My Take: The 20* Most Essential Golfers in History originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Look, I get it. Every golf fan has their Mount Rushmore, and nobody’s backing down from their picks. But here’s the thing about golf’s GOAT debate: It’s impossible to settle because the game itself won’t let you.
This isn’t a ranking from 1-20. That would be ridiculous. Instead, I’ve sorted golf’s most essential figures into tiers based on what they actually did for the sport. Some revolutionized how we play. Others broke down barriers. A few just flat-out changed everything. These aren’t necessarily the “best” 20 golfers ever — they’re the 20 whose absence would have left golf fundamentally different.
Tier 1: The Mount Rushmore
Jack Nicklaus
Here’s what you need to know about Jack Nicklaus: When the pressure was crushing everyone else, he got better. Those 18 majors are just numbers on paper until you understand what they actually represent. Take 1986 at Augusta — Jack was 46, supposedly washed up, and then he shot 65 on Sunday like some kind of golfing sorcerer.
I’ve watched that back-nine charge probably 50 times, and it still gives me chills. The way he stalked those putts, he knew exactly what each one meant, then drained them anyway. That’s not just skill — that’s something deeper.
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Tiger Woods
Tiger didn’t just change how golf was played — he changed who was watching. Before Tiger, golf was this quiet, polite sport your dad fell asleep to on Sunday afternoons. Then here comes this kid in red shirts, pumping his fist, making impossible shots look routine. Suddenly, everyone’s trying to bomb drives 300 yards, and every tour pro’s got a personal trainer.
Prize purses went through the roof because TV ratings exploded. Kids who’d never seen a golf course were begging their parents for lessons. And that 2019 Masters? Man, even people who hate golf were glued to their screens watching this 43-year-old somehow find magic one more time. Despite his shortcomings, he is the most consequential golfer of our lifetime.
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Arnold Palmer
Palmer made golf cool before anyone knew golf could be cool. The guy would hitch up his pants, flash that million-dollar grin, and go straight after pins that had other players reaching for safe irons. He played like he was having the time of his life, and somehow that made everyone else want to have fun too.
Television cameras couldn’t get enough of him. Fans followed him around like he was a rock star. Arnie’s Army wasn’t just a nickname — it was a movement. Without Palmer dragging golf kicking and screaming into the television age, who knows where the sport would be today?
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Ben Hogan
The car accident in 1949 should have ended everything. Doctors weren’t even sure Hogan would walk normally again, let alone play professional golf. But here’s the thing about Hogan — the man was made of something different. He came back from that wreck more determined than ever, grinding through pain that would’ve sent most guys to the couch permanently.
Then 1953 happens, and it’s like watching someone rewrite the laws of physics. Three majors that year, including his only trip to The Open Championship, where he showed up, figured out links golf in a week and won the damn thing. His practice sessions became the stuff of legend — hitting balls until his hands bled, searching for some perfect mechanical truth that only he could see. That swing of his became the textbook because it was just so brutally efficient, so perfectly repeatable. Hogan didn’t just come back from that accident; he came back better.
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Tier 2: The Legends
Sam Snead
That swing was pure poetry in motion — smooth as silk, natural as breathing. Sam Snead made hitting a golf ball look easier than tying your shoes. Eighty-two PGA Tour wins, and honestly, if it wasn’t for Tiger, that record might have outlived us all.
The crazy part? While other guys were hanging up their spikes in their mid-40s, Snead was out there in his 60s still making cuts, still threatening leaderboards. He had this country-boy charm that made you forget you were watching maybe the most naturally gifted golfer who ever lived. The swing looked effortless because for him, it basically was.
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Byron Nelson
Eleven straight wins in 1945. Eleven. Straight. Wins. I don’t care how many times you hear that number — it still sounds made up. People love to debate Tiger’s peak vs. Jack’s longevity, but Nelson’s 1945 season exists in its own universe of dominance.
The guy averaged 68.33 strokes per round that entire year, and this was back when courses weren’t babied with perfect conditions and equipment was basically wooden sticks with metal faces. He didn’t just beat the field — he lapped it. Week after week, Byron would show up, shoot numbers that made everyone else look like they were playing a different sport, collect his trophy and move on to the next town. It’s the kind of sustained excellence that makes you wonder if we’ll ever see anything like it again.
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Gary Player
Gary Player was golf’s first real jet-setter, back when that actually meant something. While American golfers were content ruling their own backyard, Player was out there collecting majors from South Africa to Scotland to Georgia. The guy would show up anywhere there was a trophy to win, and somehow he’d find a way to win it.
His whole fitness thing seemed absolutely nuts at the time — here’s this little South African guy doing situps and eating health food while everyone else was chain-smoking and drinking beer between rounds. People thought he’d lost his mind. Turns out he was just 20 years ahead of the curve. Now you can’t find a tour pro who doesn’t have a personal trainer and a nutritionist on speed dial.
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Bobby Jones
Here’s something that’ll blow your mind: Bobby Jones won the Grand Slam in 1930 as an amateur, then just walked away from competitive golf at 28 years old. Think about that for a second — the guy reached the absolute pinnacle of the sport, then decided he had nothing left to prove.
But Jones wasn’t done with golf entirely. He went and created Augusta National and the Masters Tournament, basically giving the sport its most prestigious venue and one of its most beloved traditions. While other legends ground it out for decades, Jones crammed a Hall of Fame career into eight peak years and somehow made that feel like more than enough. Sometimes knowing when to leave is the most powerful move of all.
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Tier 3: The Innovators
Gene Sarazen
Gene Sarazen invented the sand wedge because he got sick and tired of struggling out of bunkers like everyone else. The guy looked at that problem and thought, “There’s got to be a better way to do this.” So he goes and creates this new club, then has the audacity to hole out for a double-eagle at Augusta in 1935 — still probably golf’s most famous shot.
Can you imagine? He basically invented a piece of equipment, then used it to pull off the most spectacular shot in Masters history. Sometimes the best innovations come from someone getting fed up and deciding to fix things themselves.
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Tom Watson
Five Open Championships, but honestly, it’s the ones he didn’t win that made him a legend. Those back-and-forth battles with Nicklaus at Turnberry in ’77 weren’t just golf — they were pure theater. Two guys at the absolute top of their games, trading haymakers for four straight days while everyone else just tried to stay out of the way.
Watson had this natural feel for links golf that seemed almost mystical. He could read those bounces and gusts like he was born on Scottish soil. When people talk about golf as an art form, they’re talking about Tom Watson working his magic across those ancient courses.
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Annika Sorenstam
Here’s what you need to understand about Annika Sorenstam: She didn’t just dominate women’s golf, she redefined what was possible. That 59 she shot in 2001? That’s a number most men never even sniff. Then she had the guts to tee it up with the guys at Colonial in 2003, and suddenly everyone’s debating whether she could make cuts on the PGA Tour.
For over a decade, she made winning look so routine it was almost boring — except it wasn’t boring at all because you were watching someone operate on a completely different level. She didn’t just break barriers; she made you forget they ever existed in the first place.
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Walter Hagen
Walter Hagen was golf’s first real showman, and boy did the sport need one. While everyone else was buttoned up in their proper wool jackets, here comes Hagen strutting around in silk shirts like he owned the place. The guy would roll up to tournaments after partying until dawn, probably still half-drunk, then go out and shoot 68 like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He had this swagger that made golf seem fun instead of stuffy, accessible instead of exclusive. Before Hagen, professional golfers were treated like hired help who had to change their shoes in the parking lot. After Hagen, they were celebrities. He didn’t just play the game differently — he made everyone see it differently.
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Tier 4: The Pioneers
Mickey Wright
When Ben Hogan says you have the best swing he’s ever seen, you know you’re doing something right. And Hogan wasn’t exactly loose with compliments — the man dissected golf swings like a surgeon. Wright’s 13 majors and 82 LPGA wins came with a technique so fundamentally sound that male pros would sneak over just to watch her hit balls.
She made golf look simple in a way that probably frustrated a lot of guys who were grinding their lives away trying to find what she seemed to be born with.
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LPGA Founders (Patty Berg, Louise Suggs, Babe Zaharias, Marilynn Smith)*
These women had to build women’s professional golf with their bare hands. We’re talking about piling into cars and driving across the country to tournaments that half the time didn’t want them there. They’d show up, set up their own tee times, handle the marketing, probably sweep the clubhouse afterward just to keep things running.
No prize money to speak of, no guaranteed anything — just a bunch of women who believed so strongly in what they were doing that they’d do whatever it took to make it work.
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Phil Mickelson
Phil at Kiawah in 2021? Fifty years old and absolutely mental. I’m talking about a guy who’d spent 30 years hitting shots that made you wince, then somehow conjuring miracles when it mattered most. That Sunday he was going at pins like he was 25 again — completely ignoring the safe play, trusting that left-handed swing one more time.
Yeah, the LIV stuff complicated his legacy. But when I think of Phil, I think of that walk up 18 with the gallery going nuts, knowing they’d just witnessed something impossible. Pure theater.
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Rory McIlroy
Four majors by 25. Absolutely demolished people. I’m talking eight-shot, 10-shot victories where you’re wondering if everyone else forgot how to play golf. That swing breaks every rule in the book — you’re not supposed to be able to swing out of your shoes and still stripe it down the middle, but Rory just does it. Week after week, launching drives that land in different time zones.
Augusta this year was torture. Pure torture. Eleven years since his last major, and there he was on the 18th hole with a five-footer to win it all. Missed. Just … missed. I thought that was it, another heartbreak, another “what if.” But that playoff hole — man, I still get chills thinking about it. When that birdie putt dropped and he just crumpled to the green, crying like a kid … you realize this guy had been carrying around this weight for over a decade. The career Grand Slam. Only six guys have ever done it. Arnie’s not even on that list. And now Rory is.
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Tier 5: The Global Influencers
Se Ri Pak
Se Ri Pak won five tournaments in her rookie year and basically broke the LPGA wide-open for Korean golfers. Before 1998, you could count the Korean players on tour on one hand. After Se Ri started winning majors? Forget about it. Pretty soon it felt like half the field had Korean names on the leaderboard every week.
She didn’t just inspire a generation of players back home — she proved that talent could come from anywhere, and the best players would find their way to the top no matter what their passport said.
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Seve Ballesteros
Seve was pure magic with a golf club. The guy could hit shots from parking lots that other players couldn’t pull off from perfect lies. He made golf look like an art form, turning impossible situations into birdie opportunities with whatever club happened to be in his hand.
More than that, he dragged European golf kicking and screaming back onto the world stage and turned the Ryder Cup from a polite exhibition into the most intense competition in golf.
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Francis Ouimet
Francis Ouimet was just a kid who lived across the street from The Country Club in Brookline, working as a caddie to make some pocket money. When he somehow found himself in a playoff with Harry Vardon and Ted Ray — the two best golfers on the planet — nobody gave him a prayer.
Then the impossible happened. This working-class American kid beat the British legends in their own backyard, and suddenly every regular guy in America thought, “Hey, maybe I could play this game too.” One upset victory, and golf in America was never the same.
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Lorena Ochoa
Lorena Ochoa did something that still blows my mind — she walked away from golf at 28 while she was absolutely dominating the sport. We’re talking about a player who’d been No. 1 in the world for 158 straight weeks, who could’ve kept racking up wins and records for years.
But she wanted to start a family, so she just … retired. In a sport where most players cling to every last tournament they can squeeze out, Ochoa proved that sometimes the boldest move is knowing exactly when you’ve had enough.
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Final Four: The Specialists
Lee Trevino
Lee Trevino came from the driving ranges of Texas with a swing that looked like it was held together with duct tape and pure stubbornness. The guy would crack jokes between shots, then drain putts that mattered while everyone else was taking things way too seriously.
Six majors with a technique that golf instructors probably used as an example of what not to do — except somehow it worked perfectly for him. Trevino proved that heart and humor could beat perfect fundamentals any day of the week.
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Old Tom Morris
Old Tom Morris didn’t just win four British Opens when that was literally the only championship anyone cared about — he basically invented modern golf as we know it.
Every time you step onto a course with 18 holes, every time you follow established rules instead of making them up as you go, you’re benefiting from Old Tom’s work. He designed courses, wrote the rulebook and turned St. Andrews into golf’s holy ground. Golf without Old Tom Morris would be like rock music without electricity.
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Scottie Scheffler
Watching Scottie Scheffler play golf is like watching someone parallel park perfectly on the first try, every single time. No drama, no fuss, just pure competence that makes you forget how incredibly difficult what he’s doing actually is.
While other tour pros are building personal brands and starting controversies on social media, Scheffler just keeps showing up, shooting 67 and heading home to change diapers. He’s what golf looks like when talent meets genuine humility, and frankly, the sport needs more of it.
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Harry Vardon
Six British Opens, but that’s not even Harry Vardon’s most important contribution to golf. Every single person reading this uses the Vardon grip — that’s how you hold a golf club because Harry figured out the best way to do it more than a century ago.
He also dragged golf across the Atlantic with exhibition tours that showed Americans what the game looked like when played at its highest level. Vardon didn’t just play great golf; he exported it.
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Why We’ll Never Stop Arguing About Golf’s Greatest
I could’ve attempted to rank these 20 players from best to worst, but that would’ve missed the entire point. Golf isn’t basketball, where you can compare championship rings and call it a day. It’s a sport where Bobby Jones walked away at 28 years young and after winning the Grand Slam, where Ben Hogan came back from a car wreck to play the best golf of his life, where Tiger changed everything, twice.
These aren’t just the 20 best golfers — they’re 20 of the most essential. Without these legends, golf would be a completely different sport than it is today. These individuals didn’t master the game, something that even they would say is impossible, but they helped to create it, expanded it and gave us something worth obsessing about.
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Aug 14, 2025, where it first appeared.
Read the full article here