Tiger Woods
Walter Hagen
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Tiger Woods leads 3 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Tiger Woods at #2 and Walter Hagen at #8.
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 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.