He is the golfer who had 114 professional wins and reached the top five in the world rankings but never finished higher than sixth in a major championship

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One of the most successful golfers of all time never finished higher than 47th in a PGA Championship.

Of course, most golf fans know that it is Tiger Woods and Sam Snead who hold the record for the most wins on the PGA Tour, with the pair credited with 82 each. It remains to be seen if Woods can eclipse that tally in the future.

Winning on the PGA Tour is currently seen as the biggest achievement outside of the majors, while the European Tour was the place to be for many of the best players in the world across the 1990s and 2000s.

But one player found huge success despite rarely playing on either tour – or making any sort of impact in the major championships.

The golfer with 114 professional wins but no top fives in the major championships

The International team received a big boost ahead of the 1996 Presidents Cup. Both Greg Norman and Ernie Els were in the side having opted not to play in the inaugural event two years earlier.

The only other rookie on Peter Thomson’s side was 49-year-old Japanese star Masashi Ozaki.

Ozaki, who was also known by the name Jumbo, would end the week with one point from three matches. He lost 5&4 to Davis Love III in the singles as USA just about retained the trophy.

Ozaki was a superstar in his native Japan. Incredibly, he boasts 114 professional wins during his career, with 94 victories coming on the Japan Golf Tour. Unsurprisingly, he has nearly double the amount of wins as the next best player in the tour’s history. And he reached a career high of fifth in the world rankings in 1996.

That did not translate into great success elsewhere. Ozaki never finished higher than fourth on the PGA Tour, while his best finish in the majors came in the 1989 US Open when he ended up in a tie for sixth – three shots behind Curtis Strange.

How Masashi Ozaki helped his brother make his Presidents Cup debut in a historic week for the International team

Ozaki should have had another chance to represent the International team at the Presidents Cup when he qualified for the team in 1998.

However, he decided not to play at Royal Melbourne. And what that meant was his younger brother Naomichi Ozaki qualified instead. The 42-year-old was 11th in the points standings.

1998 proved to be a very significant year in the history of the Presidents Cup, as it remains the only event the Internationals have won, with Thomson’s men triumphing 20.5-11.5 over Jack Nicklaus‘ USA team.

Jumbo Ozaki’s final win on the Japan Golf Tour came in 2002. Now 78 years of age, Ozaki was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2011.