Pro Golf’s Top-5 Greatest Over Achievers....

[ChrisL52188]

Absolutely. Fred was an darn great talent.

[Shilgy]

I would say winning against the odds, as you put it, and being an overachiever are two very different things. Both can be considered admirable but they are different. One you may be highly skilled and genetically blessed but grown up under poor circumstances. The other you are, seemingly st least, less physically blessed but overcome that with effort.

Personally I am not a big believer in either. You are what you are. It seems most of the underachievers are long hitters and good ball strikers that had issues with putting and short game. The overachiever list is littered mostly with shorter hitters that learned how to score well. Some day we will learn that golf is about score, not about how and realize that the ability to score is what matters.

[smashdn]

Webb Simpson. Not sure what list though. He either greatly overachieved with the one major or underachieved and is not getting the most out of his talent with only 6 wins.

Davis Love III. Same deal though I lean more heavily to underachieved. He had tremendous length but only one major, cut 38 times out of 100 major starts and only 21 PGA wins.

Martin Kaymer. I'd say he has overachieved. Three majors. Wish he could turn his career back on as well.

Did Ben Crenshaw overachieve?

[Shilgy]

I think most would say Webb is an over. I have always liked his game, maybe because he irritates so many lol.

.Davis is neutral to me. Coming on to the tour everyone raved about his length but he never really was a great putter. But 21 wins and a hall of Famer can’t really be an under imo.

Kaymer comes and goes it seems. He’s the pro version of a friend of mine. Extremely good when on but it’s almost like the interest wanes at times.

Gentle Ben coming out of college was supposed to be the next Jack(like Sutton Love and others). So by that standard he undered but 19 wins with two Masters and also in the Hall is pretty good by me.

 

All in all I think you nailed it-except Love. I don’t think 21 wins should ever get an “only”.

[tiderider]

kaymer has 2 majors ...

[ChrisL52188]

How about Mark Calcavecchia? He might have underachieved, though.

[ssp]

Ian Poulter

[fowlerscousin]

i put some thought into this, Mike Weir jumps out at me. he had a sick run early in the century which peaked with the Masters victory in 2005, he reached 5th in OWGR. didn't win much after that, in 2008 he reached 14th in OWGR. over 27 million in career winnings. Certainly with the one major and the prize money it looks like he had great career, but he does not make the game look easy by any means. Its well known that he has worked with a lot of different swing coaches, seems like he is a grinder type- range rat. Now he is struggling on the korn ferry tour, and i don't know a lot about his advanced stats but it looks like he struggles off the tee with distance and accuracy, putts at a high level, he might be particularly strong on par 3s. Good luck mike weir!

[MUNIGRIT]

Definitely and if he is in the HOF so should Pavin. Pavin was the ultimate overachiever in my opinion.

[grm24]

Calc is an interesting one. 13 PGA Tour wins including a major. 27 second place finishes and another 17 third place finishes. Calc was a money machine. A true what if player from his generation. Same number of top 3 finishes as WGHOF Lanny Wadkins. Lanny went 21/21/15.

[grm24]

Not sure if Ben overachieved with 19 tour wins and 2 Masters. Where he underachieved was in playoffs. 0-8 on the PGA Tour in playoffs. If he had gone 4-4 in playoffs and ended with 23 wins with 2 majors (or 3 majors as he lost the PGA Championship in a playoff) how much differently would his career be viewed?

[MattyO1984]

These are in no particular order, just the way that they came to me but I would go for -

Paul Lawrie - people talk about Poulter in a rag to riches manner, turning pro off a relatively high handicap. Lawrie did the same and ended up with the Claret Jug on his mantelpiece. At 17 he was a 5 handicap and became an assistant pro. By 23 he was on the European Tour. By 30 he was a major champion. Sure he was no Tiger or Monty even but getting what he did out of his career including 2 Ryder Cup appearances is impressive.Lee Trevino - I am not sure that there is anything more that I can add to what has already been said.Zach Johnson - appearing in the professional game at the time that he did, with his skill set coming away with 2 major wins and everything else is very impressive. He is the 00’s and 10’s version of Tom Kite for me.Thongchai Jaidee - he might be something a who for some on here but a 5 foot 7 and 139lb guy, who first picked up a golf club when he was 16, didn’t turn pro until 30 in 2000 after a stint as a paratrooper in the Thai Army who then made it as high 27 in the OWGR and picked up 8 Euro Tour wins and the most career earnings in Asia is pretty special.Andy North - no disrespect but 3 PGA Tour wins, 2 of which were majors. Name me anyone else from the Tour who played in the 70’s and 80’s and won three times. Without two of those wins being in the US Open, North is a footnote in history.

[Benji_UK]

2 majors, 1 players championship, world number 1 for 8 weeks in 2011

[iBanesto]

Justin Leonard.

Open Championship, Players Championship, 12 PGA Tour wins in total and $33 million in earnings.

He is still 27th in PGA Tour career earnings given his career pretty much ended around 2009/10.

[bpink21901]

Calvin Peete

Ian Poulter

Corey Pavin

Lee Trevino

Jerry Kelly

[smashdn]

Dang wikipedia sneaks the Players in there with the majors. Wikipedia must be propped by the TPC Network and Fifth Major Society.

[smashdn]

I guess my thoughts on DL3 were he was supposed to be incredibly long and at the time he broke onto the tour he should have dominated given the hype surrounding him.

I don't have as strong a feeling towards Crenshaw but supposedly he was able to make every putt he looked at. As was pointed out he was 0-8 in playoffs. He could have been much more successful it appears on the surface.

[MattyO1984]

Tim Finchem and Jay Monahan must be keeping themselves busy editing Wikipedia pages ?

[Obee]

Paul Goydos

Pavin

Furyk

Kite

Cal Peete

[SilverBullets]

Webb was the guy I was coming in to post about. He's absolutely overachieved. He swings it like a 6 handicap yet works it around the course in an incredible way. Webb even throws in the occasional cold shank just for good measure.

[bpink21901]

Goydos is a good nominee. He has got a ton out of his talent bucket. I was also thinking about Bruce Lietzke, he would show up every 5 or 6 weeks with a less than pristine swing and cash a big enough check to support the family.

[ChrisL52188]

Bruce is an underachiever if you ask me. He has an incredibly repeatable swing, if he could putt better... He would have been a 25-30 time winner. He had his priorities correct about life.

[bpink21901]

I can see the underachiever side as well.....if he did that well playing infrequently think of what he could have done playing more. But as you said his family was the priority over playing & traveling so much.

[Catty]

In your humble opinion. In my opinion I’ll say that achieving adulation and HOF statutes with a 1 Augusta win and 14 other wins is an overachievement. Wasn’t there a rule there somewhere about “ achieving “ that and his record didn’t meet the standards?. So I would humbling suggest that getting there is a massive overachievement. I didn’t say he wasn’t a Great golfer. Apparently according to everyone here that knows him, he was happy being On tour, getting the $$$ and banging groupies. Well if that’s was his aim and level then he is has definitely overachieved.

[golfandfishing]

Bruce Lietzke overachieved at being a family man. The rest was irrelevant to him.

[Ferguson]

 

Fred falls into a category of people called "gifted underachievers." Please, go look it up. The textbook definition should have a picture of Fred.  

He didn't play within 70% of his real potential. Fred is a true natural.

 

Should he have won 50 tournaments?

Probably so.

 

 

The HOF induction was popularity thing / entertainment, pure and simple,

 

....................................just like this guy.

 

 

[gvogel]

I think that he also overachieved at fishing.

[DrDon]

I remember seeing Paul Goydos playing #8 at Oakmont during the US Open. It's a long, long par 3. Paul was using driver. Phil Mickelson was hitting an iron.

[Shilgy]

He might swing it like a six in your opinion but he sure as h$ll doesn’t hit it like one. Now 7th in owgr.

2019 stats(2020 is even better)

[Catty]

overachievernoun [ C ]UK  /ˌəʊvərəˈtʃiːvər/ US 

 

a person who does more than they are expected to do or who is more successful than others:

Clearly no-one has looked up overachieving. "a person who does more than they are expected. " If you take on the theme that everyone is suggesting, he was happy to just be there on tour, and anything else was a bonus, or is that a popular opinion and not the actual narrative? If I was merely happy to show up oogle the female fans, swan around the fairway and collect my large sums of money, then get HOF status, I would have achieved more then expected. If you are on the tour you are gifted. If you haven't won as many tournaments or any at all it simply means you weren't as gifted as the winner.