. Jack won the playoff with a display of golf that made it clear that, uh-oh, Arnie, there’s a new sheriff in town. It was like Ohio State winning on the road at Alabama.

4. Kel Nagle, 1960 British Open

This was supposed to be Arnie’s Open at the Old Course. He’d already won the Masters and U.S. Open and was trying for three majors in a row, as Ben Hogan had done in 1953. Arnie was American golf’s biggest star and here he was, coming to play in the British Open, something most American pros didn’t bother to do. Palmer was four shots back through 54 holes but charged with three birdies on the last six holes, the final one at 18 causing such a deafening roar that Nagle had to back off a critical par putt at the 17th. Nagle made the putt, then parred the 18th and ruined Palmer’s Grand Slam.

3. Retief Goosen, 2004 U.S. Open

New York fans adopted Phil Mickelson in 2002 at the Bethpage U.S. Open, mainly because he was still a major-less Cinderella who played swashbuckling golf like Arnold Palmer. Mickelson made a back nine charge for the ages and the galleries were electric the final day at Shinnecock Hills, but Goosen made a series of incredible par saves on the back nine. The Mickelson magic ended at the par-3 17th, where his bunker shot went long and he gunned his must-make par putt past the hole, then missed the return. Did Phil ever get his elusive U.S. Open? Fuhgeddaboutit.

2. Billy Casper, 1966 U.S. Open

This was the nail in the coffin of the Arnold Palmer Era of winning majors. Arnie’s Army watched their man build a seven-stroke lead through nine holes of the final round. Then he came apart, shot 39 on the back nine, fell into a tie with Casper and shot 40 on the back nine the next day to lose the Open. Up by seven with nine to play and America’s Hero lost? A lot of fans unfairly never forgave Casper.

1. Stewart Cink, 2009 British Open

“Hey, this isn’t a funeral, you know,” Tom Watson joked when he entered the media center at Turnberry after missing a par putt at the 72nd hole and then getting smoked in a playoff by Cink. But it felt like one. Watson was weeks away from his 60th birthday and about to win a record sixth Open. The Scots’ beloved champion, “Toom,” suffered a heartbreaking defeat and they suffered with him. Fans filed quietly out of the grandstands afterward. It remains The Open That Must Not Be Talked About. Shhh.

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