Jack Nicklaus
Gene Sarazen
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Jack Nicklaus leads 3 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Jack Nicklaus at #1 and Gene Sarazen at #10.
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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 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.