I don’t write about professional golf very often because there is so much ink in magazines, and electrons in blogs, all repeating each other. There’s only so much news to report. So I wait until I see something different. Like this.

We tend to judge professional golfers by how many major tournaments they have won. The label nobody wants is “The Best Golfer Never to Win a Major.” One day I’ll write about the worst golfer ever to win one. But not today.

Today I want to talk about sustained excellence. Competition at elite levels is boggling. The difference between success and failure is so fine that you almost can’t see it.

Here are eight golfers who have one thing in common: Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia, Retief Goosen, and Padraig Harrington.

Each of them has been in the top 50 of the world rankings for over 500 consecutive weeks. The list is in order by duration. Vijay has been in the top 50 for 911 weeks. That’s over 17 and a half years! Harrington will hit the ten-year mark, 520 weeks, the first week of April.

Each of these golfers has been able to be the best of the best year after year. So many golfers have come and gone in that time. These eight are still at the top and show no signs of slacking off.

Think of how variable your game is. Think of how hard it must be to maintain your game at an elite level when there are new guys coming out all the time trying to beat your butt.

To be so good for so long is a real accomplishment. Sustained excellence, to my mind, is a better way of measuring greatness than by the list of tournaments they might or might not have won.

See more at www.bettergolfbook.com.