August 13, 2024, will mark the 33rd annual International Lefthanders Day.
With that, let’s take a look at the lefties on the PGA Tour.
About 10 percent of the U.S. population is left-handed and one place they can find common ground is the official website of being left-handed, lefthandersday.com, where it appears the struggle is real:
“August 13th is a chance to tell your family and friends how proud you are of being left-handed, and also raise awareness of the everyday issues that lefties face as we live in a world designed for right-handers.”
On this site, you can purchase things such as left-handed scissors. For left-handed golf clubs, you’re probably better off looking elsewhere.
Fourteen non-righties have combined to win 86 times on the PGA Tour, led by you-know-who, Phil Mickelson.
With Brian Harman’s win at Royal Liverpool in 2023, there have now been three lefties to win the Open Championship, joining Bob Charles (1963) and Phil Mickelson (2013).
Phil Mickelson (45)
We’ll lead off with the most accomplished and most famous left-handed golfer, whose nickname is of course “Lefty,” Phil Mickelson. Winner of six majors, 45 PGA Tour events and more than $92 million in on-course winnings, Mickelson actually throws right-handed. His 45 wins account for more than half of the 86 won by left-handers on Tour.
Bubba Watson (12)
Bubba Watson is a two-time Masters champ, having won the green jacket in 2012 and 2014. With 12 PGA Tour wins and more than $47 million in earnings, Watson is the second on the list of left-handed wins and money.
Mike Weir (8)
Mike Weir won the Masters in 2003, and the icing on the cake is that he got his green jacket from the previous year’s champ, some guy named Tiger Woods. Weir was the first lefty in 40 years to win a major championship and the first to win at Augusta. He has eight career PGA Tour wins and one PGA Tour Champions win.
Bob Charles (6)
The first major winner who was left-handed, Bob Charles took home the claret jug after winning the 1963 Open Championship in a 36-hole playoff. Also 1963, Charles won the Houston Open, becoming the first left-hander to win a PGA Tour event. Like Mickelson, Charles is naturally right-handed. Charles has a second-place finish in the PGA Championship and a solo third and a tie for third in the U.S. Open. He won six times on the PGA Tour but was a prolific winner around the world, amassing 79 career victories.
Steve Flesch (4)
A regular on the PGA Tour Champions now, Steve Flesch won four times on the PGA Tour, including twice in 2007. His Tour bio says he first learned the game as a righty but later made the switch. His four wins put him fourth all-time, all-lefty.
Brian Harman (2)
An avid outdoorsman and hunter, Brian Harman has two PGA Tour wins and more than $20 million in career on-course earnings. He is one of seven lefties who have earned more than 1 Tour win. His came in the 2014 John Deere Classic and the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship.
Ted Potter, Jr. (2)
Ted Potter, Jr. took home two PGA Tour titles: the 2012 The Greenbrier Classic and the 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Potter is also one of five left-handers to win on the Korn Ferry Tour. His Tour bio says that he was a natural righthander but would swing left-handed to mirror his father, who was a golf-course maintenance worker.
Russ Cochran (1)
Russell Earl Cochran, who was born on Halloween, won once on the PGA Tour, at the 1991 Western Open. Cochran was clutch down the stretch, as he made up seven shots over eight holes to beat Greg Norman. For most of the 1980s, Cochran was the only lefty on Tour.
Ernie Gonzalez (1)
Ernie Gonzalez won one time on the PGA Tour, in 1986 at the Pensacola Open. The third lefty to win on Tour, he did so only after torrential rains wiped out the third and final rounds, so tournament officials declared Gonzalez the winner after 36 holes. In 2009, he Monday-qualified into the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and then made his first Tour cut in eight years. A strong amateur player, Gonzalez won the 1981 and 1982 San Diego County Amateur Match Play Championships.
Sam Adams (1)
Sam Adams won the 1973 Quad Cities Open, seemingly against all odds. That season, Adams entered 26 events and missed the cut in 19 of them. He also had three WDs. Of the four cuts he made, he managed two top-10 finishes, including a T-4 in the Southern Open in early September. Three weeks later, he won the Quad Cities. And while Bob Charles goes down as the first lefty to win a PGA Tour event, Adams is the first American lefty to do so.
Greg Chalmers (1)
Greg Chalmers, 47, has one PGA Tour win, the 2016 Barracuda Championship in his 386th start. It was his first top-10 in three years. The Aussie has won the Australian PGA twice and has won on the European Tour as well.
Eric Axley (1)
Eric Axley won the 2006 Valero Texas Open for his lone PGA Tour win. He’s also won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour and did so 13 years apart: The 2005 Rex Hospital Open and the 2018 North Mississippi Classic.
Cody Gribble (1)
Cody Gribble has one win on the PGA Tour at the 2016 Sanderson Farms Championship. He was on the 2012 Texas Longhorn NCAA Championship team with Jordan Spieth and Dylan Frittelli. In 2017, Gribble was one of 12 rookies to make the season-ending FedEx Cup Playoffs. In 2019, he made 11 of 26 cuts. He hasn’t played a Tour event in two years, his last being the 2019 Wyndham Championship.
Garrick Higgo (1)
There are seven left-handers who have a lone PGA Tour victory, the most recent is South African Garrick Higgo, whose recent exploits quickly landed him a spot on his nation’s Olympic team. Higgo won his in his second Tour start at the Palmetto Championship at Congaree. Inspired by a morning phone call from Gary Player, the 22-year-old, a winner three times on the European Tour, stormed back from six shots and closed with a 3-under-par 68. In Tokyo, Higgo never really got it going, finishing 1 over and in a tie for 53rd in the 60-man field.
Akshay Bhatia
Akshay Bhatia became the 15th member of this club when he claimed the 2023 Barracuda Championship. The big-hitting lefty won his first time out as a pro on the Korn Ferry Tour and is a PGA Tour winner in his 36th event on the big stage. He continued a trend at the only Tour stop to use the Modified Stableford scoring system, as seven of the last eight winners made the Barracuda their first PGA Tour win.
Robert MacIntyre
