16 thoughts on “The 100 Greatest Golfers of All-Time”

1. 

   Hi Jake, I was preparing to come out in outrage over Mickelson at No 3. But honestly, I’m not sure who I prefer in that slot. Like you say there are probably 6 or 7 who you could make an argument for. I don’t really like the idea of a guy who was never really the best in the World as the third best of all-time, but he did face unheard of competition from Tiger. I supect Phil at 3 won’t age well if Tiger eventually gets supplanted at 1, but we’ll see.
   I think Walter Hagen is a touch low, though obviously he played a long time ago and I’m not sure McIlroy has delivered enough on his immense promise to be a top 10 guy. I might have Seve higher just because of what he meant to European golf and he had a decent spell as the best player in golf.

   1. 

      I did not expect the argument for Phil at #3 to be there. I knew he’d be firmly in the top-ten, but once it became obvious that he has been the second best golfer of the last 50 years (let’s say, since 1975), the dial really started to point towards him. I’m not in love with him at #3, but I could not make a better argument for someone else. Certainly, there are arguments for others, but none as good as Phil, IMO.

      I guess it depends on when Tiger would get supplanted. If it’s in 10 years, I agree. If it’s 25+ years, Phil probably keeps his relevance.

      With respect to Rory, I think there are two things that are true at the same time: 1). He has underdelivered, and he’d probably admit that and 2). His resume has the ammo at #10. I’ll probably do a deep dive over the summer, but he has had a strong Ryder Cup career, won 5 majors, the career slam, three Fed Ex Cups, the TPC, and has been year-end #1 three times, and year-end top-3 nine times. It’s hard to find 10 better resumes. Based on the scalding start to 2025, I’m excited about the possibilities over the next decade.

2. 

   Interesting list but I think it suffers from recency bias.

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      Hey Mark,

      I appreciate the comment. The last 30+ years of golf have been significantly more competitive than any other era prior, making it much more difficult to consistently win tournaments than in previous eras. If there wasn’t an adjustment made for this, then the entire top 15 would be filled with golfers who played prior to 1970 (and Tiger Woods). I don’t believe that the vast majority of the greatest golfers of all time played before 1970.

3. 

   IMO Snead was better than Hogan.

   1. 

      Snead’s longevity is something to behold, but it doesn’t offset Hogan’s peak. Hogan won 9 majors in only 58 attempts (16% win rate). Snead won 7 majors in 118 attempts (6% win rate). Hogan finished in the top 2 in 15 of 58 majors (26%). Snead finished in the top 2 in 15 of 118 majors (13%). Hogan finished in the top 5 in 25 out of 58 events (43%). Snead finished in the top 5 in 30 out of 118 (25.4%). Hogan had 18 consecutive majors in which he finished in the top 8. Snead’s longest streak finishing in the top 8 was 9. Hogan won three consecutive majors that he entered in twice in his career. Snead never did it. Hogan won the career slam. Snead did not. Hogan’s extraordinary peak and win-rate outpaces Snead’s longevity, IMO.

4. 

   Ok so i know there is a hockey reference.com, a football reference.com a basketball and a baseball reference.com. My question is is there anything like a golf reference.com where I can find all-time leaderboards?

   1. 

      Unfortunately, no. You can look up everything you want here: https://www.pgatour.com/stats/detail/300

      However, it’s tedious.

5. 

   Hi again. Rory’s sixth major prompted to me to look at this again and at my own list. Can’t really argue that he’s top 10 now. I had said previously that I thought Hagen was a bit low. I think I might take that back. Hagen’s 11 “majors” included 5 PGAs, which given it was only open to pros, was barely a major at a time when many of the best were still amateurs. He did win 4 Opens, but making the trip from the US was not uniform back then, so it was not always a “major” in the sense that all the best in the world were there. In fact, one might argue that the US Open was the only true test where more or less all the contenders gathered. Hagen won 2 of those, but the last was in 1919. He went on winning other majors but not the Open. And, of course, the main reason for that was Bobby Jones who won 4 times and beat Hagen in 9 of the 11 Opens they faced each other in. And Jones also beat Sarazen 9-2. Which I guess leads me to the flipside of the argument. You said somewhere that just as Hogan, Snead and Nelson, and Taylor, Braid and Vardon were contemporaries and had similar achievements, so too did Jones, Hagen and Sarazen. But they really didn’t. They had similar totals, but Hagen and to a lesser extent Sarazen mopped up in events Jones didn’t or couldn’t play. When they were all there, Jones was the best and it wasn’t really close. So on that basis, I’d move Jones up a few spots, even considering how long he played and the relative brevity of his career.

   1. 

      Hey Stirlo,

      I don’t see a problem with moving Jones up a couple spots. However, his dominance over Hagen and Sarazen–despite similar totals–is baked in to his current ranking. What’s keeping him from being higher on the list is how weak the competitive landscape of golf was during the 1920s and the comparatively few major tournaments that he played in compared to any other player on the list. Essentially, Jones is ranked as high as I could possibly justify ranking any player from that era.

6. 

   Couple more thoughts aimed at lower down the list. I think you might have discounted the non-American golfers from the 40s/50s a little TOO much. There is no doubt that US golf was dominant by that time and that the Open fields lacked many if not most of the US champions. But winning is winning and the likes of Bobby Locke, Peter Thompson and Henry Cotton won a lot. Locke looks like the biggest miss to me. Yes, he won 4 Opens, and yes the Americans were missing. But it’s not like he didn’t prove he was among the worlds’ best elsewhere. He placed in the top 5 at the US Open 5 out of the 7 times he competed. Was he as good as Hogan, Snead and Nelson? No, but along with Thompson he may have been next in line in the 1950s. And Locke, like Henry Cotton may have won more if not for the war. I think Cotton is a more marginal case, but he was certainly among the world’s best in his day. He only played one US major before the age of 40, so we don’t have the same references as we do for Locke. He didn’t play too many Ryder Cups either as he was often a pro in Belgium and not considered for selection, but he won his singles on debut in 1929 and again in 1937 against the 1936 Open champ. He admittedly was whupped by Snead in 1947, but there’s no disgrace in that.

   1. 

      Hey Stirlo!

      I’ll preface this by saying that including Bobby Locke in the back half of the top 100 is a reasonable position. All golfer resumes near the end of the list have flaws, and an argument is there for Locke. However, I have to disagree with your statement that “winning is winning” when it comes to player legacies. The quality of a player’s resume is largely dependent on how strong the competition was. As you referenced, Locke won four Open Championships against watered-down fields that did not include the best golfers at the time. There is no way to know how he would’ve fared had he routinely competed against the best golfers in the world, so he is precluded from receiving the accolades that come with doing so, IMO. Locke made the decision to routinely compete in only 1 of the 4 major tournaments (the only major with watered-down fields) and also had an unusually short career. Did Locke’s decisions affect his ultimate standing in the history of golf? Certainly! Would he be a sure-fire top-100 or top-50 player had he chosen to compete against the best? I have no idea! There’s no way to know.

7. 

   Hey Jake,

   Well, the Open wasn’t the ONLY major with watered down fields – the PGA was very weak, and not a true major until the 60s I would argue. Hogan didn’t play it after 1948 for example. And of course, the other majors were watered down to an extent because the European-based guys didn’t often compete in them, much as the Americans didn’t travel to the UK. I’m not arguing that it’s the same thing, and certainly the US was dominant at the time, but that was a period of fragmented golf – and no tournament regularly attracted all the best in the world, though the US Open and Masters were closest.

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      Sure, the PGA wasn’t as stacked as the Masters and U.S. Open, but there were several years during Locke’s career when a combination of Hogan, Nelson, and Snead were playing the PGA Championship. Hogan and Snead played the Open Championship once each during Locke’s playing career, and they both won it. They beat Locke by 9 and 4 strokes, respectively. Had Hogan and Snead had the luxury of playing against the competition Locke played against, they might have won 20 majors. Locke was a talented golfer, for sure. He had a successful run on the PGA Tour in 1947. However, he never won in 11 chances at a major held in the U.S, and he was soundly beaten by Hogan and Snead when they came to his turf at the Open Championship. His resume is buoyed almost exclusively by the weak fields he dominated at the Open Championship. Without those victories, we’re probably not talking about Locke at all. The resume is fringe top-100 for me.

8. 

   Hi Jake, great list

   I’m wondering if you think Matthew Fitzpatrick would sneak into the top 100 in the next update? He now has one major, 4 PGA tour victories and 10 European tour victories. Even before this year, I think you could make an argument that he’s had a better career than Tommy Fleetwood. I, like everyone else, love Tommy and want him to do well, but I think his popularity has made him become slightly overrated. He is definitely a more consistent golfer than Fitz, but I think being able to win should count for a lot.

   1. 

      I appreciate the compliment, Mark. Glad you enjoyed the list. Thankfully, I don’t have to make the decision on Fitzpatrick right now because it would be close. If he continues playing at a high level in 2026, he’ll definitely move into the top-100. The resumes on the back end all have flaws, so it won’t take much more. He already has one major, a 2nd at the TPC, and several year-end top 15 finishes. With respect to Fleetwood, even without a major in tow, I have Fleetwood comfortably ahead of Fitzpatrick on the account of his Olympic silver medal, sterling Ryder Cup record (11-4-2 vs. Fitz’s 3-8-1), 6 top-5 finishes in majors (compared to Fitz’s 3 top 5s), and his #3 year-end ranking in 2025 (Fitzpatrick’s best year-end ranking is #8). These resumes are so bunched together, though, that if Fitz wins a major in 2026, he’d blow past Fleetwood among many others.