Career Comparison: Rory McIlroy vs. Dustin Johnson
As golf fans, we are constantly looking for ways to compare players’ careers. While this exercise leads to countless hours of entertaining debates, it would be great to have an objective system to compare two players’ careers. With this exercise in mind, I decided to come up with my own system that can be used to compare any two players from the modern era.
System Overview
For my system, I first started by ranking and assigning a point value for winning each different type of professional golf tournament that exists in the modern era of golf. The point values that I assigned to the tournaments are as follows:
Tournament — Points
Majors — 5
The Players Championship — 4
World Golf Championships and FedEx Cup playoff events — 3
Rolex Series tournaments and Race to Dubai Final series — 2
Other PGA Tour events — 1
Other European Tour events — 0.5
Top 10 finish in Majors (excluding wins counted above) — 0.25
Any other professional tour victories — 0.25
At the end of this process, each golfer will end up with a single point total, and the player with the higher point total will have been deemed to have greater career achievements. For ease of comparability, my system focuses only on professional tournaments. This will allow for the comparison of players that grew up in different areas of the world and for players that may or may not have played golf collegiately. Additionally, my system does not award any points for a player earning a spot on a national team for the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup. Awarding points for earning a spot on a national team would provide a golfer from the United States with double the opportunities to earn points compared to an International golfer, as the United States players have the opportunity to play for a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup team every year, while an International player only has the opportunity to play in a team event once every two years. Lastly, I chose not to award points for season long awards that golfers earned, as I feel like the player will already have earned points (according to the table above) for the wins in that season that led them to the award.
Player Comparison Introduction
For the first use of my system, I chose to compare the careers of two legends of the modern game: Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson. At the time of this comparison on February 9, 2021, Rory is 31 years old and DJ is 36.
Rory is a fan favorite due to his thoughtful demeanor and insightful interviews. Watching Rory hit driver is one of the purest sights in the game. While Rory has not won a major since 2014, he is still one of the biggest superstars in the modern game.
DJ is renowned for his attitude, with which he never seems to get too high or low on the course. Watching DJ play at his fast pace from tee to green, he seems to have his game on complete autopilot, and when he is playing well, it’s quite obvious that he’s one of the best players in the world.
Now, we will go through Rory and DJ’s career victories with my point system, to determine which player has objectively achieved more in their career as of today.
Majors — 5 points
Rory: 2011 US Open (Congressional Country Club — Blue Course), 2012 PGA Championship (Kiawah Island Golf Resort — Ocean Course), 2014 British Open (Royal Liverpool Golf Club), 2014 PGA Championship (Valhalla Golf Club). 4 for 20 Points
DJ: 2016 US Open (Oakmont Country Club), 2020 Masters. 2 for 10 Points
Players Championships — 4 points
Rory: 2019. 1 for 4 Points
DJ: None. 0 Points
World Golf Championships — 3 points
Rory: 2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (Firestone Country Club — South Course), 2015 WGC-Cadillac Match Play (TPC Harding Park), 2019 WGC-HSBC Champions (Sheshan Golf Club). 3 for 9 Points
DJ: 2013 WGC-HSBC Champions (Sheshan Golf Club), 2015 WGC-Cadillac Championship (Trump National Doral — Blue Monster Course), 2016 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (Firestone Country Club — South Course), 2017 WGC-Mexico Championship (Club de Golf Chapultepec), 2017 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play (Austin Country Club), 2019 WGC-Mexico Championship (Club de Golf Chapultepec). 6 for 18 Points
FedEx Cup Playoff Events — 3 points
Rory: 2012 Deutsche Bank Championship (TPC Boston), 2012 BMW Championship (Crooked Stick Golf Club), 2016 Deutsche Bank Championship (TPC Boston), 2016 Tour Championship (East Lake Golf Club), 2019 Tour Championship (East Lake Golf Club). 5 for 15 Points
DJ: 2010 BMW Championship (Cog Hill Golf and Country Club), 2011 The Barclays (Plainfield Country Club), 2016 BMW Championship (Crooked Stick Golf Club), 2017 The Northern Trust (Glen Oaks), 2020 The Northern Trust (TPC Boston), 2020 Tour Championship (East Lake Golf Club). 6 for 18 Points
Rolex Series and Race to Dubai Final Series Events — 2 points
Rory: 2012 DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, 2014 BMW PGA Championship (Wentworth Club — West Course), 2015 DP World Tour Championship, Dubai. 3 for 6 Points
DJ: None. 0 Points
Regular PGA Tour Events (not already counted above) — 1 point
Rory: 2010 Quail Hollow Championship (Quail Hollow Golf Club), 2012 The Honda Classic(PGA National Golf Club — Champion Course), 2015 Wells Fargo Championship (Quail Hollow Golf Club), 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational (Bay Hill Club and Lodge), 2019 RBC Canadian Open (Hamilton Golf and Country Club). 5 for 5 Points
DJ: 2008 Turning Stone Resort Championship (Atunyote Golf Club), 2009 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Poppy Hills Golf Course), 2010 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Monterey Peninsula Country Club — Shore Course), 2012 FedEx St. Jude Classic (TPC Southwind), 2013 Hyundai Tournament of Champions (Kapalua Resort — Plantation Course), 2017 Genesis Open (Riviera Country Club), 2018 Sentry Tournament of Champions (Kapalua Resort — Plantation Course), 2018 FedEx St. Jude Classic (TPC Southwind), 2018 RBC Canadian Open (Glen Abbey Golf Course), 2020 Travelers Championship (TPC at River Highlands). 10 for 10 Points
Regular European Tour Events (not already counted above) — 0.5 points
Rory: 2009 Dubai Desert Classic (Emirates Golf Club), 2011 UBS Hong Kong Open (Hong Kong Golf Club), 2015 Omega Dubai Desert Classic (Emirates Golf Club), 2016 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open (The K Club). 4 for 2 Points
DJ: 2019 Saudi International (Royal Greens Golf and Country Club), 2021 Saudi International (Royal Greens Golf and Country Club. 2 for 1 Point
Top 10s in Majors (excluding wins counted above) — 0.25 points
Rory: Masters (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020), US Open (2009, 2015, 2019, 2020), British Open (2010, 2016, 2017, 2018), PGA Championship (2009, 2010, 2013, 2019). 18 for 4.5 Points
DJ: Masters (2015, 2016, 2018, 2019), US Open (2010, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2020), British Open (2011, 2012, 2016), PGA Championship (2009, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2019, 2020). 18 for 4.5 Points
All Other Tour Wins (not counted above) — 0.25 points
Rory: 2013 Emirates Australian Open (PGA Tour of Australasia). 1 for 0.25 Points
DJ: None. 0 Points
Conclusion
Rory Total Points: 65.75
DJ Total Points: 61.5
As you can see, according to my system, Rory slightly beats out DJ based on the weight of his combined career accomplishments. I find this result incredibly useful and interesting, because it allows us to go beyond simply seeing which player has more majors, which is the most common barometer that people use to compare players’ careers. If we were just going to compare Rory and DJ’s careers on the basis of major victories, we would see that Rory has 4 majors and DJ has 2, and there would not be much of an argument to say that DJ has had a better career than Rory. But after looking through my results in more detail, you can see that DJ brings his career accomplishments much closer in line to Rory’s on the strength of his 6 World Golf Championship wins (compared to Rory’s 3) and his 10 regular PGA Tour victories (compared to Rory’s 5). Also, given that my system only has DJ behind Rory by 4.25 points, this shows that, all else equal, if DJ captured a 3rd major championship (worth 5 points), my system would then show that DJ’s career accomplishments would be greater than Rory’s, even with one less major than Rory.
Ultimately, I do agree with the objective results of my system, and I believe that at this point in time in February 2021 that Rory’s career accomplishments are greater than DJs. I believe the edge should go to Rory as he does have 4 major victories to DJ’s 2. I believe that if Rory were to capture his elusive Masters title and complete the career grand slam, he would cement himself as one of the all-time greats of modern golf. On the other hand, Rory has not won a major since 2014, and has not won a tournament since the WGC-HSBC Champions in November 2019. During this slump, experts have lauded Rory’s ability to drive the golf ball, but they acknowledge that he needs to improve his approach play with his wedges to get back to consistently winning tournaments.
Meanwhile, DJ is coming off some of the best golf of his career, with his emotional and surgical 2nd major win at the fan-less Masters in November 2020. Prior to his 2020 Masters victory, DJ captured 3 other victories in 2020, one at the Travelers Championship, and 2 FedEx cup playoff events, in route to winning the 2020 FedEx Cup. While DJ is 36 and 5 years older than Rory, many experts still believe that DJ has 5–10 years of strong play ahead of him, and no one would be surprised to see him win a few more majors. If DJ were to capture a 3rd major title before Rory wins another major, I do believe that there is a very strong argument in support of DJ’s career accomplishments surpassing Rory’s, and my system would support that, as I discussed above.
But, as of February 9, 2021, I believe that my system correctly identifies Rory as having the greater professional career accomplishments. Let me know what you think of my system, and if there are any changes that you think should be made to it? Also, let me know of other modern golfers that you would like to see me compare with my system!
