Arnold Palmer
Gene Sarazen
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Arnold Palmer leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Arnold Palmer at #7 and Gene Sarazen at #10.
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The case for Arnold Palmer
Arnold Palmer did not merely win; he made golf popular. The King brought a swashbuckling, go-for-broke style and blue-collar charisma that, wedded to the arrival of television, turned golf into a mass-market sport in the late 1950s and 1960s. He won 7 majors, four Masters, one U.S. Open and two Open Championships, and 62 PGA Tour events, and his decision to cross the Atlantic in 1960 revived the Open's global standing when American stars had been ignoring it. Palmer's devoted galleries became Arnie's Army. Though his major haul was smaller than his great rivals', his commercial impact was unmatched: he was the first athlete to build a business empire around his own name, and he defined the modern professional's reach and earning power far beyond the ropes of the course.
The case for Gene Sarazen
Gene Sarazen, the son of an immigrant carpenter, was the first player to win all four of the modern professional majors, completing the career Grand Slam in 1935. He won 7 majors in total, including two U.S. Opens, three PGA Championships and the 1935 Masters, and 39 PGA Tour events across a career that began in 1920. That Masters victory featured the shot heard round the world, a holed 4-wood for an albatross two on the 15th that forced a playoff he went on to win. Sarazen also changed the game's equipment forever by inventing the modern sand wedge in 1932, adding a flange that let the sole bounce through sand rather than dig, a design principle still used in every wedge made today, and one of golf's most important innovations.