‘Major Golf Championships – Elliptical Venn Diagram’ is dedicated to Mr Tom Dodd, who was my class teacher in Year 4 at Seaton Burn Primary School, Tyne and Wear, England. He was a wonderful teacher, who could literally turn his hand to anything … in fact, I should say hands, as he was ambidextrous!
A few days ago, I was attempting to clear out some old folders when I stumbled across my (very dusty) Year 4 school report from June 1969 … and yes, I am one of life’s compulsive hoarders! The following is an extract from the report …
Mr Dodd certainly prognosticated my secondary and tertiary education in the field of mathematics and subsequent career … but whether that included writing an article which combines my love of golf with my passion for mathematics, one can only hypothesize.
John Venn
John Venn was born in the city of Kingston upon Hull, England in 1834. He was brought up in a very strict environment … his father was a rector in Hull, and his grandfather and great-grandfather had been evangelical Christians.
In 1857 he graduated from the University of Cambridge with a first-class honours degree in mathematics, and two years later was ordained as an Anglican priest. He returned to Cambridge in 1862 to lecture in moral science … and then studied and taught ‘logic and probability theory’. And it was at this time that he started to develop the diagram which bears his name.
Away from academia, John Venn loved walking, mountain climbing and gardening … but I could find no evidence that he played golf … here’s hoping that a Golfing Herald reader can prove otherwise! He also invented some unimaginable machines, including one that could bowl cricket balls! Apparently, when the Australian Cricket team visited Cambridge during the Ashes tour of 1909, one of their top batsmen was clean bowled four times by balls delivered by Venn’s machine!
Centenary
During the early 1880s, John Venn resigned from the priesthood, was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded an ScD (Scientiae Doctor) by the University of Cambridge. In later years he dedicated himself to various research projects, in particular, Alumni Cantabrigienses, a biographical register of former members of the University of Cambridge … arguably his magnum opus.
He died in 1923 … and so 2023, the year of publication of this article, marks the centenary of his death. Implausibly, there would appear to be, at the time of publication, a scarcity of events to celebrate his extraordinary life and career.
Thus, Golfing Herald’s contribution to the centenary celebration of John Venn is the representation of the men’s major golf championships winning golfers by means of a Venn Diagram.
Elliptical Representation
Most, if not all students, will have encountered a Venn Diagram at some time during their primary and/or secondary education. The Venn Diagram shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets and is typically represented by two or three overlapping circles.
However, as there are four major championships, the Venn Diagram in this article needs to be represented by ellipses rather than circles, as per the template below.
Legend
The majors are denoted as follows in the Elliptical Venn Diagram template …
- (A) ~ U.S. Open
- (B) ~ The Open
- (C) ~ Masters
- (D) ~ USPGA
There are fifteen possible numerical outcomes/permutations for golfers who have won a men’s major, denoted as follows …
- ABCD ~ All majors
- ABC ~ All majors apart from the USPGA
- ABD ~ All majors apart from the Masters
- ACD ~ All majors apart from The Open
- BCD ~ All majors apart from the U.S. Open
- AB ~ U.S. Open and The Open
- AC ~ U.S. Open and the Masters
- AD ~ U.S. Open and the USPGA
- BC ~ The Open and the Masters
- BD ~ The Open and the USPGA
- CD ~ Masters and the USPGA
- A ~ U.S. Open only
- B ~ The Open only
- C ~ Masters only
- D ~ USPGA only
Career Grand Slam
A total of 462 major championships have been played … from the inaugural Open Championship in 1860 played at Prestwick Golf Club, won by Willie Park Sr … up to and including the 2022 Open Championship played at St Andrews, won by Cameron Smith … and 230 different golfers have won at least one major championship.
Hitherto, only five golfers have completed a career grand slam … Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods (ABCD = 5).
One More
To date, twelve golfers have won three of the majors …
- Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer and Jordan Spieth have won all the majors apart from the USPGA (ABC = 3)
- Walter Hagen, Lee Trevino, Jim Barnes, Rory McIlroy and Tommy Armour have won all the majors apart from the Masters (ABD = 5)
- Byron Nelson and Raymond Floyd have won all the majors apart from The Open (ACD = 2)
- Sam Snead and Phil Mickelson have won all the majors apart from the U.S. Open (BCD = 2)
Looking ahead, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth are currently in pole position to join the elite echelon and achieve a career grand slam.
Halfway
Up to now, thirty-six golfers have won two of the majors …
- Harry Vardon, Tony Jacklin, Johnny Miller and three others have won the U.S. Open and The Open (AB = 6)
- Dustin Johnson, Fuzzy Zoeller, Billy Casper and four others have won the U.S. Open and the Masters (AC = 7)
- Hubert Green, Payne Stewart, Brooks Koepka and five others have won the U.S. Open and the USPGA (AD = 8)
- Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle and two others have won The Open and the Masters (BC = 5)
- John Daly, Pádraig Harrington, Collin Morikawa and three others have won The Open and the USPGA (BD = 6)
- Vijay Singh, Henry Picard and two others have won the Masters and the USPGA (CD = 4)
Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson or Brooks Koepka could well join Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth for that final push to win all four majors.
First Base
Earlier, I stated that 230 different golfers had won a major golf championship. Subtracting the 53 golfers already accounted for leaves 177 golfers who have won one of the majors… U.S. Open (A = 54), The Open (B = 56), Masters (C = 27) and USPGA (D = 40).
Without a doubt, golfers such as Jon Rahm, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Scottie Scheffler will be in contention for many years attempting to add to their respective majors.
Elliptical Venn Diagram
After navigating all of the above logic, the elliptical Venn Diagram for the major golf championships can finally be revealed …
Never Ending Story
I hope you have enjoyed this article … though this story will never actually end. The numbers will mostly change after each major and John Venn’s diagrammatic legacy will be used and (hopefully) enjoyed ad infinitum.
Attributions
For the photograph and template used to augment this article, attributions are as follows …
- John Venn Photograph ~ Unknown (Maull & Fox. studio), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Elliptical Venn Diagram Template ~ Rupert Millard, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
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