Biggest Longshot Winners in Golf History
Golf is the outsider’s sport. In a field of 156 players, even the best golfer alive rarely starts shorter than 5/1, and the winner regularly comes from a price no other major sport would ever produce. The history of the game is stacked with champions who were 100/1, 300/1 — in one case barely in the field at all — and lifted the trophy anyway.
This is a tour through the biggest longshot winners in golf history, and, more usefully for your wallet, what they have in common. Because the great upsets are not random. Read them properly and they tell you how to hunt value with the Statz projection model instead of just backing the longest name on the board.
The Great Longshot Major Winners
These are the champions who turned a few coins into a fortune for the punters brave enough to have them. Reported pre-tournament prices vary by bookmaker and by source, so treat them as the ballpark they were — but every one of these was a genuine shock.
| Year | Champion | Major | Reported odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | Jack Fleck | US Open (Olympic Club) | Rank outsider — beat Hogan in a playoff |
| 1991 | John Daly | PGA Championship (Crooked Stick) | Ninth alternate — not even in the field |
| 2002 | Rich Beem | PGA Championship (Hazeltine) | Around 250/1 — held off a charging Tiger |
| 2003 | Ben Curtis | The Open (Royal St George’s) | ~300/1 to 750/1 — major debut, ranked 396th |
| 2003 | Shaun Micheel | PGA Championship (Oak Hill) | Around 200/1 — sealed by a 7-iron to two inches |
| 2004 | Todd Hamilton | The Open (Royal Troon) | ~200/1 — beat Ernie Els in a playoff |
| 2005 | Michael Campbell | US Open (Pinehurst No. 2) | Big price — held off Tiger down the stretch |
| 2009 | Y.E. Yang | PGA Championship (Hazeltine) | Huge — first to run down Tiger from behind in a major |
Prices are as widely reported at the time and differ across bookmakers; the point is the scale of the shock, not a single agreed number.
Ben Curtis: The Benchmark
Every golf longshot is measured against Ben Curtis. In 2003 he arrived at Royal St George’s ranked 396th in the world, playing his first major championship, having never finished inside the top 20 on the PGA Tour. He led nobody’s shortlist. Then the leaderboard behind him — Vijay Singh, Thomas Bjørn, Tiger Woods — buckled in the Kent wind, Curtis holed the putts that mattered, and a total unknown was holding the Claret Jug at one under par.
It remains the purest illustration of why golf hands out prices no football match ever could: when the whole field is within a couple of shots and the conditions are savage, the man who makes the fewest mistakes wins, whatever his ranking. That is the entire logic behind each-way betting — you do not need to find the best player, only one who will hang around.
John Daly: The Alternate Who Made History
Curtis is the biggest-price winner; Daly is the most improbable story. Ninth alternate for the 1991 PGA Championship, he drove through the night to Crooked Stick when Nick Price pulled out, teed it up without a single practice round, and bludgeoned a course nobody had seen him play into submission. “Grip it and rip it” was born that week. No model would have found him — but no model needs to. The lesson is narrower and more useful: raw ball-striking travels, and a player swinging freely with nothing to lose is dangerous in any field.
What the Upsets Have in Common
Strip out the romance and the great longshot winners rhyme. Four patterns show up again and again:
- Elite ball-striking, quietly. Curtis, Hamilton and Micheel were not household names, but all three were controlling their golf ball that week. The modern equivalent is a player ranking highly for strokes gained tee-to-green while the market is asleep — exactly what the Statz Leaders table surfaces.
- A brutal setup that levels the field. Wind, firm links, a nasty US Open pinch — the harder the test, the more the favourites bleed shots and the more an outsider’s steadiness is worth. Read our note on what it takes to win The Open for how conditions compress a leaderboard.
- Form the market hadn’t priced. Longshots are rarely cold — they are usually in quietly good nick that the odds haven’t caught up with. The Trending page is built to spot exactly that lag over the last 16 rounds.
- Freedom from expectation. Daly, Yang and Campbell all played with house money against a favourite who had everything to lose. Pressure is the great leveller, and it falls hardest on the short prices.
Finding the Next Longshot with Data
You cannot predict a 300/1 winner — but you can stack the odds of catching one. The trick is to back a profile, not a name: a big-priced player whose underlying numbers say they can contend, not simply the longest price in the field. Statz is built to find them:
- Run the weekly projections and look for players whose top-10 and top-20 probabilities sit well ahead of their outright and each-way prices.
- Cross-check the shortlist on the tournament pages for course fit, and use Compare to put a live outsider’s strokes gained profile head-to-head with the favourites.
- Sanity-check the week’s standout picks against the Statz Tipper before you commit a stake.
Among today’s players, the ones who fit the classic longshot mould are the big-hitting, strong-ball-striking names who haven’t yet broken through in the biggest fields — the likes of Cameron Young, Robert MacIntyre and Corey Conners. Any of them can be the player who turns a savage week into a shock win — and the each-way price is where you get paid for being early.
How to Bet Longshots Sensibly
The graveyard of golf bankrolls is full of punters who backed the longest price every week and called it a system. Longshots are worth chasing, but only on your terms. Stake small and consistently. Bet each-way so a top-8 finish still pays when your player contends without winning. Spread a modest outlay across two or three genuine outsiders rather than piling in on one. And always shop for the best outright and place terms — an extra couple of places is worth more over a season than any single hunch. If the maths of prices is fuzzy, our guide to golf betting odds lays it out.
Biggest Longshot Winners FAQ
Who is the biggest longshot to win a golf major?
Ben Curtis is the most famous. He was ranked 396th in the world and making his major championship debut when he won the 2003 Open at Royal St George’s, with pre-tournament prices reported anywhere from 300/1 to 750/1. Jack Fleck beating Ben Hogan in a playoff for the 1955 US Open is the other candidate most historians reach for.
Has anyone won a major without being in the field?
Effectively, yes. John Daly was the ninth alternate for the 1991 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick and only got a game when Nick Price withdrew the night before. He drove up without a practice round and won his first major — one of the great longshot stories in sport.
Do longshots ever win regular PGA Tour events?
Constantly. Golf’s huge fields mean a 150-strong event routinely produces winners priced at 100/1 or bigger. First-time winners breaking through from outside the world’s top 100 are a weekly possibility, which is exactly why each-way and place betting is so popular in golf.
Why are golf betting odds so big compared to other sports?
Because there are so many players who can win. In a 156-man field even the world number one is often only 5/1 or 6/1, and any credible contender is 20/1 or bigger. That spread of probability is what creates the sport’s regular longshot winners — no other major sport hands out three-figure winning prices as often.
How do you bet on a golf longshot without losing money chasing them?
Stake small, bet each-way so a place still pays, and back a profile rather than a name — a big-priced player whose strokes gained data says they can contend, not simply the longest price on the board. Spreading a modest outlay across two or three live outsiders each-way is the sensible way to chase the big price.
Are golf longshots more common at the majors or regular events?
Both throw them up, but for different reasons. Regular Tour events have weaker, deeper fields where anyone can get hot for four days. The majors add brutal setups and pressure that can drag elite names back to the pack, opening the door for a well-prepared outsider — Curtis, Todd Hamilton and Shaun Micheel all struck at majors.