Golf's Heroes - Major Winners by Decade

                                   

Ask anyone to name the best PGA players of all time, and you will get a predictable list of names : Woods, Nicklaus, Palmer, Hagen, Sarazen,Hogan,Snead,Watson,Player,Faldo,Nelson,etc...  However, ask them who won the most majors in each decade since the 1930's, and expect a blank stare.  Maybe this topic is a little to geeky for some of you, but I though it would be interesting to survey 25 people on this topic, and compare their "average" responses to what the actual results were.  Shown below are the results of this little experiment:

• 1930's: Consensus:    Bobby Jones     Actual: Gene Sarazen (4)
• 1940's: Consensus:    Ben Hogan     Actual: Sam Snead (4)
• 1950's: Consensus:    Sam Snead    Actual: Ben Hogan (6)
• 1960's: Consensus:    Arnold Palmer    Actual: Jack Nicklaus (7)
• 1970's: Consensus:    Jack Nicklaus   Actual: Jack Nicklaus (8)
• 1980's: Consensus:    Jack Nicklaus    Actual: Tom Watson (5)
• 1990's: Consensus:    Tiger  Woods Actual: Nick Faldo (4)
• 2000's: Consensus:    Tiger Woods     Actual: Tiger Woods (10)

Pretty interesting that the '70's and the '00's (Jack's 8 and Tiger's 10) were the only decades that the consensus was correct on.  Also noteworthy is the "flip flop" of Hogan and Snead in the '40's and 50's - reflecting that Hogan's prowess in Majors came rather late in his career.  When I asked the group about this, most of them did not think of Snead and Hogan as peers, believing that Snead played a bit later than Hogan.