{"id":6685,"date":"2025-12-09T16:53:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T16:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/?p=6685"},"modified":"2025-12-13T11:15:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T11:15:36","slug":"winners-world-snooker-triple-crown-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/winners-world-snooker-triple-crown-men\/","title":{"rendered":"Trophy Winners #4 &#8211; The GOATs in World Snooker (Mens) &#8211; 1969 to 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><b>Mark Selby<\/b><\/span> has become only the 4th player in Snooker history to win <strong>10<\/strong> Triple Crowns <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/snooker\/articles\/cly160wnn1yo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">after prevailing over Judd Trump in the 2025 UK Championship<\/a>. Only <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Ronnie O&#8217;Sullivan<\/strong><\/span> (<strong>23<\/strong>), <strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Stephen Hendry<\/span> <\/strong>(<strong>18)<\/strong> &amp; <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Steve Davis<\/span><\/strong> (<strong>15<\/strong>) have won more Triple Crown tournaments.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/winners-world-snooker-triple-crown-men\/\">Mark&#8217;s GOAThood is already confirmed as I wrote about last year<\/a> but is he as dominant as the other <strong>GOAT<\/strong>s (<strong>Greatest Of All Time<\/strong>)?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>The Triple Crown of Snooker<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>The three tournaments which make up Snooker&#8217;s <span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>Triple Crown<\/strong><\/span> are &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2024_World_Snooker_Championship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Championship<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; which takes place in April and early May<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2024_Masters_(snooker)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>The Masters<\/strong><\/a> &#8211; which takes place in January<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2024_UK_Championship\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UK Championship<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; which takes place in November &amp; early December.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Using the Wikipedia links above, I&#8217;ve created a spreadsheet listing of all winners, runner ups and semi finalists (world championship only) since 1969 which can be downloaded here <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-Triple-Crowns-Men-2025-v1.0.xlsx\">Snooker &#8211; Triple Crowns &#8211; Men &#8211; 2025 &#8211; v1.0<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong> It is up to date as of December 2025.\u00a0 The spreadsheet has a number of worksheets and I will briefly describe three of them now.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #993300;\">TRIPLECROWNS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The listing of winners, runner-ups, etc can be found on the <strong>TRIPLECROWNS<\/strong> worksheet and reproduced below.\u00a0 The reason I start the list in <strong>1969<\/strong> is that is when the modern world championship tournament format began and it was followed by the birth of the Masters in <strong>1975<\/strong> and the UK Championship in <strong>1977<\/strong> to complete the Triple Crown set.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6689 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Listing-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"735\" height=\"913\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Listing-2025.png 1035w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Listing-2025-241x300.png 241w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Listing-2025-824x1024.png 824w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Listing-2025-768x954.png 768w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Listing-2025-282x350.png 282w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 735px) 100vw, 735px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Each player is colour coded by nationality and a list of all <strong>57<\/strong> players shown can be found in <strong>column O<\/strong>\u00a0of <strong>TRIPLECROWNS<\/strong>.\u00a0 In the newly added <strong>PLAYERS<\/strong> worksheet in cell <strong>A2,<\/strong> you can select a specific player using the dropdown list who will then be highlighted in <strong>TRIPLECROWNS<\/strong> in a metallic green shade.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>RANKINGS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Here you can sort and rank the <strong>57<\/strong> players shown in <strong>TRIPLECROWNS<\/strong>.\u00a0 You can sort for individual tournaments or by summary statistics across all Triple Crowns.\u00a0 Each tournament is denoted with a shorthand with <strong>W<\/strong> for World Championship, <strong>M<\/strong> for Masters and <strong>UK<\/strong> for UK Championship.<\/p>\n<p>There are four\u00a0summary statistics to choose from &#8211;<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>Wins<\/strong><\/span> &#8211; Number of Triple Crowns won.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>Finals<\/strong><\/span> &#8211; Number of Triple Crown finals played in.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>PointsAll<\/strong><\/span> &#8211; Number of Triple Crown points won.\u00a0 The points values for each outcome can be entered in the <strong>yellow cells<\/strong> in <strong>row 1<\/strong> of <strong>RANKINGS<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>PointsEra<\/strong> <\/span>&#8211; Number of points won within a certain time period.\u00a0 The start and end years of this period can be entered in cells <strong>P1<\/strong> &amp; <strong>Q1<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The example ranking shown below is for the top <strong>20<\/strong> players based on the <strong>PointsAll<\/strong> column using the points values shown in the yellow cells.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6690 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Top-20-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"518\" height=\"361\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Top-20-2025.png 669w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Top-20-2025-300x209.png 300w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-0-Top-20-2025-450x314.png 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 518px) 100vw, 518px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>GOATS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This sheet contains all the graphics I now explain in the next two sections.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>What makes a GOAT?<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>Four names should immediately leap to the mind of any snooker fan; <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Ray Reardon<\/strong><\/span> who dominated the 70s, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Steve Davis<\/strong><\/span> who dominated the 80s, <strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Stephen Hendry<\/span><\/strong> who dominated the 90s and <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Ronnie O&#8217;Sullivan<\/strong><\/span> who has dominated the 21st century so far.\u00a0 Each has <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-5911 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"182\" height=\"183\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-1.png 235w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-1-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 182px) 100vw, 182px\" \/>won at least <strong>6<\/strong> world championships but who comes after them?<\/p>\n<p><strong>24<\/strong>\u00a0players have won the World Championship in its modern format since 1969.\u00a0 Of these, only <strong>9<\/strong> have won it at least twice as shown in the table here.\u00a0 I take the view that GOATs should be winning the World Championship multiple times so these <strong>9<\/strong> are our first contenders for GOAThood.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6694 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-2-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"213\" \/>The World Championship is the summit of snooker but GOATs should be winning the other triple crowns as well.\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Mark Selby<\/strong><\/span> has just won his <strong>10th<\/strong> Triple Crown making him the <strong>4th<\/strong> player of all time to reach this milestone.\u00a0 <strong>8<\/strong> of his predecessors\u00a0also appear in the World Championship table above with <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>John Spencer<\/strong><\/span> the only one not making the leap.\u00a0 The two players not in the World Championship list but are in the Triple Crown list are <strong><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Neil Robertson,<\/span><\/strong> who has won <strong>6<\/strong> Triple Crowns, and <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Judd Trump,<\/strong><\/span> who won his <strong>5th<\/strong> Triple Crown last year <a href=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/winners-world-snooker-triple-crown-men\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">and prompted me to start writing about Snooker<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Are there other players who reach finals but struggle to win tournaments?\u00a0 The next table lists <b>11<\/b>\u00a0players who have played in at least <strong>10<\/strong> Triple Crown <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6693 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-3-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"233\" height=\"212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-3-2025.png 315w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-3-2025-300x272.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px\" \/>finals.\u00a0 By now, you should notice the same <strong>8<\/strong> players who appear in all three tables shown so far plus <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Judd Trump<\/strong><\/span> who appears in two tables.\u00a0 The first of the two other players in the Finals list is the unfortunate <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Jimmy White<\/strong><\/span> who played and lost <strong>4<\/strong> World Championship finals to <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>Stephen Hendry<\/strong><\/span> in the 1990s.\u00a0 The second is <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Shaun Murphy<\/strong><\/span> who entered the Finals list after surprising everyone including me by winning the Masters at the start of this year.\u00a0 <strong><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Neil Robertson<\/span><\/strong> does not appear in the Finals list and neither does <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>John Spencer<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>The last table I show below lists the <strong>13<\/strong>\u00a0players who have earned at least <strong>25<\/strong> Triple Crown points in their career.\u00a0 This table captures all <strong>13<\/strong>\u00a0players mentioned in the other three tables above.\u00a0 The points values I&#8217;ve used here are the ones shown earlier when I explained the <strong>RANKINGS<\/strong> worksheet i.e. <strong>3<\/strong> points for winning a triple crown, <strong>1<\/strong> point for being runner up, <strong>double points<\/strong> for World Championship i.e. <strong>6<\/strong> and <strong>2,<\/strong> where I also give <strong>1<\/strong> point for reaching the semi final.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6692 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-4-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"408\" height=\"294\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-4-2025.png 455w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-4-2025-300x216.png 300w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-4-2025-450x324.png 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>The 8 GOATS of Men&#8217;s Snooker<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>To me, the definition of a <strong>GOAT<\/strong> can be built using intuitive round numbers as below &#8211;<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>2<\/strong> or more World Championship Titles<\/li>\n<li><strong>5<\/strong> or more Triple Crown Titles<\/li>\n<li><strong>10<\/strong> or more appearances in Triple Crown Finals<\/li>\n<li><strong>30<\/strong> or more Triple Crown Points using the points values I&#8217;ve shown so far.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Since 1969, <strong>8<\/strong> players have met all four criteria.\u00a0 I doubt there will be any dispute these <strong>8<\/strong> are genuine GOATS of men&#8217;s Snooker.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6691 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-5-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"373\" height=\"209\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-5-2025.png 428w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-5-2025-300x168.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 373px) 100vw, 373px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At the beginning, I listed <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Reardon<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Davis<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #000080;\">Hendry<\/span><\/strong> and <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>O&#8217;Sullivan<\/strong><\/span> as obvious GOATs due to their dominance of the World Championship.\u00a0 However, when sorted by points, <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Reardon<\/strong><\/span> ends up in 6th place instead of the top 4.\u00a0 This is because <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Ray Reardon<\/strong><\/span>, <strong><span style=\"color: #993300;\">Alex Higgins<\/span><\/strong> and <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">John Spencer<\/span><\/strong> all played in the 70s, a decade which began with only one Triple Crown tournament.\u00a0 Naturally this limits the opportunity for these three to earn Triple Crown Points.\u00a0 It does not stop <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Reardon<\/strong><\/span> and <span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>Alex Higgins<\/strong><\/span> from exceeding the GOAT threshold but <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Spencer<\/strong><\/span> misses out, a point I will return to in the next section.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>Who will be the next GOAT?<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n<p>Of the players still playing, I see <strong>4<\/strong> candidates for future GOAThood.\u00a0 Last year, I mentioned <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Judd Trump,<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<strong><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Neil Robertson<\/span><\/strong> and <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Shaun Murphy <\/strong><\/span>but I now realise I&#8217;d forgotten to include <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Ding Junhui<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6695 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-6-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"145\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-6-2025.png 391w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-6-2025-300x136.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The first three have all won a World Championship but differ in what they need to do next to reach my definition of a GOAT.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Judd Trump<\/strong><\/span> needs to win another World Championship which would automatically give him <strong>30+<\/strong> points.\u00a0 He already has the <strong>5<\/strong> Triple Crowns &amp; <strong>10<\/strong> Finals needed to be a GOAT.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Shaun Murphy<\/strong><\/span> also needs to win another World Championship which would automatically give him his <strong>5th<\/strong> Triple Crown and <strong>30+<\/strong> points.\u00a0 Last year, I dismissed his chances only for him to prove me wrong by reaching his <strong>10th<\/strong> Triple Crown final!<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong>Neil Robertson<\/strong><\/span> needs to win another World Championship and reach another Triple Crown final.\u00a0 He already has <strong>6<\/strong> Triple Crowns to his name.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Ding Junhui<\/strong><\/span> has the hardest task of the four since he needs to win <strong>2<\/strong> more World Championships but if he does this, he will automatically reach all GOAT thresholds at once since he already has <strong>4<\/strong> Triple Crowns, <strong>8<\/strong> Finals and <strong>19<\/strong> Points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What about <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>John Spencer<\/strong><\/span>?\u00a0 His <strong>3<\/strong> World titles clearly means he has the pedigree of a GOAT but as I noted earlier, being a star in the 70s limited his opportunities for the other Triple Crowns.\u00a0 The question is what would he have achieved had all <strong>3<\/strong> triple crowns been played for the full decade?\u00a0 Would he have played in <strong>5<\/strong> more finals and won at least one of them?\u00a0 I think a case can be made he would have done this which is why I believe he is the honorary GOAT of men&#8217;s snooker.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><strong><span style=\"color: #008000;\">The Different Species of GOATs<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>In this section, I refer to charts which can be found in the <strong>PLAYER<\/strong> and <strong>DECADE<\/strong> worksheets.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the tables in <strong>DECADE<\/strong>.\u00a0 Only those players who won at least <strong>6<\/strong> triple crown points (equivalent to winning a World Championship) are shown in each timeframe as denoted by the yellow cells at the top of each table.\u00a0 The <strong>PtsEra<\/strong> column is the number of points won in that decade, the <strong>Pts<\/strong> column is the total number of points won so far in their career.\u00a0 Straightaway, I see two &#8220;species&#8221; of GOATs.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6696 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-7-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"488\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-7-2025.png 749w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-7-2025-300x257.png 300w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-7-2025-408x350.png 408w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 488px) 100vw, 488px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s start with <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Ray Reardon<\/strong><\/span>, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Steve Davis<\/span><\/strong> &amp; <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>Stephen Hendry<\/strong><\/span> who successively dominated the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.\u00a0 If you compare their PtsEra value with their Pts value, you can see they thoroughly owned their decades.\u00a0\u00a0In <strong>PLAYER<\/strong>, if you select their names, the resulting chart shows the number of Triple Crown points won in each calendar year along with a 5-year centred moving average as a black line.\u00a0 I have plotted these below along with <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Alex Higgins<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6699 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-scaled.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"444\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-scaled.png 2560w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-1024x569.png 1024w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-768x427.png 768w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-1536x854.png 1536w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-2048x1139.png 2048w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-450x250.png 450w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8A-2025-1320x734.png 1320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I regard these <strong>4<\/strong> players as one species of GOAT.\u00a0 Their career at the top was relatively short but very dominant.\u00a0 In all 4 cases, the black lines show a distinct peak for the centred 5 year moving average.<\/p>\n<p>The other <strong>4<\/strong> players make up a second species of GOAT.\u00a0 Their peaks are not as dominant as the first species but they have greater longevity.\u00a0 Standing above them all is <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Ronnie O&#8217;Sullivan<\/strong><\/span> who has shown relatively few dips for<strong> 20+<\/strong> years compared to the other three.\u00a0 Whereas <strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">John Higgins<\/span> <\/strong>and <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Mark <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Will<\/span>iams<\/strong> <\/span>look like they are coming to the end of their careers, there is no sign <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>O&#8217;Sullivan<\/strong><\/span> running out of steam.\u00a0 For <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Mark Selby<\/strong><\/span>, let&#8217;s hope his recent triumph in the UK Championship is the first of more Triple Crowns to follow.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-6698 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8B-2025.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"828\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8B-2025.png 1801w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8B-2025-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8B-2025-1024x569.png 1024w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8B-2025-768x427.png 768w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8B-2025-1536x854.png 1536w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8B-2025-450x250.png 450w, https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Snooker-GOATs-8B-2025-1320x734.png 1320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 828px) 100vw, 828px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #993300;\">&#8212; Would you like to comment on this article? &#8212;-<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Please do leave your comments on this <span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>X\/Twitter<\/strong><\/span> thread.<\/p>\n<h5><strong><span style=\"color: #993300;\">&#8212; Subscribe to my newsletter to receive more articles like this one! &#8212;-<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>If you would like to receive notifications from me of news, articles and offers relating to sport, please <span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #008000;\" href=\"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/subscribe-to-our-newsletter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here to go to my Newsletter Subscription page<\/a><\/strong><\/span> and tick the Sport category and other categories that may be of interest to you.\u00a0 You will be able to unsubscribe at anytime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Selby has become only the 4th player in Snooker history to win 10 Triple Crowns after prevailing over Judd Trump in the 2025 UK Championship. Only Ronnie O&#8217;Sullivan (23), Stephen Hendry (18) &amp; Steve Davis (15) have won more Triple Crown tournaments.\u00a0 Mark&#8217;s GOAThood is already confirmed as I wrote about last year but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56,288,13,289,290,126],"class_list":{"0":"post-6685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sport","8":"tag-goat","9":"tag-men","10":"tag-rankings","11":"tag-snooker","12":"tag-triple-crown","13":"tag-winners","14":"entry","15":"override"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6685"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6708,"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6685\/revisions\/6708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}