[Sandy]

Glad to hear you had such a successful return from your injuries, Dave!

I always believe that the evolution of a sport goes through distinctive phases, and that in most sports you have a formation phase, a 'settling down' phase (usually when the rules are written, leagues and tournaments established, etc) and then this is often followed by an artistic or aesthetic phase, which in many sports is later viewed as the 'golden era'.

In golf you obviously have the pre-rules era when the game was being formed and messed around with, then the era in which the equipment and rules began to be standardised, leading to people like Old Tom Morris as the game's early leading lights.

But the interesting period starts after that, when people get involved with refining the game, and turning into an art. That's where you find you Harry Vardons and later the Ben Hogans, Sam Sneads, Bobby Jones, Byron Nelsons, etc. Players who were not only the first real stars of the competitive golf era but who were the flagbearers for defining the technical and aesthetic aspects of the game. It can't be any coincidence that when you think of those names the images you get are of technically perfect swings, but also swings that have an inherent beauty to them.

As the game evolves, those players set the technical foundations for the game to build on, and what has come after them has been an increase in the competitive side of the game, the pressure on the players that gives rise to, and the unprecedented amount of 'baggage' that now comes with making your career as a tour golfer, something the flagbearers of the past never had to deal with.

So there can never be an answer to 'whose best' because not only has the game and its equipment evolved, but the players from different eras had totally different goals and aspirations that they performed around. Modern players are judged by tournament wins more than the beauty of their swings, while the players of the 20s and 30s were pioneers for the beauty and the grace of the game that made it what it is.