Jack Nicklaus
Gary Player
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Jack Nicklaus leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Jack Nicklaus at #1 and Gary Player at #6.
Head-to-head FAQ
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The case for Jack Nicklaus
The Golden Bear set the standard by which every golfer is measured: 18 professional major championships between the 1962 U.S. Open and the 1986 Masters, a record that has stood for nearly four decades. Beyond the wins lies an even more staggering statistic, 19 runner-up finishes in majors, giving him 37 top-two results on the biggest stages. Nicklaus won 73 PGA Tour events and captured each of the four majors at least three times, the only player to complete the career Grand Slam three times over. His 1986 Masters victory at age 46, closing with a back-nine 30, remains the sport's most beloved single moment. Renowned for peerless course management and a genius for peaking at the majors, he combined prodigious power in his youth with the finest strategic mind the game has known, finishing in the top ten in an astonishing 73 major championships.
The case for Gary Player
Gary Player, the Black Knight from South Africa, is golf's greatest globetrotter, credited with more than 165 professional victories worldwide across six decades and an estimated 15 million air miles. He won 9 majors and became the third man to complete the career Grand Slam, at 29, winning each of the four at least once, including the 1965 U.S. Open, three Masters and three Open Championships. A fanatical devotee of fitness and diet decades before it was fashionable, the diminutive Player overcame a lack of length through iron will, a superb short game and outstanding bunker play. He was also an advocate for the game's growth on every continent and, in his later years, a tireless ambassador who has remained a visible presence at the Masters into his late eighties, a symbol of golf's global reach.