Winning The Masters at Augusta National is very much the pinnacle for most professional golfers but to be the man who won the very first one makes things even more special.
Over the years, we’ve seen some of the best to ever do it win the green jacket.
Players like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Sir Nick Faldo all have multiple green jackets to go alongside their stellar careers in the game.
However, while they can all lay claim to being multiple time winners at Augusta National, none of them can claim to be the first man to ever win a green jacket.
Instead, that honour goes to a man by the name of Horton Smith.
(Original Caption) Horton Smith of Chicago (left), and Paul Runyan of White Plains, NY, check their scores after finishing their 18 holes on the first day of the Western Open at Cleveland, Ohio. Both finished with a score of 72.How Horton Smith won two of the opening three Masters tournaments
With The Masters having so much prestige and history to look back on now we are in 2025, it’s worth remembering and noting where it all started.
Back in 1934 and the year the PGA Tour was founded, Horton Smith was one of the players strutting their stuff at the biggest and best events around the world.
One of those was the inaugural Masters tournament, which took place that same year.
Smith took the honours to become the first player to ever win The Masters and write his name into the record books forever. However, it didn’t end there for Smith.
Just two years later, Smith won at Augusta National once again, adding a second major title to a career that was already looking like being a brilliant one.
Remarkably, Smith accumulated a whopping 30 PGA Tour wins in just the seven years between winning that first Masters and his last win on tour in 1941.
Even more unbelievable, though, is the fact that those two major wins would be it for Smith, despite his talent.
He never finished higher than third in the other three majors, with his final best effort being a third place finish at the 1940 US Open.
Nevertheless, Smith has his name in the record books forever and nobody will ever be able to take it away from him.
