Your top 10 best golfers of all time?

[Mitchell]

PGArox, was simply seeking others opinions to see if belonged in TOP 10, since I started the thread I know it is about TOP 10, obviously you do not feel they belong and I appreciate your opinion and input.

[LiveWire]

If I think really hard about this I would say:

1. Me
2. Me
3. Me
4. Me
5. Me
6. Me
7. Me
8. Me
9. Me
10. Me

No pro player has had to deal with my life and getting to the course.............

[LiveWire]

[quote name='nochrome' timestamp='1386820498' post='8286883']
PGArox, was simply seeking others opinions to see if belonged in TOP 10, since I started the thread I know it is about TOP 10, obviously you do not feel they belong and I appreciate your opinion and input.
[/quote]

I think your spot on.....1 and 2 position may change in next 3 years though.

[playa]

[quote name='Golf Monkey' timestamp='1386772699' post='8282799']
Morris's, Vardon. Braid, Taylor, Ball, Park, Anderson, Ferguson to be added in....golf did exist prior to 1930..400 to 500 years or so, in fact...
[/quote]
I assume you have seen these guys and can vouch for them? Dumb idea for a thread. You can only rate the top 10 yo have actually seen hit a ball.

[MJisGOAT]

TW, Jack, Mr Hogan and those other guys.

TW is really his own competition, obliterates the field (past, present, possibly future)

No disrespect to the respective "greats"

[jimb6golf]

In no particular order (sorry couldn't cut it down to 10):

Jack Nicklaus
Arnold Palmer
Tiger Woods
Bobby Jones
Walter Hagen
Harry Vardon
Tom Watson
Old and Young Tom Morris'
Ben Hogan
Byron Nelson
Gary Player
Billy Casper

There's just so many great golfers and really hard to narrow it down. But I would still say Jack, Tiger and Bobby Jones are at the top.

[Boogs2]

1.) Dylan
2.) Dylan
3.) Dylan
4.) Dylan
5.) Dylan
6.) Dylan
7.) Dylan
8.) Dylan
9.) Dylan
10.) Dylan

[Mookie91]

1a. Jack
1b. Tiger
3. Hogan
4. Palmer
5. Faldo
6. Watson
7. Norman
8. Snead
9. Jones
10. Nelson

8-10 are where they are not as a knock but since I'm only 38 I can only rate what I see but their records are incredible

[bscinstnct]

Bobby Jones
Arnie
Vardon
Jack
TW
Hogan
Hagen
Snead
Seve
Nelson

*TW is still playing

[playa]

[quote name='bscinstnct' timestamp='1390445988' post='8513585']
Bobby Jones
Arnie
Vardon
Jack
TW
Hogan
Hagen
Snead
Seve
Nelson

*TW is still playing
[/quote]
Good to see at least one poster with enough insight to have Seve in their list. Seve is top 5 at least imo, possibly equal third with Hogan behind the obvious top 2. At his best I would rate him second to tiger for talent, but nowhere near tiger or Jack in course management.

[Golfnutgalen]

I'm still rather young, so I don't have a great attachment to the great golfers in the past, all I can do is compare numbers. And then we add the fact that it may be harder/easier to win a bunch of tournaments in this age and things get really skewed. I still cannot get my mind around the ridiculous numbers posted by the American triumvirate of Snead, Hogan, and Nelson; how could 3 of the top 10 golfers of all time (well, they're in most people's lists) be born within 6 months of each other?!?! Were they really that good, or was practically everyone else just terrible? Or were their numbers skewed because of the war? Because all of these variables could go either way I tend to just look at the stats and pretend that field strength is more or less even.

Anyway, here's my list. Things have changed over the years and my number one spot has been occupied by Nicklaus, Woods, Nelson, and Bobby.


1.[b] Tiger[/b]: He's the only guy high on this list I've watched on live TV, so no doubt I would gravitate toward him even if his record was a bit less stellar. Of course, it isn't. The fact is he has won 14 majors and 79 PGA Tour events in 295 pro starts! That's a 26.78% win ratio. Compare that to Jack's 19% win ratio at this point in his career. I used to have all of those stats on hand, but I have lost them, so here's just some numbers I picked up on the net:

[b]Career Totals: [/b]
Tiger Woods 26.78% (79 out of 295)
Ben Hogan 20.7% (61 of 294)
Byron Nelson 17.8% (50 of 281)
Sam Snead 14.9% (81 of 549
Jack Nicklaus 12.2% (73 of 594)
Billy Casper 9.2% (51 of 556)
Arnold Palmer 8.4% (62 of 734)
I see a few errors here, oh well.

Tiger dominated golf to the same extent that Hogan did for a much longer period of time. That has to count for something. Tiger has won the second most majors and more PGA tournaments than anyone in history and he's still only 38. This is not meant to be disrespectful of Snead, but he did have a few team wins which I don't count which brings his total down from 82 to 77.

2. [b]Jack:[/b] 1st in the all-time majors list (18) and 3rd in career total wins (71-73). Those numbers are impressive of course, but what cements his position in second (or first) is his ludicrous consistency in the majors with 46 top 3 finishes (vs 24 for Tiger so far)! From what I hear, if he had a better short game he would have won 30 or so majors!

3. [b]Snead[/b]: 77-82 official wins including 7 majors! He only played the Open Championship twice in his prime and finished 6th and 1st; that's another problem with comparing majors, his generation rarely even competed in the Open Championship. Anyway, his only only blip in his career was he never won the US Open and finished second there a heartbreaking 4 times (2 less than Phil!)

4. [b]Hogan[/b]: It's dangerous, but I will go there, Hogan had 56-64 wins -- depending on if you count team events -- including[i] 9[/i] majors in a career which was cut short. He continued to win majors after his life threatening accident, but only won 5 more other PGA tour events in his limited schedule when prior to that he was on a tear winning 30 tournaments in the previous 3 years!

5. [b]Arnie: [/b]60-62 wins including 7 majors, yes people like to add that he was overshadowed by Jack, but that is still one phenomenal career!

6. [b]Player[/b]: Over a hundred worldwide wins including 24 on the PGA Tour and 73 on the sunshine tour -- which is first by 40 wins! Oh, and he also won 9 majors which is tied with Hogan for 4[sup]th[/sup] all time. By the way, I don’t even really like him, but his record does deserve more recognition.

7.[b]Tom W: [/b]39 PGA Tour wins including a remarkable 8 majors! This is the guy who ruined Jack Nicklaus’ record in his later portion of his career. He could easily be ranked higher if only his putter had behaved after his first decade of superb play.

8. [b]Nelson[/b]: Retired at the age of 34 after winning 50-52 times including 5 majors! I'm still a bit torn about his 1945 season with his 18 wins in the midst of war. He probably would have won a lot less if the fields had been full, but we could say the same about the next few years when Hogan went on a tear after Nelson retired... Either way, he amassed some incredible numbers even though golf was not his top priority.

9. [b]Phil[/b]: I never thought I would be ranking Phil as high as this, but his record looks so much more impressive with that Open win. 42 PGA Tour wins including 5 majors, all he needs now is that elusive US Open victory I really hope he gets it in the end!

10. [b]Seve[/b]: 5 majors and 4 other PGA wins doesn’t seem that impressive, but golf is an international game and the PGA Tour is not the end all be all. Seve holds the record for most European Tour victories with 50 and only Tiger Woods has a chance in the near future of beating that with his 40 wins (mostly majors and WGCs).



The three, “I have no idea where to rank them” players:

[b]-Hagen: [/b]42-46 wins including 11 majors and never had a chance to play the Masters in his prime. It’s so difficult to compare for these guys Hagen and Jones because they were competing mostly in the 1920s which is almost a hundred years agon.

-[b]Bobby[/b]: 7 pro majors to go with 6 amateur ones and retired at the tender age of 28! Oh, yeah, and he won the Grand Slam in 1930.

-[b]Vardon[/b]: 6 Open Championships and finished 1st, 2nd, and t2nd in his only US Open appearances.

[ckaufman]

1. Tiger Woods
2. Jack Nicklaus
3. Arnold Palmer
4. Sam Snead
5. Gary Player
6. Tom Watson
7. Phil Mickelson
8. Seve Ballasteros
9. Ben Hogan
10. Nick Faldo

[dmbgolfer]

[quote name='playa' timestamp='1386836120' post='8287565']
[quote name='Golf Monkey' timestamp='1386772699' post='8282799']
Morris's, Vardon. Braid, Taylor, Ball, Park, Anderson, Ferguson to be added in....golf did exist prior to 1930..400 to 500 years or so, in fact...
[/quote]
I assume you have seen these guys and can vouch for them? Dumb idea for a thread. You can only rate the top 10 yo have actually seen hit a ball.
[/quote]

You don't have to have seen them hit a ball. Their records mean something. Dumb idea for a comment.

[tembolo1284]

[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390532585' post='8520867']
[quote name='playa' timestamp='1386836120' post='8287565']
[quote name='Golf Monkey' timestamp='1386772699' post='8282799']
Morris's, Vardon. Braid, Taylor, Ball, Park, Anderson, Ferguson to be added in....golf did exist prior to 1930..400 to 500 years or so, in fact...
[/quote]
I assume you have seen these guys and can vouch for them? Dumb idea for a thread. You can only rate the top 10 yo have actually seen hit a ball.
[/quote]

You don't have to have seen them hit a ball. Their records mean something. Dumb idea for a comment.
[/quote]

agree.

[PGArox]

[quote name='Golfnutgalen' timestamp='1390509270' post='8518221']
I'm still rather young, so I don't have a great attachment to the great golfers in the past, all I can do is compare numbers. And then we add the fact that it may be harder/easier to win a bunch of tournaments in this age and things get really skewed. I still cannot get my mind around the ridiculous numbers posted by the American triumvirate of Snead, Hogan, and Nelson; how could 3 of the top 10 golfers of all time (well, they're in most people's lists) be born within 6 months of each other?!?! Were they really that good, or was practically everyone else just terrible? Or were their numbers skewed because of the war? Because all of these variables could go either way I tend to just look at the stats and pretend that field strength is more or less even.

Anyway, here's my list. Things have changed over the years and my number one spot has been occupied by Nicklaus, Woods, Nelson, and Bobby.


1.[b] Tiger[/b]: He's the only guy high on this list I've watched on live TV, so no doubt I would gravitate toward him even if his record was a bit less stellar. Of course, it isn't. The fact is he has won 14 majors and 79 PGA Tour events in 295 pro starts! That's a 26.78% win ratio. Compare that to Jack's 19% win ratio at this point in his career. I used to have all of those stats on hand, but I have lost them, so here's just some numbers I picked up on the net:

[b]Career Totals: [/b]
Tiger Woods 26.78% (79 out of 295)
Ben Hogan 20.7% (61 of 294)
Byron Nelson 17.8% (50 of 281)
Sam Snead 14.9% (81 of 549
Jack Nicklaus 12.2% (73 of 594)
Billy Casper 9.2% (51 of 556)
Arnold Palmer 8.4% (62 of 734)
I see a few errors here, oh well.

Tiger dominated golf to the same extent that Hogan did for a much longer period of time. That has to count for something. Tiger has won the second most majors and more PGA tournaments than anyone in history and he's still only 38. This is not meant to be disrespectful of Snead, but he did have a few team wins which I don't count which brings his total down from 82 to 77.

2. [b]Jack:[/b] 1st in the all-time majors list and 3rd in career total wins. Those numbers are impressive of course, but what cements his position in second (or first) is his ludicrous consistency in the majors with 46 top 3 finishes (vs 24 for Tiger so far)! From what I hear, if he had a better short game he would have won 30 or so majors!

3. [b]Snead[/b]: 82 official wins including 7 majors! He only played the Open Championship twice in his prime and finished 6th and 1st; that's another problem with comparing majors, his generation rarely even competed in the Open Championship. Anyway, his only only blip in his career was he never won the US Open and finished second there a heartbreaking 4 times (2 less than Phil!)

4. [b]Hogan[/b]: It's dangerous, but I will go there, Hogan had [i]56[/i] PGA wins excluding his 8 team events and including[i] 9[/i] majors in a career which was cut short. He continued to win majors after his life threatening accident, but only won 5 more other PGA tour events in his limited schedule when prior to that he was on a tear winning 30 tournaments in the previous 3 years!

5. [b]Arnie: [/b]60 wins including 7 majors, yes people like to add that he was overshadowed by Jack, but that is still one phenomenal career!

6. [b]Player[/b]: Over a hundred worldwide wins including 24 on the PGA Tour and 73 on the sunshine tour -- which is first by 40 wins! Oh, and he also won 9 majors which is tied with Hogan for 4[sup]th[/sup] all time. By the way, I don’t even really like him, but his record does deserve more recognition.

7.[b]Tom W: [/b]39 PGA Tour wins including a remarkable 8 majors! This is the guy who ruined Jack Nicklaus’ record in his later portion of his career. He could easily be ranked higher if only his putter had behaved after his first decade of superb play.

8. [b]Nelson[/b]: Retired at the age of 36 after winning 50 times including 5 majors! I'm still a bit torn about his 1945 season with his 18 wins in the midst of war. He probably would have won a lot less if the fields had been full, but we could say the same about the next few years when Hogan went on a tear after Nelson retired... Either way, he amassed some incredible numbers even though golf was not his top priority.

9. [b]Phil[/b]: I never thought I would be ranking Phil as high as this, but his record looks so much more impressive with that Open win. 42 PGA Tour wins including 5 majors, all he needs now is that elusive US Open victory I really hope he gets it in the end!

10. [b]Seve[/b]: 5 majors and 4 other PGA wins doesn’t seem that impressive, but golf is an international game and the PGA Tour is not the end all be all. Seve holds the record for most European Tour victories with 50 and only Tiger Woods has a chance in the near future of beating that with his 40 wins (mostly majors and WGCs).



The three, “I have no idea where to rank them” players:

[b]-Hagen: [/b]45 wins including 11 majors and never had a chance to play the Masters in his prime. It’s so difficult to compare for these guys Hagen and Jones because they were competing mostly in the 1920s which is almost a hundred years agon.

-[b]Bobby[/b]: 7 pro majors to go with 6 amateur ones and retired at the tender age of 28! Oh, yeah, and he won the Grand Slam in 1930.

-[b]Vardon[/b]: 6 Open Championships and finished 1st, 2nd, and t2nd in his only US Open appearances.
[/quote]

In my not-so-humble opinion, this is the most intelligently considered post I have read regarding this subject.

I thought I'd throw this little statistical morsel out there for everyone's consumption; Severiano Ballesteros had "only" 20 career top tens in major championships, and his record in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship was not very impressive given his historical standing in golf.

[Brock Savage]

[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390532585' post='8520867']
[quote name='playa' timestamp='1386836120' post='8287565']
[quote name='Golf Monkey' timestamp='1386772699' post='8282799']
Morris's, Vardon. Braid, Taylor, Ball, Park, Anderson, Ferguson to be added in....golf did exist prior to 1930..400 to 500 years or so, in fact...
[/quote]
I assume you have seen these guys and can vouch for them? Dumb idea for a thread. You can only rate the top 10 yo have actually seen hit a ball.
[/quote]

You don't have to have seen them hit a ball. Their records mean something. Dumb idea for a comment.
[/quote]

Right. Numbers don't lie. The Morris's won four Opens each, that's all you need to know.

Never mind that the Opens they won were 36-hole events, and they only had to beat a field of 7 local club pros, who spent more time stuffing feathers into balls than playing golf. To be fair, Young Tom actually won one Open with a field as big as Tiger's Challenge, 18, although there is no comparison in the quality of players. His dad had to beat fields of 7, 9, 11, and 15 to win his four Opens.

Top ten stuff, for sure.

[dmbgolfer]

[quote name='Brock Savage' timestamp='1390536980' post='8521475']
[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390532585' post='8520867']
[quote name='playa' timestamp='1386836120' post='8287565']
[quote name='Golf Monkey' timestamp='1386772699' post='8282799']
Morris's, Vardon. Braid, Taylor, Ball, Park, Anderson, Ferguson to be added in....golf did exist prior to 1930..400 to 500 years or so, in fact...
[/quote]
I assume you have seen these guys and can vouch for them? Dumb idea for a thread. You can only rate the top 10 yo have actually seen hit a ball.
[/quote]

You don't have to have seen them hit a ball. Their records mean something. Dumb idea for a comment.
[/quote]

Right. Numbers don't lie. The Morris's won four Opens each, that's all you need to know.

Never mind that the Opens they won were 36-hole events, and they only had to beat a field of 7 local club pros, who spent more time stuffing feathers into balls than playing golf. To be fair, Young Tom actually won one Open with a field as big as Tiger's Challenge, 18, although there is no comparison in the quality of players. His dad had to beat fields of 7, 9, 11, and 15 to win his four Opens.

Top ten stuff, for sure.
[/quote]

I'm not saying the numbers tell the whole story and settle it, but the notion that you have to have seen someone play to consider their greatness is ridiculous. If you saw Snead and Palmer play on tv you can proclaim their greatness, but not somebody else's? Makes no sense.

[Golfnutgalen]

[quote name='PGArox' timestamp='1390533803' post='8521063']
[quote name='Golfnutgalen' timestamp='1390509270' post='8518221']
[/quote]

In my not-so-humble opinion, this is the most intelligently considered post I have read regarding this subject.

I thought I'd throw this little statistical morsel out there for everyone's consumption; Severiano Ballesteros had "only" 20 career top tens in major championships, and his record in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship was not very impressive given his historical standing in golf.
[/quote]

Thanks for the kudos and additional stats on Seve!

Seve basically got in there out of respect for his fans and his European Tour record, but his short career may mean that others are more deserving of 10th position. Perhaps Gene Sarazen, Casper, or even Faldo deserved a spot in the top 10 instead.

Short summaries:
-[b]Sarazen[/b]: 7 majors and 38 wins!
-[b]Faldo[/b]: 6 majors and 30 Euro Tour events
-[b]Casper:[/b] 3 majors and 51 total PGA wins

Yup, 'The Squire' definitely deserves a spot in the top 10 with those numbers, maybe 8th place or so with Phil taking the 10th position.


I felt for sure that somebody would attack me for lowering some career totals, especially for Hogan with his 8 team wins lowering his total from 64 down to 56, but nobody has mentioned anything yet. To me that is a huge difference and makes it very difficult to rank Hogan in his usual third best of all time position.

[DJ Aus]

I have been reading a few books about golf in the first half of the twentieth century, there were some true greats. Career Slam is a big tick for me and only 6 have done this if you include Jones. I wont rank 1-10 but for me =

Top 3
Jones, Jack and Tiger

Next 3 - other career slams
Hogan, Player, Sarazen

Others
Hagen, Vardon, Watson, Seve

[playa]

[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390537752' post='8521555']
[quote name='Brock Savage' timestamp='1390536980' post='8521475']
[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390532585' post='8520867']
[quote name='playa' timestamp='1386836120' post='8287565']
[quote name='Golf Monkey' timestamp='1386772699' post='8282799']
Morris's, Vardon. Braid, Taylor, Ball, Park, Anderson, Ferguson to be added in....golf did exist prior to 1930..400 to 500 years or so, in fact...
[/quote]
I assume you have seen these guys and can vouch for them? Dumb idea for a thread. You can only rate the top 10 yo have actually seen hit a ball.
[/quote]

You don't have to have seen them hit a ball. Their records mean something. Dumb idea for a comment.
[/quote]

Right. Numbers don't lie. The Morris's won four Opens each, that's all you need to know.

Never mind that the Opens they won were 36-hole events, and they only had to beat a field of 7 local club pros, who spent more time stuffing feathers into balls than playing golf. To be fair, Young Tom actually won one Open with a field as big as Tiger's Challenge, 18, although there is no comparison in the quality of players. His dad had to beat fields of 7, 9, 11, and 15 to win his four Opens.

Top ten stuff, for sure.
[/quote]

I'm not saying the numbers tell the whole story and settle it, but the notion that you have to have seen someone play to consider their greatness is ridiculous. If you saw Snead and Palmer play on tv you can proclaim their greatness, but not somebody else's? Makes no sense.
[/quote]
You must be a sucker for punishment trying to respond after being owned like that.

[dmbgolfer]

[quote name='playa' timestamp='1390560117' post='8522227']
[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390537752' post='8521555']
[quote name='Brock Savage' timestamp='1390536980' post='8521475']
[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390532585' post='8520867']
[quote name='playa' timestamp='1386836120' post='8287565']
[quote name='Golf Monkey' timestamp='1386772699' post='8282799']
Morris's, Vardon. Braid, Taylor, Ball, Park, Anderson, Ferguson to be added in....golf did exist prior to 1930..400 to 500 years or so, in fact...
[/quote]
I assume you have seen these guys and can vouch for them? Dumb idea for a thread. You can only rate the top 10 yo have actually seen hit a ball.
[/quote]

You don't have to have seen them hit a ball. Their records mean something. Dumb idea for a comment.
[/quote]

Right. Numbers don't lie. The Morris's won four Opens each, that's all you need to know.

Never mind that the Opens they won were 36-hole events, and they only had to beat a field of 7 local club pros, who spent more time stuffing feathers into balls than playing golf. To be fair, Young Tom actually won one Open with a field as big as Tiger's Challenge, 18, although there is no comparison in the quality of players. His dad had to beat fields of 7, 9, 11, and 15 to win his four Opens.

Top ten stuff, for sure.
[/quote]

I'm not saying the numbers tell the whole story and settle it, but the notion that you have to have seen someone play to consider their greatness is ridiculous. If you saw Snead and Palmer play on tv you can proclaim their greatness, but not somebody else's? Makes no sense.
[/quote]
You must be a sucker for punishment trying to respond after being owned like that.
[/quote]

You must be a loser with a small d!ck.

[imakaveli]

[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390567723' post='8522479']
[quote name='playa' timestamp='1390560117' post='8522227']
[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390537752' post='8521555']
[quote name='Brock Savage' timestamp='1390536980' post='8521475']
[quote name='dmbgolfer' timestamp='1390532585' post='8520867']
[quote name='playa' timestamp='1386836120' post='8287565']
I assume you have seen these guys and can vouch for them? Dumb idea for a thread. You can only rate the top 10 yo have actually seen hit a ball.
[/quote]

You don't have to have seen them hit a ball. Their records mean something. Dumb idea for a comment.
[/quote]

Right. Numbers don't lie. The Morris's won four Opens each, that's all you need to know.

Never mind that the Opens they won were 36-hole events, and they only had to beat a field of 7 local club pros, who spent more time stuffing feathers into balls than playing golf. To be fair, Young Tom actually won one Open with a field as big as Tiger's Challenge, 18, although there is no comparison in the quality of players. His dad had to beat fields of 7, 9, 11, and 15 to win his four Opens.

Top ten stuff, for sure.
[/quote]

I'm not saying the numbers tell the whole story and settle it, but the notion that you have to have seen someone play to consider their greatness is ridiculous. If you saw Snead and Palmer play on tv you can proclaim their greatness, but not somebody else's? Makes no sense.
[/quote]
You must be a sucker for punishment trying to respond after being owned like that.
[/quote]

You must be a loser with a small d!ck.
[/quote]

I see playa is making a lot of friends on this board!