Sam Snead
Gary Player
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Dead even across the measured categories. Our all-time ranking places Sam Snead at #5 and Gary Player at #6.
Head-to-head FAQ
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The case for Sam Snead
Sam Snead owned the most natural swing in golf and the record that proves it: 82 PGA Tour victories, the all-time mark until Tiger Woods tied it in 2019. Known as Slammin' Sammy for his effortless power and flexibility, he could still kick the top of a door frame in his seventies. Snead won 7 majors, including three Masters and three PGA Championships. His career-long frustration was the U.S. Open, which he never won despite four runner-up finishes, the single gap in an otherwise complete record. His professional career spanned five decades; in 1979 he became the first player to shoot his age on the PGA Tour, carding a 66 at 67, then repeating the feat, a testament to the longevity of the smoothest action the game has produced.
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.