There seems to be a changing of the guard in the world of men’s professional golf. Tiger Woods turns 40 at the end of December and his peer group, one that includes Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington and Vijay Singh, are even older and on the downside of their careers. It appears as if the new breed of Rory McIlroy of Ireland, Jordan Spieth of Texas and Jason Day of Australia are ready to take the mantle and dominate the top of tournament leader boards, especially in major championships.
Last week we spoke about some of the great trios of golf. When the game took hold in the 1860s, Willie Park Sr., Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris were the dominant trio of their time. At the turn of the century, the Great Triumvirate of Harry Vardon, James Braid and J.H. Taylor were the greats of the pre-World War I generation. The first two threesomes of golfing dominance were from Scotland and England. After the conclusion of the Great War, a trio of American golfers, namely Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen and amateur great Bobby Jones, were the top players of their era.
By the mid-1930s, Hagen, Sarazen and Jones were either at the end of their careers or had already retired from competitive golf. The game lacked marquee names and the Great Depression made professional golf all the more difficult for a new generation of golfing greats. Yet just prior to the start of World War II, a threesome of tough-luck kids, all born in 1913, began to find victory lane on a regular basis. They would lose part of their prime years because of the war, but they would return to the game at the conclusion of hostilities in 1945 and start right off where they left off.
Sam Snead was born in the backwoods of West Virginia while both Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan came from the wrong side of the tracks in Fort Worth. All three started out in the caddie yard, showed a true knack for the game at an early age, and turned professional at the worst of times, during the height of the Great Depression. On the haphazard PGA Tour of the early 1930s, Snead and Nelson made an immediate impact while it took Hogan close to six years before he would become an impact player.
Yet when their careers came to a close some 25 years later, they had the game and the longevity to be the dominant threesome of their era. Bryon Nelson won two Masters, one U.S. Open and two PGA Championships in a career that featured 52 wins on the American tour to go along with 12 other world-wide wins. A graceful man, Nelson retired in his prime to become a gentleman farmer in his native Texas. Sam Snead, perhaps the most gifted athlete to ever play on the PGA Tour, took home three Masters, one British Open and three PGAs. He played competitively well into his 50s and ended up winning 82 tour titles, a record that stands to this very day. It took Ben Hogan a while to join the other two at the top of leader boards, but once he did, he was close to unbeatable with victories in two Masters, four National Opens, one British Open and two PGAs.
In 1945, Nelson won 18 tour events while Snead won six and Hogan five. It was more of the same in 1946 when Hogan captured 13 tour titles and Snead and Nelson won six apiece. When Hogan finally walked away from the game, he had accumulated 64 tour victories and five international tourneys. Nelson captured 52 titles with 12 other wins.
Just about the time that Snead, Hogan and Nelson went to the sidelines in the late 1950s, a new generation took over the game led by a threesome of truly elite professionals. Arnold Palmer, the son of a greenskeeper and club pro, came out of western Pennsylvania and became the poster boy for a game that was gaining in popularity. Palmer’s style and athletic good looks benefited from the newfound medium of television. He had the game to match his popularity as he won four Masters, two British Opens and perhaps the greatest U.S. Open of all time in 1960. Truly a man of the people, Palmer was the king of golf during what would become its golden era. He won 62 times on the PGA Tour and collected 33 worldwide wins.
The diminutive Gary Player took a far different route to the game’s top echelon. Born in South Africa, Player won nine major titles, including three Masters, one U.S. Open, three British Opens and two PGA Championships. He played and won everywhere he went. He won 24 times on the American tour and collected an amazing 141 more worldwide events. No athlete of the 20th century traveled as far and as wide as Gary Player.
The third member of the Big Three was the greatest of them all. Jack Nicklaus of Ohio, an all-state high school quarterback and shooting guard, dominated the game with 18 majors during a 24-year span as he took home a record six Masters, four United States Opens, three British Opens and five PGAs. Nicklaus also was the dominant member of the Senior Tour for a six-year period and remains one of the game’s most prolific golf course architects. On top of that, Nicklaus is highly regarded for his class and sportsmanship during his more than 40-year active career. Without argument, Nicklaus is the greatest golfer the game has ever produced.
Yet Nicklaus, Player and Palmer were not alone. Their contemporaries included Lee Trevino with six majors, Julius Boros with three, Billy Casper with three, Raymond Floyd with four, and Tom Watson with eight grand slam titles. It was a difficult time for great golfers such as Gene Littler, Al Geiberger, George Archer, Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf to accumulate majors during what was obviously golf’s golden era of the 1960s through the 1980s.
It’s a new era on the PGA Tour of the new millennium. Rory, Jordan and Jason are all 20-somethings and there is an active group of their peers looking to make an impact upon the game. Next week we begin our three-week review of the 2015 golf season on the national and regional level. For the first time since Tiger Woods limped to his final major triumph at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in 2008, the game has a new triumvirate prepared to stay atop tournament leader boards for the next decade or so. Professional golf is in a very good place. It always seems to be that way when there are three top golfers at the height of their game.
