If you are a high-level golf professional and, like all of them, aspire to secure a spot in the world top 50, the key to all the Majors (among other perks), you will have realised that there aren’t actually fifty places up for grabs, as some ‘squatters’ have fortified themselves in the castle and there’s no way to replace them…
– Let’s say that about two-thirds of the world top 50, give or take a spot, is usually off-limits. Moreover, if we take each player’s ranking position as of 31 December as a reference, from 2001 to the present day, the world top 50 was actually more like a top 49, as one spot has been permanently assigned to the same player…
This is, of course, Adam Scott. The Australian finished the year 2001 as World Number 48 and since then, every 31 December, he has always appeared within the top 50. Therefore, it has been 24 consecutive years (2001-2024) and this year he aims to make it 25: he is currently Number 40, so it’s not guaranteed, but he’s well on track. Scott is the ‘squatter’ among the ‘squatters’ of the world top 50.
– The next on the list is Rory McIlroy, who has been in the top 50 every 31 December for 17 consecutive years (2008-2024) and will undoubtedly reach 18 in December 2025, as he is currently World Number 2. Besides Scott and McIlroy, these are the players who have been in the top 50 for a decade or more (the famous double digits), in consecutive years: Hideki Matsuyama (12 years, 2013-2024) and Justin Thomas (10 years, 2015-2024).
To these ‘little monsters’, we must add a long list of players who have also earned the label of ‘squatters’ in their own right:
– Tyrrell Hatton, despite his move to LIV, has been in the world top 50 for nine consecutive years (2016-2024).
– Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Cantlay, and Xander Schauffele have been in for eight consecutive years (2017-2024).
– Shane Lowry has been in for six consecutive years (2019-2024), plus another three previously.
– Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa, and Viktor Hovland have been in for five consecutive years (2020-2024).
– Sam Burns, Corey Conners, and Sungjae Im have been in for four (2021-2024). Meanwhile, Russell Henley, Sepp Straka, Brian Harman, Cameron Young, Sahith Theegala, and Keegan Bradley, the great captain who had also added another five years within the top 50 before this latest great streak, have been in for three consecutive years (2022-2024).
Up to this point, we already have 21 names that have closed the doors of the top 50 to all aspirants for at least three years. But some names should be added, special cases that also deserve the undisputed status of fixtures in the top 50:
– Justin Rose has finished within the world top 50 in 15 of the last 16 years (only missing in 2022).
– Jason Day has finished within the world top 50 in 13 of the last fifteen years (missing in 2021 and 2022).
– Billy Horschel was in the world top 50 in 9 of the last 12 years.
– And Jordan Spieth finished within the top 50 in 10 of the last 12 years. Harris English, currently World Number 19, finished within the top 50 for four consecutive years between 2020 and 2023, missing only in 2024 and rejoining in 2025. All these could also be considered ‘squatters’ reasonably, and the list already rises to 26 names, more than half of the world top 50…
– There are other players who are earning the status of fixtures. These would be the cases of Ludvig Aberg, Wyndham Clark, J. T. Poston, Min Woo Lee, or Denny McCarthy, who have been finishing within the world top 50 for two consecutive years (2023-2024).
– It can be seen another way: if we take the current world top 50, we only find six players who could finish the year 2025 for the first time in their careers within the world top 50. They are J. J. Spaun (currently World Number 8), Ben Griffin (Number 17), Nick Taylor (Number 33), Andrew Novak (Number 37), Thomas Detry (Number 38), and Aldrich Potgieter (Number 49). As you can see, many try, but very few are chosen.
– And that’s even though the emergence of LIV Golf has given some respite to the aspirants, because there are quite a few players from the Saudi league who would logically also be fixtures in the current world top 50. At the very least, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Joaquín Niemann, or Patrick Reed. Of all of them, only DeChambeau is currently within the top 50 (he is World Number 15).
