The Best Players to have won the Masters Tournament - Part 2
The Masters Tournament is the holiest of holies of golf. The Masters is to the majors what the majors are to the other golf tournaments. The 2011 Masters, due to begin in two weeks time, will be the 75th iteration of the event and speculations
are already flying around about the top seeds of the upcoming event.
Previously we looked at some of the ‘worst’ (though not in the literal sense of the word) players to have ever won a major championship. This time around we’ll countdown some of the best players to have won the Masters Tournament.
7. Nick Faldo – 1989, 1990, 1996
Occupying the seventh spot on our list is English professional golfer Sir Nicholas Alexander Faldo. Inspired to play golf after watching Jack Nicklaus, he first played the game after borrowing golf clubs from his neighbours.
After his success as an amateur, he turned professional in 1976. Just one year later, in 1977, he won his first professional tournament and ended the season placed 8th on the European Order of Merit list, earning the European Tour Rookie of the
Year award. In 1978 he won his second tournament and this time placed 3rd on the Order of Merit.
Despite topping the European Order of Merit in 1983, it wasn’t until 1987 that Faldo won his first major tournament: The Open Championship. In 1989 he won the Masters Tournament for the first time in a playoff against Scott Hoch. He won both the Open Championship
and the Masters in the same year in 1990. In both 1989 and 1990 he was awarded the European Tour Player of the Year award.
His last Masters victory was in 1996, twenty years after turning professional, and dominated the rest of the field, leading them by five strokes.
During his career Faldo has won a total of 40 professional tournaments. He was inducted into the Golf Hall of Fame in 1997
6. Sam Snead – 1949, 1952, 1954
Sam Snead was a part of the triad of golfers that dominated golf in the 30s and 40s, the others being Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson. ‘Slammin’ Sammy’ as he was famously known had one of the best, if not the very best, swing in golf.
He started off as a caddy at the Homestead in Hot Springs in 1919 and fifteen years later turned professional. On his first year on the PGA tour he won five events and came agonizingly close to winning a when he finished 2nd at the U.S Open. In
1938 he won his sixth event and topped the PGA Tour’s money list.
In 1939 he again came close to winning a major, this time finishing 2nd at the Masters. He also placed 5th at the U.S Open. It proved to be the event that would elude his grasp throughout his 45-year career despite finishing in the
top two a record of five times.
His long awaited major win came at the PGA Championship in 1942. He would go on to win a grand total of seven majors; three Masters Tournaments, three PGA Championships and the 1946 Open Championship.
During his long and illustrious career Snead accumulated a whopping 82 PGA Tour victories, the most ever, and 165 victories in total. He is also the oldest player to win a PGA Tour event at the age of 52. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame
in 1974 and received the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. He passed away in 2002 just four days short of his 90th birthday.
Tags: