Tiger Woods
Gary Player
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Tiger Woods leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Tiger Woods at #2 and Gary Player at #6.
Head-to-head FAQ
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The case for Tiger Woods
No player has ever dominated as completely as Tiger Woods at his peak. He has won 15 professional majors, second only to Nicklaus, and 82 PGA Tour events, tying Sam Snead's all-time record. Woods held all four major titles simultaneously across 2000 and 2001, the feat known as the Tiger Slam, and won the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by a record 15 strokes. He spent a record 683 weeks at World No. 1 and made 142 consecutive cuts, a streak unlikely ever to be broken. His 1997 Masters win by 12 shots at age 21 transformed the sport's demographics, athleticism and prize money at a stroke. After career-threatening back surgeries, his 2019 Masters victory at 43 completed the greatest comeback in golf, a fifth green jacket eleven years after his fourteenth major.
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.