The GOAT of GOAT Debates
With all due respect to the Lebron-MJ debate, the closest greatest-of-all-time (GOAT) race in all of sports is at the top of the golf list. Sure, the Jack fanatics would disagree with that notion, but the dynamics involved in comparing Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus are as convoluted as it gets. There is very little doubt that Nicklaus had the most consistently great career in history. Woods, on the other hand, dominated his contemporaries more historically than any golfer in history. Who you anoint as the golf GOAT depends entirely on whether you choose to emphasize dominance or consistency.
The Jack/Tiger debate must begin with acknowledging how difficult it was to succeed in their respective eras. While Nicklaus won more major championships, the competition level during the 1960s and 70s wasn’t remotely as strong as it has been in the decades since. Of the 11 golfers in history who won at least seven major championships, 10 were born before 1950. The other is Tiger Woods (b. 1975). This underscores the danger of placing too much of an emphasis on Nicklaus’s major total. The list of major championship winners isn’t top-heavy with players from 50-100 years ago because golfers were better back then. In fact, it’s the opposite. Golf is more difficult now than it has ever been. Consider that Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIIroy, and Jordan Spieth are the only active golfers with more than two majors. High major totals are a relic of the past. Contrary to the zeitgeist that prevailed as Woods’s major total began to climb, he never needed to beat Nicklaus’s major record to stake his claim as the GOAT. That was a standard set by people who don’t understand how “competition level” factors into sports. Had Tiger reached 18 majors, the debate wouldn’t even be a debate. Since he ended up with 15, the debate will rage until the end of time.
The debate itself involves a Rubik’s Cube of nuance. There is plenty of ammunition on both sides to get your bias on, or to simply give up due to analytical exhaustion. Typically, I reach a level of serenity at the end of GOAT comparisons. Whether it’s Lebron vs. MJ, Ruth vs. Bonds, or Brady vs. Rice, statistical analysis with an emphasis on degree of difficulty almost always yields a clear-cut winner. Spoiler alert: There will be no serenity here. This GOAT debate is a bear. In fact, alternating each at the top spot every other day is looking like a welcome resolution. Nonetheless, let’s make the best argument for both and see which is the most compelling.
Jack Nicklaus
Let’s start with Nicklaus and the angle that gives him the best shot at victory in this debate: longevity. Since Nicklaus holds the all-time marks for major championships, major championship runner-ups, top-five major finishes, and top-ten major finishes, it would be easy to assume an advantage over Woods not just in longevity, but dominance as well. However, that would be misguided, and we’ll discover why in a bit. Nicklaus’s argument must lean on the raw totals that resulted from his extraordinarily long peak. His record 18 majors have been well-documented, but his 19 second place finishes and nine third-place finishes deserve top billing as well. Both are records. In fact, Nicklaus’s 37 top-two finishes at majors are 15 more than anyone else. His 46 top-three finishes are 20 more than anyone else. The trend continues with top-five and top-ten finishes. His 56 top five finishes are 23 more than anyone else and his 73 top ten finishes are 25 more than anyone else. Those margins are astonishing.
Nicklaus’s record consistency is best on display when looking at the most successful ten-year stretch of his career. From 1971-1980, he played in 40 major tournaments and finished in the top-10 a remarkable 35 times. Tiger’s best ten-year stretch saw him achieve the top-10 in 26 out of 40 major tournaments. Even more impressive is Nicklaus’s 29 top-five finishes during this stretch. Woods reached 22 top-five finishes over his best stretch.
Another area where Nicklaus excelled and Woods didn’t is at the Ryder Cup. Nicklaus’s Ryder Cup record is a robust 17-8-3, while Woods compiled a disappointing mark of 13-21. However, it is worth noting that five of the six Ryder Cups that Nicklaus played in were under the U.S. vs. Great Britain (or Great Britain and Ireland) format. These competitions were blowouts in favor of the U.S., and the caliber of opponent that Nicklaus faced was nowhere near what subsequent U.S. Ryder Cup teams would face. The format changed to the U.S. vs. Europe in 1979, which turned the Ryder Cup from a biannual U.S. coronation to a one-sided affair in favor of the Europeans (Europe is 10-4 in the last 14 Ryder Cups). Woods’s record is disappointing considering his standing as the greatest golfer of his generation, but it’s fair to speculate that his Ryder Cup record would look like Nicklaus’s had he been able to feast on the overmatched Great Britain teams of the 60s and 70s.
There really isn’t much more to Nicklaus’s GOAT case than his epic run atop the major leaderboards, and there might not have to be. He was, of course, the #1 golfer in the world for over a decade and he had the lowest scoring average on the PGA Tour for eight years. He also won three Players Championships (aka the TPC, or the unofficial “fifth major”). However, there isn’t much separation from Woods on those points. Woods actually led the tour in scoring nine times and was the #1 golfer in the world for 683 weeks. Woods also has the lowest single-season and career adjusted scoring averages in PGA Tour history, and he won two TPCs and had a second place finish. If you’re arguing for Nicklaus, the argument really needs to focus on his leaderboard success at the majors because Woods matches or exceeds him everywhere else.
Tiger Woods
With Tiger Woods, the track to GOAT status is all about his dominance over the most competitive era in golf history. Perhaps the most telling statistic on Woods’s resume is the fact that since he turned professional in 1996, he has won as many majors (15) as the next three highest major winners combined [Phil Mickelson (6), Brooks Koepka (5), and Rory McIIroy (4)]. Read that again: over the last 30 golf seasons, Tiger Woods has as many majors as the next three most successful major winners combined. Among players born since 1975–the year he was born–Woods has three times as many major championships as anyone else. For all of Nicklaus’s greatness, he doesn’t come close to matching that level of superiority over his contemporaries.
Woods’s dominance doesn’t just extend to major championships. His 82 career PGA Tour titles are tied with Sam Snead for the most all-time. The difference between Woods and Snead (and everyone else for that matter) is that Snead played in an era where a lot of players won a lot of tournaments. The same can’t be said for Wood’s era. Of player’s born since 1975, Woods’s 82 PGA titles are more than the next four highest totals combined [McIIroy (27), Dustin Johnson (24), Justin Thomas (15), and Adam Scott (14)]. This would be the capstone statistic for every other golfer who ever lived with the possible exception of Nicklaus, but even something as spectacular as that gets lost on the mountain of superlatives that have defined Woods’s career.
Woods’s 82 career tournament wins were buoyed largely by his success at marquee golf tournaments. Starting in 1999, the PGA tours across the world created three new tournaments (and later a fourth) called the World Golf Championships. These new tournaments were added to bring more high-profile events to the schedule. While not quite as prestigious as the four major championships and The Players (TPC), these tournaments carried considerable clout. From 1999-2023 (the tournaments disbanded in 2023), Woods won more World Golf Championships (18) than the next five most successful winners combined [Dustin Johnson (6), Phil Mickelson (3), Rory McIIroy (3), Geoff Ogilvy (3), and Darren Clarke or several others (2)]. All told, Woods won 38 marquee tournaments (15 majors, 18 WGCs, 3 Tour Championships, and 2 Players Championships). Nicklaus wasn’t around for the WGCs, but no other golfer born since 1975 has even won eleven marquee tournaments.
It should come as no surprise that Woods has been the #1 ranked golfer more often than anyone else. What should surprise is the fact that since the first Official World Golf Ranking was released in 1986, he has been ranked number #1 for a remarkable 683 weeks, which is more than the next three highest marks combined [Greg Norman (331), Dustin Johnson (135), and Scottie Scheffler (126)]. This, despite the fact that the rankings have existed for nearly 40 years. Woods’ place atop the year-end golf rankings a record 12 times was due, in large part, to his status as having the lowest single-season scoring average and the lowest career scoring average of all-time. In fact, he owns the six lowest single-season adjusted scoring averages in history.
Perhaps the most impressive measure of Woods’s dominance is his margin of victory at the biggest tournaments. Since 1896, nobody other than Woods has won a major by more than nine strokes. He won majors by 15 and 12 strokes, respectively. Since WWII, he holds the largest margin of victory at the U.S. Open (15 strokes in ‘00), the Masters (12 strokes in ‘97), and the Open Championship (8 strokes in ‘00). Even Jack Nicklaus never won a tournament by more than nine strokes, let alone a major. Woods won 12 tournaments by at least seven strokes. Nicklaus managed that just four times. Phil Mickleson–the greatest golfer of the past 50 years who isn’t Tiger Woods–has just one career tournament win of 7+ strokes.
From 1998-2005, Woods made an unthinkable 142 consecutive cuts at PGA tournaments. Byron Nelson has the second longest streak at a relatively meager 113. Even more impressive is that Woods won 22.8% of the tournaments he entered which is the highest winning percentage in history. That he accomplished that winning percentage in the most competitive era in history makes it all the more impressive. In fact, he could lose 304 consecutive tournaments and still have a higher career winning percentage than Nicklaus. Woods also owns the tour records for consecutive holes without a bogie (110) and consecutive rounds at par or below (52).
Woods put together dominant winning streaks on the PGA Tour that are simply hard to believe given how competitive the tour has been in the 21st century. He won seven consecutive PGA Tour events between 2006 and 2007, six consecutive events between 1999 and 2000, and then another five consecutive between 2007 and 2008. To put this in perspective, nobody in history has won five consecutive tournaments multiple times, and he did three times. Nobody else since 1953 has even won four consecutive tournaments. Woods’s seven consecutive tournament victories are the most in history among non-wartime PGA Tour seasons*.
Then there’s Woods’s greatest feat which is his eponymously named “Tiger Slam.” Of course, this refers to his record streak of winning four consecutive majors from 2000-01. Nobody has ever held the championship of all four major tournaments at the same time. Only two golfers, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus, have even won three of the four majors, consecutively. Woods won consecutive majors five times in his career. Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus (both twice) are the only other golfers to do it more than once since the fourth major (The Masters) was added in 1934.
* Byron Nelson won 11 consecutive tournaments in 1945. However, many of the best golfers in the world did not compete in these events due to wartime obligations. Ben Hogan and Jimmy Demaret only competed in one of the 11 events each, and even then both were coming off a multi-year hiatus due to military service. While Sam Snead competed in seven of the 11 tournaments, he too was coming off a multi-year hiatus prior to the ‘45 season.
The Verdict
Conventional arguments regarding the golf GOAT are often superficial. For some, the thought process doesn’t go further than “18 is greater than 15.” However, there is so much more to this comparison than raw numbers. For instance, there’s no telling how many majors Tiger Woods would have won had he played in the 60s and 70s. It almost certainly would’ve been more than 18. On the other hand, Nicklaus almost certainly would have won fewer than 18 majors had he played in the loaded fields of the 2000s. Additionally, Woods was actually more successful at major tournaments than Nicklaus despite winning fewer overall. In the 24 years between Nicklaus’s first and last major victories, he won 18 of the 96 (18.75%) majors he entered. In the 22 years between Wood’s first and last major victories, he won 15 of 75 majors (20%).
The debate really comes down to one question: does Woods’s dominance offset Nicklaus’s longevity? Interestingly, the golf world is almost in universal agreement that Bobby Jones deserves to be rated higher than rivals Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen on the all-time list despite the fact that Hagen and Sarazen had a massive advantage over Jones in both longevity and raw totals. Almost nobody has a problem deferring to Jones’s dominant run. Yet, many of these same people get tripped up on Woods for the exact same reason. I deferred to dominance in the Jones vs. Hagen/Sarazen comparisons, and I’ll do the same in the GOAT debate. Nicklaus doesn’t come close to the mind-blowing statistics that Woods compiled. The list is so long that it is impossible to include them all, but here’s one more: From 1997-2013, Woods was 126 below par at major tournaments which is 251 strokes better than the next best golfer over that span. Tiger gets the top spot by a whisker.
The Eras Tour
Golf has as rich a history as any sport in the world. There are hallowed grounds strewn all across the planet from Augusta National to Royal Troon and thousands of courses in between. The most historical piece of greenery on the globe might just be the Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Prestwick was the site of golf’s first ever major event, the Open Championship (The British Open), which took place in 1860. Prestwick would host the first 12 Open Championships before giving way to a rotation that introduced another cathedral, St. Andrews. In fact, Scotland would host the first 33 Open Championships. The Open Championship was golf’s sole major for 34 years before the U.S. Open debuted in 1895. For 35 years, the epicenter of golf was in a country the size of Maine. Golf wasn’t just played in Scotland, it was dominated by the Scots. The first 29 winners of the Open Championship were from Scotland, a nation with just three million citizens midway through the 19th century. As of 2024, there were 170 cities in the world with at least three million people. Needless to say that the pool of talent that supplied the first competitive golfers was tiny. Willie Park Sr., Old Tom Morris, and Young Tom Morris were golf’s first competitors to win the Open Championship multiple times (all finished with 4 titles each), but the field they played against in the first Open Championship was just eight players.
Even as Scotland eased its grip on the golf world in the 1890s, it was only just enough to allow England into the fray. The first 46 winners of the Open Championship were either from Scotland or England, including the Great Triumvirate. This iconic trio dominated golf for two decades beginning in 1894. The group featured British golfers Harry Vardon and John Henry Taylor, and Scottish golfer James Braid. They combined to win 17 majors with Vardon leading the way with seven. While golf’s popularity began to expand over the previous three decades, the best competitive golfers in the world were still coming largely from Scotland and England, which had a combined population of roughly 37 million by 1900. Even the U.S. Open was dominated by the Scots and Brits as they won the first 16 events. As Vardon’s major championship count grew, he became golf’s first megastar. However, the fields he was playing against were exclusively under 100 players and sometimes far less. While Vardon’s competition surely had increased over what Park and the Morris’s faced 30 years prior, he was still playing against a talent pool filled primarily with just Scots and Brits. That would all change after Vardon’s extended tour in the United States in 1900 and subsequent victory at the U.S. Open. Golf would explode in the United States in the next two decades, leading to the United States becoming the predominant force in golf.
After seeing 54 of the first 55 winners of the Open Championship come from Scotland and England (France produced the other), the U.S. would win 12 of next 14 starting in 1921, including ten in a row. The evolution was even more stark at the U.S. Open. After the first 16 U.S. Open titles went to Brits and Scots, 77 of the next 87 tournaments were won by Americans. And that makes sense. When golf exploded in the United States, the small pool that supplied the world’s competitive golfers exploded with it. The U.S. population was 76 million when Vardon visited in 1900, and it skyrocketed to 130 million by the time the U.S. had taken command of competitive golf. In just two decades, the United States went from a novice golf nation to dominating England and Scotland at the Ryder Cup. Degree of difficulty matters in these GOAT conversations. As soon as golf became popular among the vast population of the United States, the small populations of England and Scotland uncoincidentally stopped producing major winners, and the United States began churning them out. In the 341 major competitions between 1940 and 2024, Scotland produced only three major winners and England an underwhelming 20. The United States tallied 227.
There’s no question that Harry Vardon was the preeminent golfer of his time, but his success needs a jumbo sized portion of context. Vardon is routinely listed among the top 20 golfers of all-time, which is a distinction that belies the competition level at the time. First, Vardon barely separated himself from his Great Triumvirate counterparts. Braid was significantly more successful at the British PGA Matchplay Championship. Braid won the event a record four times. Taylor won twice. Vardon won just once. Taylor was on nearly equal footing with Vardon at the majors. He won five major championships and finished runner-up seven times. Vardon won seven major championships and finished runner-up six times. Vardon, Taylor, and Braid were clearly on the same level and the fact that they were all born within 14 months of each other allows for a direct comparison. The fact that Vardon couldn’t separate himself from two other golfers when the sport was still in its infancy becomes problematic when considering his place on the all-time list. A truly great golfer would’ve dominated a fledgling golf population that came almost exclusively from Scotland and England instead of finishing in a virtual dead heat with two contemporaries.
By the 21st century, golf had become a global sport with a talent pool of over six billion people, which is over 160 times the size of the pool that existed in the 1890s. Comparing Vardon barely being the best golfer in the world in 1900 to Tiger Woods dominating the globe is akin to comparing the best high school basketball player in Minnesota to the best player in the NBA. Almost by default, every golfer in the last 50 years who has spent several weeks as the #1 golfer in the world has done something that is far more impressive than what Vardon and his contemporaries accomplished. Achieving a #1 rank in a sport that is accessible to eight billion people is significantly more difficult than being slightly ahead of your rivals in a sport that is accessible to 30 million. It’s not just Vardon that this analysis applies to. Other early 20th century legends like Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, and Gene Sarazen didn’t face nearly the same global threat or a fully weaponized United States golf population.
Even Jack Nicklaus isn’t immune to the math of a small talent pool, although to a much lesser extent. When Nicklaus was in his prime, golf was almost exclusively dominated by the United States and the UK. Between Nicklaus’s first major and last major (1962-1986), the sport saw major winners come from just eight countries. That number jumps to 14 countries between Tiger Woods’s first and last major (1997-2019). In the 95 major events that took place between Nicklaus’s first and last major victories, 80% were won by Americans. In contrast, just 58% of the 89 majors that were won between Woods’s first and last major victories were won by Americans. Golf is more accessible than ever before and, as a result, the competition level has never been greater. What Tiger Woods accomplished was more difficult than what Jack Nicklaus accomplished which was more difficult than what Ben Hogan accomplished which was more difficult than what Harry Vardon accomplished.
While golf has made strides in appealing to a greater demographic, there are still opportunities for the competition level to increase. In the final 2024 Official World Golf Rankings, 16 of the top 20 golfers were from the United States or the United Kingdom. In contrast, just 5 of the top 20 tennis players in the 2024 year-end rankings were from the United States or the UK. When the golf rankings start to look like the tennis rankings, golf will have maximized its competitive potential, giving any golfer who approaches Nicklaus or Woods the degree of difficulty advantage.
Phil Mickelson
Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus are the two greatest golfers of all-time by a margin that resembles the size of the universe. There is nobody else even remotely close to challenging the throne. So while golf features the closest two-player GOAT race in sports, the race for the third spot is wide open. There are no fewer than seven golfers who have a legitimate argument as the third greatest of all-time. It’s not hard to put together a compelling case for each, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Phil Mickelson has the best argument of the group. Among golfers born since WWII, only Tiger Woods (82) has more PGA Tour titles than Mickelson (45). In fact, besides Woods, only Tom Watson (39) is within 10 of Mickelson’s mark, and only Vijay Singh (34), Rory McIIroy (27) and Johnny Miller (25) are within 20. Mickelson’s case doesn’t just rely on being the most prolific golfer on the PGA Tour outside of Tiger Woods since WWII. His performance in majors and The Players (TPC) also supports his claim. Among golfers born since WWII, only Tom Watson (8) has won more majors than Mickelson (6). Watson is among the golfers who have a legitimate claim to the third spot, but Mickelson just might have a more impressive resume despite winning fewer majors. Mickelson won The Players which Watson did not, and in the history of golf, nobody outside Nicklaus (37) and Woods (22) has more top-two finishes at majors than Mickelson (18). The same is true for top-three, top-five, and top-10 finishes.
It’s clear that Mickelson’s competition for the 3rd spot really only includes Watson and people who were born prior to WWII when golf was nowhere near as competitive as it has been in the 21st century. Not only did Mickelson face the most competitive field the sport has ever seen, he had the misfortune of his peak coinciding with the juggernaut that was Tiger Woods. Watson, for all his accolades, did not have to contend with Nicklaus’s peak. Mickelson had no such luck as he landed smack dab in the eye of the Tiger storm. Yet, Mickelson still managed to outperform every golfer of the past 50 years outside of Woods. This is a significant advantage in Mickelson’s favor over the others in the running.
However, it’s not just the degree of difficulty that gives Mickelson the inside track at the third spot, it’s how much more impressive he was than every other golfer outside of Woods from his era. Walter Hagen (1913), Bobby Jones (1916) and Gene Sarazen (1920) all debuted at majors within seven years of each other and have fairly similar career accomplishments. Ben Hogan (1934), Sam Snead (1937), and Byron Nelson (1937) all debuted at majors within three years of each other, and have fairly similar career accomplishments. Arnold Palmer (1952) and Gary Player (1956) debuted at majors within four years of each other and also have fairly similar career accomplishments. Outside of Tiger Woods, there isn’t a golfer who debuted in the last 50 years who is even in the same stratosphere as Mickelson. No golfer other than Woods in that span has more major championships, 2nd place finishes, or top-two finishes. In fact, nobody outside of Woods is even close. Mickelson has a whopping 18 top-two finishes at major events. Outside of Woods, only Greg Norman (10) and Ernie Els (10) are within eight of Mickelson over the past 50 years. Similarly, nobody outside of Woods to debut in the past 50 years is even close to Mickelson’s 25 top-three finishes. Only Els (15) is within 10 of Mickelson. The same goes for top-five and top-10 finishes. Outside of Woods, only Els (23), Norman (20), and Nick Faldo (19) are within 10 of Mickelson’s 29 top-5 finishes and only Els (35), McIIroy (31), and Norman (30) are within 10 of Mickelson’s 40 top-10 finishes.
Ernie Els, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo, Brooks Koepka, and Rory McIIroy are the most accomplished golfers to debut in the last 50 years outside of Woods and Mickelson. However, the resume comparisons between those four and Mickelson end in a blowout in favor of Mickelson. With Woods and Nicklaus in a different dimension, Mickelson’s relative dominance over the most competitive 50-year stretch of golf that the PGA Tour has ever seen makes him a worthy selection for the 3rd spot on the all-time list. The argument for someone in the Hogan, Snead, Nelson triumvirate could’ve been strengthened had eight* major championships not been canceled during WWII. However, without knowing who would’ve won those tournaments, there’s no way to prorate resumes.
* There were actually 14 majors that were canceled, but the best American golfers like Hogan, Snead, and Nelson typically did not compete in the Open Championship (The British Open) during this era. Therefore it is unlikely that their resumes were negatively impacted by the six Open Championships that were not held.
The Leaderboard
Golf is an interesting competition because the odds of the “best” player winning any particular tournament are quite small. Leading up to the 2025 Masters, Scottie Scheffler had the best implied odds of winning the tournament at or around +470. This amounted to a roughly 17% chance that Scheffler would take home his second consecutive green jacket. This is a unique dynamic in sports where winning is highly unlikely even for the best. Whereas the best player in a tennis tournament is often going to win, the best player in a golf tournament is probably not. Therefore, merely being on the leaderboard in golf is a significant accomplishment. Similarly, holding the #1 ranking or finishing the year-end rankings in the top-five are likely to be more indicative of elite performance than simply running through the major count.
For instance, a golfer like Greg Norman would seem to have had a solid, yet unspectacular, career if he were defined solely by his major count. Norman infamously won just two majors, and is often remembered as much for the tournaments he didn’t win than the ones that he did. He blew a six-shot lead in the final round at the ‘96 Masters. In 1986, he led all four majors heading into the final round and held on to just one of them. He lost seven times at majors when leading in the final round and was 0-4 in playoffs at major championships. However, Norman’s heartbreaks actually reveal a brilliant golfer who consistently put himself in contention at the biggest tournaments in the most volatile of sports. Even if Norman had held on to just two of the majors that he lost, we’d be talking about him in the top-5 given his full body of work.
Still, simply being in contention that many times means something in golf that it doesn’t quite mean in other sports. Norman was the year-end #1 ranked golfer in the world seven times. Only Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods did it more. In fact, the only other golfers to do it more than twice are Tom Watson (5) and Rory McIIroy (3). Norman also finished 2nd three times and 3rd twice for a remarkable total of 12 top-three finishes in the year-end rankings which is, far and away, the highest total for anyone outside of Nicklaus and Woods. Norman held the #1 ranking in the world for 331 weeks. Since 1986 when the World Golf Rankings were instituted, that is 196 more weeks than anyone else outside of Tiger Woods. Norman also finished in the top-two at majors 10 times which is behind only Woods and Phil Mickelson among players to debut in the last 50 years. Greg Norman had an extraordinary career. His place on the all-time list is not defined by the fact that he won two majors. Despite winning fewer majors than golfers like Brooks Koepka, Larry Nelson, Nick Price, and Vijay Singh, Norman’s overall resume is more impressive. It’s important not to conflate major wins with career accomplishments. Otherwise, we’d just roll out the list of the golfers who won the most majors and just rename it “the greatest golfers of all-time.”