Seve Ballesteros at the 1984 British Open (David Cannon/Getty Images)

2. Seve Ballesteros

PGA Tour victories in 1980s: seven (of nine total)

Major titles in 1980s: four (of five total)

Ballesteros, to put it simply, put the European Tour on the world map. Of his 50 total European Tour victories, 32 came in the 1980s. The extremely creative (and sometimes wayward off the tee) Spaniard didn’t win a slew of PGA Tour events because for much of the 1980s he was largely absent from the Tour, refusing to play the required minimum of 15 events to maintain PGA Tour membership. But that didn’t stop him in the majors.

After breaking through at the 1979 British Open at Royal Lytham and St. Annes, Ballesteros would win two more British Open titles and two Masters green jackets in the ’80s. In 1980 he cruised to a four-shot victory at Augusta National, a margin of victory he repeated in his 1983 title there. In the ’84 British Open at the Old Course at St. Andrews, Ballesteros bested Bernhard Langer and Tom Watson by two shots. And Ballesteros struck again at Lytham in 1988, beating Nick Price by two shots.

Ballesteros’ greatest joy might have come in the Ryder Cup, as he led European efforts to stop U.S. domination in the event. He earned 22 and a half points in all, often partnering with fellow Spaniard José María Olazábal as Europe elevated its performance to make the Ryder Cup a must-watch biennial event.

Ballesteros was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1999, and he died of brain cancer in 2011 at age 54.