Gene Sarazen, one of only four men to win all four majors, died yesterday, aged 97. Sarazen died at Naples Community Hospital in Florida from complications of pneumonia, according to his lawyer.

Sarazen's most famous shot was an albatross two - the rarest shot in golf - when he won his second US Masters in 1935.

The inventor of the sand wedge, he was a perennial highlight of the Masters, along with Byron Nelson and Sam Snead, hitting the ceremonial first ball to start the tournament.

Sarazen was just 20 when he won the 1922 US Open, shooting a final-round 68 to defeat Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen.

He also won the PGA Championship that year and in 1923, won his second consecutive PGA by defeating Hagen in the finals, giving Sarazen three major championship before he was 22.

Sarazen won the PGA Championship three times, the US Open twice and the Masters and the British Open once each. Only Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player won all four majors at least once in their careers.

His best year was 1932, when he won the British Open with a then record 283 and captured the US Open by shooting a final-round 66. Jones called Sarazen's late charge "the finest competitive round ever played".

Yet it was a shot that he made in 1935 in a then-obscure event that was to become known as the Masters that earned Sarazen his greatest acclaim. Trailing Craig Wood by three strokes with just four holes remaining, Sarazen holed a 235-yard four-wood shot on the 15th hole for an albatross two. Sarazen then went on to win in a play-off.

His victory in the 1932 British Open at the Prince's course in England was made possible in part by a new club he invented - the sand wedge.

In 1973 he hit a hole-in-one during the first round of the British Open on the famous Postage Stamp hole at Royal Troon. Fittingly, it was his last tournament.

Known as "The Squire" for his elegant style and fashionable trousers, Sarazen spanned the sport from Harry Vardon, who developed the most common grip used in golf, to Nicklaus.

"The greatest player of all time was Nicklaus," he said, "then Jones, Harry Vardon and Ben Hogan."

Asked where he fitted in, he said: "Sarazen just came in accidentally from the caddie ranks. When (Francis) Ouimet, an excaddie won the Open (in 1913) I said if he can win it I can win it."