Here's how Par 3 Contest winners do in the Masters

It's become part of Masters canon that no player who has won the Par 3 Contest has gone on to win the tournament. We wondered, how do players who win the Par 3 event actually do in the tournament? Do they tend to underperform or do they play as well as anyone else? 

First, some background.

The Masters Par 3 Contest has been a staple of the tournament since 1960 when Sam Snead won the nine-hole competition with a score of 4-under. 

Snead — who won the Masters in 1949, 1952, and 1954 — would go on to place 11th in the tournament after his Par 3 win. Little did he know what precedent he was setting.

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In the 57 years since, no golfer who has won the Par 3 contest has gone on to win the Masters in the same year.

There have been some close calls.

In 1990, Raymond Floyd won the pre-tournament contest at -4. Floyd would go on to lead the Masters field after the second and third rounds, and held a four-shot lead with six holes left. But a late Nick Faldo charge led to a sudden-death playoff, which Floyd lost on the second hole.

Only one other Par 3 winner came within one place of the green jacket. In 1993, Chip Beck posted a 6-under to win the Par 3 contest, before coming in four strokes behind Bernhard Langer for second place.

Only 11 Par 3 winners have ever finished in the top 10, and recent results don’t look good. In seven of the past 12 years (not counting 2017, where the contest was canceled due to rain and 2018 when Tom Watson won and did not play in the tournament), the Par 3 winner failed to even make the cut.

Here's what we get when we compare the score of every Par 3 winner who made the tournament cut to the tournament winner's score. 

Of the 58 Par 3 winners who played in the Masters the same year, 18 didn't make the cut. The average score for the remaining 40 is 1.5 strokes above par, compared to an average of 9.3 strokes below par for the Masters winners in those years. In 57 years, only 16 players who won the Par 3 event finished the Masters below par that year.

So, to answer the question that started all this, how do players who win the Par 3 event actually do in the tournament? Not very well at all.

Here’s the full list of every Par 3 winner and how they performed in the tournament:

Year	Par 3 winner	Par 3 score	Masters finish	Masters score
1960	Sam Snead	−4	T11	4
1961	Deane Beman	−5	CUT	N/A
1962	Bruce Crampton	−5	T29	7
1963	George Bayer	−4	T28	9
1964	Labron Harris Jr.	−4	43	9
1965	Art Wall Jr.	−7	T45	11
1966	Terry Dill	−5	T17	9
1967	Arnold Palmer	−4	4	-3
1968	Bob Rosburg	−5	T30	2
1969	Bob Lunn	−4	CUT	N/A
1970	Harold Henning	−6	CUT	N/A
1971	Dave Stockton	−4	T9	-2
1972	Steve Melnyk	−4	T12	4
1973	Gay Brewer	−7	T10	3
1974	Sam Snead (2)	−5	T20	-2
1975	Isao Aoki	−4	CUT	N/A
1976	Jay Haas	−6	CUT	N/A
1977	Tom Weiskopf	−4	T14	-2
1978	Lou Graham	−5	CUT	N/A
1979	Joe Inman	−5	T23	2
1980	Johnny Miller	−5	T38	4
1981	Isao Aoki (2)	−5	T45	12
1982	Tom Watson	−4	T5	-1
1983	Hale Irwin	−5	T6	-2
1984	Tommy Aaron	−5	CUT	N/A
1985	Hubert Green	−5	CUT	N/A
1986	Gary Koch	−4	T16	-2
1987	Ben Crenshaw	−5	T4	-2
1988	Tsuneyuki Nakajima	−3	T33	9
1989	Bob Gilder	−5	37	9
1990	Raymond Floyd	−4	2	-10
1991	Rocco Mediate	−3	T22	-4
1992	Davis Love III	−5	T25	-4
1993	Chip Beck	−6	2	-7
1994	Vijay Singh	−5	T27	6
1995	Hal Sutton	−4	CUT	N/A
1996	Jay Haas (2)	−5	T36	7
1997	Sandy Lyle	−5	T34	7
1998	Sandy Lyle (2)	−3	CUT	N/A
1999	Joe Durant	−5	CUT	N/A
2000	Chris Perry	−4	T14	1
2001	David Toms	−5	T31	E
2002	Nick Price	−5	T20	1
2003	David Toms	−6	T8	E
2003	Pádraig Harrington	−6	CUT	N/A
2004	Pádraig Harrington (2)	−4	T13	E
2005	Jerry Pate	−5	DNP	N/A
2006	Ben Crane	−4	CUT	N/A
2007	Mark O'Meara	−5	CUT	N/A
2008	Rory Sabbatini	−5	CUT	N/A
2009	Tim Clark	−5	T13	-6
2010	Louis Oosthuizen	−6	CUT	N/A
2011	Luke Donald	−5	T4	-10
2012	Pádraig Harrington	−5	T8	-4
2012	Jonathan Byrd	−5	T27	2
2013	Ted Potter	−4	CUT	N/A
2014	Ryan Moore	−6	CUT	N/A
2015	Kevin Streelman	−5	T12	-6
2016	Jimmy Walker	−8	T29	7
2017	Contest rained out	N/A	N/A	N/A
2018	Tom Watson	−6	DNP	N/A