For years, as Tiger Woods dominated the PGA Tour and racked up major championships like they were the second flight club championships at a local muni, a game of Golf Jeopardy was inevitably played.
The answer for years was, sadly, Phil Mickelson.
The question was, "Who is the best player in the world never to win a major?"
Mickelson put an end to that nonsense in 2004 when he won The Masters, the first of three green jackets and six major titles overall.
If that question were asked in MMA — “Who is the best fighter never to win a UFC championship?” — Cory Sandhagen’s name would invariably be near the top of the list.
He may not be the definitive answer, but he'd be near the top of any list. He will face former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo on Saturday in the main event of UFC Des Moines, with his goal still the same: Winning the bantamweight championship.
Sandhagen is 17-5 overall and 10-4 in the UFC, with three of his losses — to Aljamain Sterling, T.J. Dillashaw and Petr Yan — coming against men who all held UFC gold. His losses to Dillashaw and Yan were agonizingly close.
There's something to be gained by knowing that, even in defeat, you proved you were capable of being the best in the world at one point. Sandhagen is a competitor and his goal for 2025 is to be so dominant in every fight that he forces Dana White and Hunter Campbell to give him another title shot.
Sandhagen is a thoughtful, intellectual person and those types can be bothered more by close defeats than others. Sandhagen, though, insists he's been able to not only deal with the defeats but to use them as motivation.
"I think I have a pretty good relationship with failure," Sandhagen said. "I don't take shame in my mistakes. Like, I'm not ashamed of making mistakes in life. I think it's kind of a bummer right now that in this day in the world, and maybe it's always been like this, but when someone makes a mistake, they get hounded on for a really long time.
"And that's really a shame because it tells people they should be afraid of that and making mistakes in life. But not one person on the entire planet has ever lived without making a bunch of mistakes in their lives. When I make a mistake, it drives me crazy until I figure out what the mistake was."
Sandhagen is fourth at bantamweight, but the three men ahead of him have all fought champion Merab Dvalishvili. No. 1 Sean O'Malley, the former champion, will rematch Dvalishvili at UFC 316. Yan is a former champion who defeated Figueiredo in November, while Umar Nurmagomedov lost to Dvalishvili at UFC 311.
Sandhagen knows the implications of that. The winner of the Dvalishvili-O'Malley bout will likely face one of the men ranked immediately below them. Yan, as a former champion, may have the inside track since he has a win over Sandhagen. So Sandhagen is intent on making a statement on Saturday.
"I've been saying over and over again that Merab has beaten all of those guys already, and they were pretty decisive wins," Sandhagen said. "They were competitive fights, surely, and you never count anyone out, even if they just lost. But even in the O'Malley fight, the Umar fight, if those two had done something just a little different maybe they win. So that's how this sport is.
"But I'm the only guy [near the top of the rankings] who hasn't fought Merab, and I think it would be a hell of a fight between us. If O'Malley beats Merab, the whole world would want to see me and O'Malley fight. That would be one for the fans and a huge stage to fight for the belt. But I'm going to really, really do my best to completely demolish Figueiredo by every means that I can. I want to get a finish and not make it even a close fight at all and look like the most impressive fighter in the world, so that I can say with confidence that I want the next title shot."
The beauty of the UFC is that the contenders all fight each other and championships are determined by performance, not by sanctioning body fortune, as in boxing.
Sandhagen knows it all rests on his slender shoulders. He's come close before, but close is only good in horseshoes and hand grenades.
He needs to take that last step toward greatness, like Mickelson did on the golf course a couple of decades earlier, and get the big win when it matters most. If he does, he won't be the answer to a painful trivia question much longer.
Aaron Meullion/Imagn Images
Cory Sandhagen is 10-4 in the UFC and 17-5 overall in MMA.