It isn’t possible to understand modern golf without taking Gene Sarazen into consideration. He was one of the game’s greatest players, dominating the sport in the ‘20s and ‘30s. The son of Italian immigrants, Gene – who changed his name, Eugenio Saraceni, because it sounded like a violinist – accumulated numerous victories in his long career and was the first player to win all four Grand Slam titles.

Known as The Squire, because of the huge tracts of land he owned, he was born in Harrison, near New York City, on 27 February 1902. The son of an Italian immigrant who didn’t understand golf, he changed his name after securing his first tournament, winning 20 dollars. He had carded a hole-in-one and, appearing in the newspapers, he didn’t like the way his name came out, “as it seemed like a violinist”, he said later.

When he began as a caddie at just eight years, no one could have imagined that the small boy (no taller than 1.65 metres) with a fair complexion would become one of the best golfers in the history of the game. Furthermore, in that era the only ones playing golf were brokers and bankers, so becoming a professional meant overcoming various social barriers.

In 1918, he nearly died because of a flu epidemic. When he recovered he moved to Florida, where he worked unloading tiles while he improved his game. Four years later, he had won his first two Grand Slam titles (US Open and US PGA Championship, both in 1922) and the following year, at just 21, he won the PGA again. The rest of the decade he spent competing mostly in exhibition tournaments. So it wasn’t until 1932 when he won another major, the US Open. This heralded his best year, when he also won the British Open. His victory in Britain was achieved – apart from his great play – thanks to one of his brilliant inventions: he designed and used a special club for hitting the ball out of the bunker. Even though it was created in 1931, he delayed bringing it out earlier so it wouldn’t be banned. Today, it is an integral part of any golfer’s set of clubs.

Sarazen won his third PGA title in 1933, and two years later, with his victory in the 1935 US Masters, he became the first player to win all four Grand Slam events (British Open, US Masters, US Open, US PGA Championship). Only four other players have achieved the feat since: Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

His victory in the Masters has passed into history for another reason: on the final day he was three shots behind the leader, and carded an albatross on the 15th – considered the best shot in history. It became known as “the shot heard around the world”. The next day he won on the first play-off hole.

As time went on, he began alternating between the main US PGA Tour and the Seniors Tour. He won the US Seniors PGA in 1954 and 1958, and returned to the news pages in 1973 when he became the oldest player, 71, to score an ace in the British Open.

Sarazen was a member of the Ryder Cup on six occasions (between 1927 and 1937). He has been on the US PGA Hall of Fame since 1941, and – as one of the Masters pioneers – from 1981, together with Byron Nelson and Sam Snead, hit the official shot to launch the tournament every year. When, in 1996, the US Tour inaugurated a prize for lifetime excellence, Gene was the first recipient.

He died in Florida on 13 May 1999 suffering from pneumonia. He was 97, leaving an incomparable golfing record behind him.