Sam Snead
Walter Hagen
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Sam Snead leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Sam Snead at #5 and Walter Hagen at #8.
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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 Walter Hagen
Walter Hagen was golf's first superstar professional and its greatest match-play performer. He won 11 professional majors, a total surpassed only by Nicklaus and Woods, including four consecutive PGA Championships from 1924 to 1927, when the event was contested at grueling match play. Hagen claimed five PGA Championships and four Open Championships in all, plus two U.S. Opens, and won 45 PGA Tour events. Flamboyant and theatrical, he did as much as anyone to raise the professional from servant to celebrity, famously refusing to accept the second-class treatment of pros until clubhouse doors were opened to them. His gamesmanship, showmanship and ice-cold clutch putting made him the dominant figure of the 1920s alongside the amateur Bobby Jones, and he reportedly earned and spent a fortune in the process.