Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer who currently plays on the LIV Golf League. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Par | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 36 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 36 | 72 |
Score | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 31 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 28 | 59 |
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
Kaymer also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst Resort with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings; he became the second non-British European, after Graeme McDowell, to win the U.S. Open, and one of few to win two majors prior to age thirty. Kaymer was the fourth to win The Players and a major in the same calendar year, joining Jack Nicklaus (1978, Open), Hal Sutton (1983, PGA), and Woods (2001, Masters).
In October, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Major championships (2) |
Players Championships (1) |
Other PGA Tour (0) |
1 | 15 Aug 2010 | PGA Championship | 72-68-67-70=277 | −11 | Playoff | Bubba Watson |
2 | 11 May 2014 | The Players Championship | 63-69-72-71=275 | −13 | 1 stroke | Jim Furyk |
3 | 15 Jun 2014 | U.S. Open | 65-65-72-69=271 | −9 | 8 strokes | Erik Compton, Rickie Fowler |
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
1 | 2010 | PGA Championship | Bubba Watson | Won three-hole aggregate playoff; Kaymer: E (4-2-5=11), Watson: +1 (3-3-6=12) |
Major championships (2) |
World Golf Championships (1) |
Other European Tour (8) |
1 | 20 Jan 2008 | Abu Dhabi Golf Championship | 66-65-68-74=273 | −15 | 4 strokes | Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood |
2 | 22 Jun 2008 | BMW International Open | 68-63-67-75=273 | −15 | Playoff | Anders Hansen |
3 | 5 Jul 2009 | Open de France Alstom | 62-72-69-68=271 | −13 | Playoff | Lee Westwood |
4 | 12 Jul 2009 | Barclays Scottish Open | 69-65-66-69=269 | −15 | 2 strokes | Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño, Raphaël Jacquelin |
5 | 24 Jan 2010 | Abu Dhabi Golf Championship (2) | 67-67-67-66=267 | −21 | 1 stroke | Ian Poulter |
6 | 15 Aug 2010 | PGA Championship | 72-68-67-70=277 | −11 | Playoff | Bubba Watson |
7 | 12 Sep 2010 | KLM Open | 67-67-66-66=266 | −14 | 4 strokes | Christian Nilsson, Fabrizio Zanotti |
8 | 10 Oct 2010 | Alfred Dunhill Links Championship | 68-69-68-66=271 | −17 | 3 strokes | Danny Willett |
9 | 23 Jan 2011 | Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship (3) | 67-65-66-66=264 | −24 | 8 strokes | Rory McIlroy |
10 | 6 Nov 2011 | WGC-HSBC Champions | 69-68-68-63=268 | −20 | 3 strokes | Freddie Jacobson |
11 | 15 Jun 2014 | U.S. Open | 65-65-72-69=271 | −9 | 8 strokes | Erik Compton, Rickie Fowler |
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
1 | 2008 | BMW International Open | Anders Hansen | Won with birdie on first extra hole |
2 | 2008 | Alfred Dunhill Links Championship | Ross Fisher, Robert Karlsson | Karlsson won with birdie on first extra hole |
3 | 2009 | Open de France Alstom | Lee Westwood | Won with par on first extra hole |
4 | 2010 | PGA Championship | Bubba Watson | Won three-hole aggregate playoff; Kaymer: E (4-2-5=11), Watson: +1 (3-3-6=12) |
5 | 2015 | Open d'Italia | Rikard Karlberg | Lost to birdie on second extra hole |
1 | 2 Dec 2012 | Nedbank Golf Challenge | 72-69-70-69=280 | −8 | 2 strokes | Charl Schwartzel |
1 | 13 Aug 2006 | Vodafone Challenge | 70-67-63-70=270 | −18 | 2 strokes | Matthew King, Álvaro Quirós |
2 | 17 Sep 2006 | Open des Volcans – Challenge de France | 67-64-69-71=271 | −13 | 6 strokes | Mike Lorenzo-Vera |
1 | 14 Jun 2005 | Central German Classic (as an amateur) | 67-64-66=197 | −19 | 5 strokes | Wolfgang Huget |
2 | 1 Jun 2006 | Friedberg Classic | 70-64-69=203 | −13 | 7 strokes | Mark Schytter |
3 | 22 Jun 2006 | Habsburg Classic | 68-59-62=189 | −27 | 10 strokes | Rick Huiskamp |
4 | 4 Jul 2006 | Coburg Brose Open | 68-68-68=204 | −12 | 4 strokes | Lasse Jensen |
5 | 12 Jul 2006 | Gut Winterbrock Classic | 68-60-71=199 | −17 | 1 stroke | Richard Treis |
6 | 17 Aug 2006 | Hockenberg Classic | 72-64-63=199 | −17 | 7 strokes | Christoph Günther |
1 | 9 Aug 2007 | HDI Gerling German PGA Championship | 65-70-65=200 | −16 | 4 strokes | Gary Birch Jr. |
2 | 15 Oct 2014 | PGA Grand Slam of Golf | 65-71=136 | −6 | Playoff | Bubba Watson |
Other playoff record (1–0)
1 | 2014 | PGA Grand Slam of Golf | Bubba Watson | Won with birdie on first extra hole |
Bubba Watson |
Erik Compton, Rickie Fowler |
Masters Tournament | CUT | CUT | CUT | CUT | T44 | T35 | T31 | CUT | T49 | T16 | 48 |
U.S. Open | T53 | CUT | T8 | T39 | T15 | T59 | 1 | CUT | T37 | T35 | CUT |
The Open Championship | 80 | T34 | T7 | T12 | CUT | T32 | 70 | T12 | T36 | T37 | CUT |
PGA Championship | CUT | T6 | 1 | CUT | CUT | T33 | CUT | T12 | T7 | T42 |
Masters Tournament | T51 | ||||||
PGA Championship | CUT | CUT | CUT | CUT | T73 | CUT | |
U.S. Open | T35 | CUT | T26 | CUT | T64 | ||
The Open Championship | NT | CUT |
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = no tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
7 |
7 |
11 |
9 |
Jim Furyk |
The Players Championship | T55 | T34 | T19 | T15 | T43 | 1 | T56 | T39 | T69 | CUT | 71 |
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
2011 | WGC-HSBC Champions | 5 shot deficit | −20 (69-68-68-63=268) | 3 strokes | Freddie Jacobson |
WGC-Championship | T57 | T35 | T3 | T24 | T20 | T49 | T58 | T31 | T42 | T23 |
WGC-Match Play | R64 | R32 | R32 | 2 | R16 | R16 | R64 | T34 | T18 | T17 |
WGC-Invitational | T68 | T60 | T22 | T29 | T29 | T9 | T56 | T45 | ||
Champions | T6 | T30 | 1 | 9 | T8 | T6 | T30 | T40 |
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
41 |
8 |
3 |
1 |
3 |
30 |
24 |
15 |
22 |
17 |
33 |
54 |
68 |
Professional
+Ryder Cup points record ! 2010!! 2012!! 2014!! 2016!! Total |
6.5 |
|
|