Decade by decade, the best of the Masters
By Bill Felber
Masters: The war years
World War II cost the Masters the 1943 through 1945 playings, requiring that a player have participated in at least four of the decade’s seven events to be considered. Thirty-nine players did so, seven of the 39 competing in all seven.
Those seven were Jimmy Demaret, Jim Ferrier, Lawson Little, Byron Nelson, Horton Smith, Sam Snead, and Toney Penna. Smith ran his streak of having appeared in every Masters’ to 27, not missing an event until 1964, when he was 55.
The 1940s were an age when the game’s first modern triumvirate, Nelson, Hogan, and Snead, dominated, so the expectation would be that those three would contend for the decade’s top position on the Masters’ honor role. Keep in mind, however, that those three combined to win only two Masters in the 1940s: Nelson in 1942, Snead in 1949.
Here’s the decade top 10:
Rk Player Avg. Std. Dev
1. Ben Hogan -1.51
2. Byron Nelson -1.44
3. Jimmy Demaret -1.17
4. Sam Snead -1.01
5. Herman Keiser -0.70
6. Clayton Heafner -0.65
7. Cary Middlecoff -0.60
8. Jim Ferrier -0.60
9. Johnny Bulla -0.51
10. Claude Harmon -0.48
Only one man won two Masters during the 1940s, that player being Jimmy Demaret, the 1940 and 1947 champion. His decade-long record was consistent, adding three top 10s and two more top 20s in his seven appearances. So how did Hogan and Nelson beat him?
Must Read. On Tour, consistency doesn't exist. light
Hogan failed to win any of his six Masters starts during the decade, missing the 1949 event while recuperating from his car crash. But he was runner-up in both 1942 and 1946, fourth in 1941 and 1947, sixth in 1948, and 10th in 1940.
Nelson, too, finished among the top 10 in all seven of his 1940s starts, adding runner-ups in 1941 and 1947, a third in 1940, a seventh in 1946, and eighths in 1948 and 1949 to his 1942 victory. The standard deviation of those seven showings simply worked out to be not quite as strong as Hogan’s six starts.
And what of Snead, the 1949 winner? Unlike Hogan and Nelson, he supplemented that victory with no other top-fives. As for Demaret, he was fourth in 1946, sixth in 1942, and eighth in 1949. But a 12th in 1941 and an 18th in 1948 dragged his overall average down just far enough to put him in a solid third spot for the decade.