Who Are The 50 Best Golfers in History?

facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
43 of 51
Next

View image | gettyimages.com

9. Ben Hogan

Hogan is one of five golfers to have won all four major championships in the modern day Grand Slam. He also won nine majors: Two Masters, four U.S. Opens, one British Open and two PGAs.

Hogan and Byron Nelson worked in the same caddie yard at Glen Garden Golf Club in Fort Worth, Texas. While Nelson had success early, Hogan struggled for the first ten years. Between 1930 and 1939 he won only the 1938 Hershey Four-Ball.

Then in 1940, he had his breakthrough victory at the North & South Open. He won five events in 1941, six in 1942. WWII interrupted, but in 1946 he won 13 events, including his first major, the PGA. In 1947 he won seven. In 1948 he won another PGA and his first U.S. Open. Then, after two events in 1949, he had his horrible auto accident, sidelining him until part way through 1950.

Amazingly, Hogan came back to win the U.S. Open in 1950, then the Masters in 1951 with a repeat of the U.S. Open in 1951. His final truly competitive season of play was in 1953 when he entered a handful of events and won five of them, including the Masters, the U.S. Open and the Masters.

Hogan won 69 worldwide tournaments and 64 on the PGA Tour.

Next: No. 8 - Babe Zaharias