Does major opportunity await Steve Stricker in 2010?

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After winning five times in the last three years, Steve Stricker's one to watch in the major championships.

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. -- The question was an idle one, thrown out in conversation between glances at the Los Angeles Lakers game on the TV behind the bar in the hotel lobby and the random sip of an adult beverage Saturday night.

But it certainly bears repeating -- particularly now after Steve Stricker's two-stroke victory on Sunday at the Northern Trust Open.

Is Stricker at the top of the list of the best players never to have won a major?

As recently as five years ago, the answer would have been an emphatic no. Stricker was mired in a slump that saw him finish outside the top 150 on the money list three seasons in a row. He went four years with just three top-10 finishes -- combined.

One of the PGA TOUR's regular guys had become a below-average Joe. Hard work and perseverance, though, sparked a steady climb back that earned consecutive Comeback Player of the Year awards and landed the unassuming Midwesterner among the game's elite.

With his victory at Riviera -- one year after he finished second there -- Stricker has taken over the lead in the FedExCup and risen to No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking. At the end of the same tournament in 2005, though, the unassuming Midwesterner had ranked 327th among golfers around the globe.

"It's a great testament to his will," said Luke Donald, who finished second on Sunday. "... It's a tough game mentally when you're not playing well, and to break that and come back and be where he is right now, that's great going. He's obviously found it, and he's worked hard, and he has a lot of belief in himself now.

"I think Steve is the nicest guy in the world, too."

For a while, that nice guy from Madison, Wisc., lived up to the aphorism coined some 70 years ago by Leo Durocher. But in the last four years -- and three tournaments of 2010 -- he's won over $17 million and five PGA TOUR events. He's finished second and third in the FedExCup, too.

Had he publicly entertained thoughts about ascending to No. 2 in the world five or six years ago, though, Stricker knows people would have said he was crazy. Even now, he acknowledges it's "truly unbelievable." His goals were actually more modest. He wanted to win again. He wanted to start driving the ball more consistently -- and for that, he needed to practice with a purpose.

"I went to TOUR school in 2005 and I didn't make it, and it was a reality check," Stricker recalled. "It was a humbling experience, and I just decided I needed to bear down and fix a couple things that were really bothering me, and I took it upon myself really to do that. I think that was really the turnaround. ... I didn't listen to anybody else, I didn't listen to psychologists or my swing coach or anybody else, it was me who decided what I needed to do and what needed to be fixed.

"And I think once I took hold of that responsibility on my own, I think that's when it started to turn."

Now Stricker is a threat to win anywhere, anytime. He has the patient, grind-it-out style that usually breeds success in majors, and Stricker has posted five top-10s in the 14 he's played since the comeback began to unfold in 2006.

So is he the best player never to have won a major? Let's just say Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood, in particular, have some company now -- even if Stricker has flown under the radar more successfully than those two.

"There's a lot of other great players that have not won a major, and it's hard to do," Stricker said. "You only get four cracks at it a year, and there's definitely a higher intensity at those majors. The nervousness level is up. Everything about it is to another extreme. So it's difficult to do."

Make no mistake, though. Stricker has golf's crown jewels clearly on his to-do list. He's had at least one top-10 in each of the four majors, including three in the U.S. Open and two at the PGA. Granted, he turns 43 later this month, but he appears to be just hitting his stride.

"I still have a lot of expectations, and I still want to do a lot of things in golf," Stricker said. "... I still think I've got a lot of good golf left, and it's a Ryder Cup year, there's majors to be won, and I would love to have the opportunity to try to get in contention at a major and try to see if I could win one down the stretch."

And even with his success of late, even as he has risen to a spot where he could conceivably challenge his Presidents Cup partner Tiger Woods for No. 1 in the world, Stricker stops short of saying his comeback is complete. He just plans to do what he does best -- grind it out and make clutch putts -- and see what happens.

"I keep surprising myself I guess is the biggest thing," Stricker said. "As long as I keep doing that and surprising myself and working hard at it, it's been a great ride the last four years."

And there's undoubtedly more to come.