So Brian Gay went wild over the weekend, tearing up Harbour Town Links to the tune of a 20-under-par 264 aggregate, logging a 10-stroke victory margin over Briny Baird and Luke Donald, and breaking a slew of tournament records in a superb all-around golfing performance.

Naturally, double figure victory margins are pretty rare things. Indeed, by my count (and discounting three such runaways in early Open Championships by the Tom Morrises, which the PGA Tour Media Guide curiously does not include), only 39 times in the official history of the PGA Tour have players won events by 10 or more shots, which break down as follows:

16 - J.D. Edgar (1919 Canadian Open)
       Joe Kirkwood (1924 Corpus Christi Open)
       Bobby Locke (1948 Chicago Victory National Championship)
15 - Tiger Woods (2000 U.S. Open)
14 - Ben Hogan (1945 Portland Invitational)
       Johnny Miller (1975 Phoenix Open)
13 - Byron Nelson (1945 Seattle Open)
       Gene Littler (1955 Tournament of Champions)
       Phil Mickelson (2006 BellSouth Classic)
12 - Byron Nelson (1939 Phoenix Open)
       Arnold Palmer (1962 Phoenix Open)
       Jose Maria Olazabal (1990 World Series of Golf)
       Tiger Woods (1997 Masters)
11 - Steve Jones (1997 Phoenix Open)
       Bob Lunn (1970 Florida Citrus Open)
       Tiger Woods (2003 Bay Hill Invitational)
       Willie Smith (1899 U.S. Open)
       Johnny Palmer (1952 Canadian Open)
       Tiger Woods (2000 World Series of Golf)
       Byron Nelson (1945 All-American Open)
       Jim Barnes (1922 California Open)
       Jim Ferrier (1951 Greater Jacksonville Open)
       Gene Sarazen (1927 Long Island Open)
       Craig Wood (1940 Metropolitan Open)
       Leo Diegel (1925 Mid-Atlantic Open)
       Don January (1963 Tucson Open)
10 - Byron Nelson (1944 Texas Victory Open)
       Sam Snead (1957 Texas Victory Open)
       Sam Snead (1950 Greater Greensboro Open)
       Mike Brady (1922 Western Open)
       Paul Runyan (1933 Coral Gables Open)
       Walter Hagen (1923 Florida West Coast Open)
       Ed Dudley (1933 Hershey Invitational)
       Byron Nelson (1946 Knoxville Open)
       Macdonald Smith 1925 (Long Island Open)
       Byron Nelson (1945 Montreal Open)
       Emil Loeffler (1920 Pennsylvania Open)
       Ed Dudley (1937 Sacramento Open)
       Johnny Farrell (1927 Shawnee Open)

Leaving Brian Gay aside for the moment, several things jump20out from this list, the first perhaps being that only thrice have Major championships been settled by such wide margins (the 1899 U.S. Open, the 1997 Masters and the 2000 U.S. Open), with the only post-19th century occurrences both belonging to Tiger Woods. Also noteworthy is the fact that Byron Nelson managed the feat a remarkable five times, with three of them coming during his record-breaking 18-win 1945 campaign.

And here’s a curious question: Why would such runaways have happened three separate times (Byron Nelson in 1939, Arnold Palmer in 1962 and Johnny Miller in 1975) at the Phoenix Country Club, a short, none-to-difficult venue where the ability of everyone to go low should, theoretically, have made it hard for anyone to break so far into the clear?

But getting back to Brian Gay, it is equally interesting to note the caliber of players who have generally engineered such runaways. To wit: of the 39 above-listed occasions, 24 such victories were logged by World Golf Hall-of-Fame members, while fully seven more came from next-tier types who can fairly be described as rating among the very best players of their time (Joe Kirkwood, Jose Maria Olazabal, Willie Smith, Jim Ferrier, Mike Brady, Macdonald Smith and Johnny Farrell). Of the remaining eight, three were accomplished by players with at least 10 career PGA Tour victories (Ed Dudley – twice – who won 15 times, and Don January with 10 victories), while Steve Jones (eight career wins including the 1996 U.S. Open) would surely have reached double digits had he not been so injury-afflicted. Of a similar status was the cultishly famous J. Douglas Edgar, a first-class player from the U.K. who was widely considered among the best of his era before dying young, under mysterious circumstances, in 1921. Then there is Johnny Palmer, not quite a household name, but a seven-time winner and Ryder Cup player who enjoyed enough prominence to have a set of quasi-famous irons named after him. And finally, there is Emile (Dutch) Loeffler, a man less known as a player than as a Golden Age greenkeeper-turned-architect. But Loeffler’s 10-shot triumph at the 1920 Pennsylvania Open came on his home course – Oakmont – which must mark it with some sort of asterisk.

So where does this leave Brian Gay?

In approximately the same boat as Bob Lunn, a largely forgotten Californian who won six times on the PGA Tour between 1968-1972, including an 11-shot romp over Rives McBee at the 1970 Florida Citrus Open.

The point?

That while the 37-year-old Gay may well go on to do great things over the remainder of his professional career, his two PGA Tour victories make him the very rare man indeed to record a double-digit victory margin with so little else on his résumé. So far.

In fact, for the moment at least, he pretty well stands alone.