Random Golfer Generator

Press the button and you get one famous golfer, picked at random from a list of 50, shown as a profile card: photo, name, what they're known for, nationality, date and place of birth, and estimated net worth. There are no settings. It's a quick way to settle who you're "playing as" this round, hand out golfers for a fantasy draft, or start a trivia question.

Who is on the list

The 50 names lean toward the players who defined the PGA and European tours from the 1970s onward. The all-time greats are there: Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer. So is the Tiger Woods generation: Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Greg Norman, Fred Couples, Davis Love, Jim Furyk, Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia. From the current era you'll draw Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose, Adam Scott, Henrik Stenson, Bubba Watson, Matt Kuchar and Francesco Molinari. Annika Sorenstam is the only woman on the list. A few picks are golf figures rather than tour winners in the usual sense: Pete Dye, the course architect, and Steve Williams, best known as Tiger Woods's caddie.

By nationality, 22 are American, six English, four Australian, three from Northern Ireland, three Swedish, two each from South Africa and Germany, and one each from Ireland, Wales, Spain, Italy, Fiji, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

What the card shows

Each result has a portrait photo, the golfer's name, a profession line (usually "Golfer" or "Golfer, Athlete"; Pete Dye's reads "Golfer, Architect"), nationality, date of birth, place of birth and net worth. The net worth figures are estimates from public celebrity-wealth listings, so treat them as ballpark numbers rather than audited ones. Click Generate again for a new golfer; the same player can come up twice in a row since each pick is independent.

Ways to use a random golfer

• Fantasy or pool drafts. Everyone in the group clicks once and plays the golfer they get. It's fairer than snake-draft order and quicker than arguing.
• Trivia. Cover the name and guess from the photo, or read out the birthplace (Mocksville, North Carolina; Cypress, California; Holywood, County Down) and see who can name the player.
• Video game rounds. Assign each player in PGA Tour 2K or Golf With Your Friends a real golfer to "be" for the round and adopt their style.
• Practice-range focus. Draw a golfer, look up one thing they're known for (Trevino's fade, Couples's tempo, Mickelson's flop shot) and work on that today.
• Range-day bets. Draw a name; whoever's closest to the pin gets to "be" that golfer for the next hole's bragging rights.

For a team-based pick instead of a person, the Random NFL Team Generator and Random NHL Team Generator work the same way. If you want a player from a bigger pool, the Random NBA Player Generator draws from thousands, and the Random Sport Generator picks the sport first.

Sample draws

See all sports generators for other player and team pickers, including the Random Soccer Player Generator.