When it comes to the PGA Tour's most snake-bitten golfers, the data tells us that nobody's had a tougher time than Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, who has 33 career top-10's to date, with only a single victory to show for it.
To get a sense of which tour members rank up with Fleetwood, RotoWire.com created a weighted near-miss scoring system for each active (non-LIV) PGA Tour player from 2021 onwards, with each top-10 finish gaining one point, while third-place earned three and runners-up got four points. (This data set does not include the DP World Tour, where Fleetwood for example has several victories).
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How We Measured PGA Tour Near-Misses: The Weighted Scoring System
To get a sense of which PGA Tour members have had the most near-misses of late, RotoWire.com used the aforementioned scoring system, while making sure to subtract four points from their point totals if they were actually victorious in an event to avoid giving them a leg-up on their peers that weren't quite as fortunate at the end of a given event.
At the end of our survey, players with the highest cumulative scores were ranked atop our snake-bitten players leaderboard, while LIV Tour defectors were excluded entirely to allow a more consistent comparison between active tour members.
Tommy Fleetwood Leads the List Despite His Tour Championship Breakthrough
You might think that the man currently ranked sixth in the world (according to the World Golf Rankings) would fall far from the top of the Tour's list of most snake-bitten players.
Tommy Fleetwood isn't most players, however, with 33 top-10s (the most in the window), with his lone PGA Tour victory coming in last year's Tour Championship.
That three-stroke victory over Patrick Cantlay and Russell Henley wasn't enough to stave off such an honor for Fleetwood, however, as he achieved seven top-five finishes in 2025 alone before he finished off his first win on the circuit.
Add in two more top-five finishes in 2024 (along with six between 2022 and 2023) and you get the sense of how Fleetwood's PGA Tour career to date has been a 'close, but no cigar' type of run, regardless of his long-awaited first win on the circuit at East Lake Golf Club on Aug. 21.
Sahith Theegala and Maverick McNealy: One Trophy Each, Plenty of Close Calls
Speaking of Tour members with one win, the two golfer closest to Fleetwood's score (42 points) were Sahith Theegala (37 points) and Maverick McNealy (35 points), with the latter tying with Irishman Shane Lowry for third across the PGA circuit.
Theegala and McNealy have combined to place second overall seven times, with two second-place finishes for Theegala in 2024 alone (coming at The Sentry and RBC Heritage), while his lone victory on tour came in 2023 (at the Fortinet Championship).
McNealy's run since earning his card in 2019 has seen him win once (at the 2024 RSM Classic), doing so in his 134th start on tour, while earning runner-up finishes at the 2025 Genesis Invitational, as well as the 2021 Fortinet Championship and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
With Theegala (28) and McNealy (30) still in the prime of their respective careers on tour, there's still plenty of time for them to rack up more victories, though for right now, it seems like they're among the most snake-bitten members of the PGA circuit.
The Winless Wonders: PGA Tour Players With Zero Victories Since 2021
There's a quartet of PGA Tour members that have somehow failed to win on the circuit at all, despite holding great potential and talent. That threesome, in Alex Noren, Patrick Rodgers and Beau Hossler, have six runner-up finishes between them, yet have never finished atop the leaderboard in their careers.
Both Noren and Hossler have a pair of runner-up finishes to their names, with the former doing so at the Butterfield Bermuda and Barracuda championships in 2022, while Hossler finished second overall at the 2024 Sanderson Farms Championship, in addition to the ZOZO Championship in 2023.
Noren (29 points) and Hossler (25 points) are the 7th and 18th-most snake-bitten golfers on tour, per our metrics, though that's not to say their runs have been easy so far.
Keith Mitchell (one runner-up at the 2025 Corales Puntacana Championship/did win in 2018 before this data set) and Rodgers (one P2 at the 2023 Barracuda Championship) are among the next tier of snake-bitten golfers on tour, with scores of 32 and 27 points, respectively, as both look to turn the corner on their respective careers this season.
Longest Active Droughts: Andrew Putnam, Adam Scott, and Daniel Berger
When it comes to the PGA Tour players that have gone the longest between wins, nobody tops 37-year-old Andrew Putnam, whose last victory on the circuit came in 2018 at the Barracuda Championship.
Since then, Putnam's secured 27 top-10, 16 top-five and five runner-up finishes, though he's been unable to pull down that elusive second victory.
A positive sign for Putnam is that he's putting up good numbers this season on tour, with two top-five finishes at the American Express (T2) and Valero Texas Open (T5), while making the cut in nine of his 12 starts this season.
Other PGA Tour droughts, win wise, include Adam Scott's six-year sojourn without a victory, while Daniel Berger hasn't won one since the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2021.
Looking forward, as the PGA's best head to Aronimink Club this week to play in the PGA Championship, oddsmakers from DraftKings Sportsbook have Fleetwood (+2700) as the top guy, odds wise, of anyone on our snake-bitten board, while Scott and Nicolai Hojgaard (+7000 each) are next in line.
Nicolai Hojgaard's Runner-Up Problem: Most Second-Place Finishes in the Field
Speaking of Hojgaard, the 25-year-old Danish golfer has the most runner-up finishes of any golfer on our board (five), with two coming this season.
Still, Hojgaard's 2nd place finish at the Texas Children's Houston Open and his T2 at last weekend's Truist Championship weren't enough to get him near the top of FanDuel Sportsbook's odds board for this weekend's PGA Championship, with the New York betting goliath pinning him at +5000, well behind leaders like Scottie Scheffler (+480), Rory McIlroy (+850) and Cameron Young (+1200).
Still, given the way he's played on tour this season, it seems like the sky could be the limit for Hojgaard, with a possible breakthrough coming at Aronimink this weekend.
What the Near-Miss Data Tells Us About PGA Tour Contenders in 2026
Looking forward, it seems like past wounds might eventually give way to resilient scar tissue for the tour's most snake-bitten golfer, based on how oddsmakers are looking at Fleetwood at the second Major of the season.
Right now, Fleetwood's PGA Championship betting odds on Bet365 are +2700, while his odds of finishing top-five are +475, giving him the ninth-best odds in both camps.
Regardless of whether he wins in the Philly suburbs, the 2026 PGA Tour year looks like one that'll result in a breakthrough for one of the snake-bitten players on our list, with a host of events for them to try their hand at.
What we know for sure is that all of them are primed to achieve that long-awaited victory at any moment, shaking off the burden of past failures and embracing the sweet relief that comes from arduous conquest.
