12-05-2025
Top 100 Players Compiled in New Book
Picking golf's top 100 players of all time is not an easy assignment.
Just coming up with a formula is hard enough but shuffling through the thousands of players who have played golf, both amateur and professional, over the decades of the game makes the task even more daunting.
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Recently, Michael Arkush wrote a book titled The Golf 100, taking on the difficult task.
Spending three years compiling and providing analysis on different players, Arkush brings names known to only golf historians back to life.
'I just was so motivated to write about players I followed as a kid and covered at different publications,' Arkush said, 'I wanted to explore more about their lives, careers, what made them great, what made them flawed.'
Cover of The Golf 100 by Michael Arkush
The 100 starts with John McDermott and ends with Jack Nicklaus.
While some may find Nicklaus's selection as the top player in the game's history controversial, Arkush felt comfortable with his points system, which focused more on majors than normal tour wins.
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The system for majors awarded 2,000 points for each major win, 500 for second place, 250 for third, 100 for fourth, and 50 for fifth.
Non-major wins garnered 300 points, and the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur received points as well.
Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods smile during the R&A Celebration of Champions four-hole challenge at the 150th Open Championship golf tournament at St. Andrews Old Course Schumacher-Imagn Images
Arkush also added or subtracted points in certain cases due to their impact on the game, using Francis Ouimet as an example of a player who, on his strict merits, would not make the list, but if you factor in intangibles, deserved to be in the top 100.
Ouimet is 20th.
Lastly, Arkush incorporated women into the ranking, starting with Mickey Wright at sixth, sandwiched between Arnold Palmer at fifth and Sam Snead at seventh.
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All told, 14 women, including Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, and Glenna Collett Vare, made the list.
Oddly, some players have not made the list as of yet, with Colin Montgomery, Justin Thomas, and Scottie Scheffler on the outside looking in.
With the paperback version coming out next year, Arkush will accumulate points up until this year's Tour Championship, which, depending on their success in the remainder of the year, may find both Scheffler and Thomas in the mix.
But even after all the painstaking analysis, even Arkush was surprised by some players and their golf success.
'People whom I did not really think that much about, I realized are top players, Leo Deagle, Walter Travers, Jerry Travers, guys like that, who are all-time based on the numerical system I came up with,' Arkush said. 'Harold Hilton. I knew about him as a great amateur but didn't realize how great he was. John Ball, the English Amber, My God, what a career he had, nine majors. I'm counting his eight British amateurs, and he also won a British Open.'
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Arkush also gave bonus points for players where fate had a hand in their careers, like Young Tom Morris dying at 24 or Tony Lima's death in a plane crash at 32.
Is it a fair assessment to provide players with points on their potential versus actual accomplishments?
Picking golf's top 100 players is just part of a complicated process.
Some players are ranked, and some are not even included, which makes the book an interesting read and worth the price if you're a golf fan.
Link to the Penguin Random House Website:
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