The 14 Golfers With The Most PGA Tour Wins In A Year

There are currently just two players on the PGA Tour with 3 wins this season, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, and another three players with 2 wins so far. That’s it. Just 5 multi-tournament winners this season through 3 of the Major Championships.

Scottie and Rory leading the way with just 3 wins a piece this season is a bit surprising when we consider Scheffler’s 9-win year last year but only 7 of which were on the PGA Tour. Scottie’s Paris Olympics gold medal and his win at the Hero World Challenge were not counted as official PGA Tour victories. If anything is surprising about this list it’s that one name never appears on it: Jack Nicklaus. At no point in his career did he have 8 more PGA Tour wins in a single year.

So with that in mind, coming off Scottie’s year which was one of the greatest in modern history, here are the 14 golfers with the most PGA Tour wins in a single year, starting at 8 wins a season each.

It really is hard to overstate how incredible of a year Scottie Scheffler had in 2024 with 9 wins, 7 on the PGA Tour. Scottie’s year felt like the first time since Tiger Woods was in the peak of his career that the golf world had seen dominance like that.

But some of these historical figures below were golf ballin’ in a whole different level. Just to make this list of the golfers with the most PGA Tour wins in a year a golfer must have won 8 times on the PGA Tour. And doubling that number of wins wouldn’t even nab the #1 spot of all-time! So without further ado, here are the 14 golfers with the most PGA Tour wins in a year.

Tiger Woods: 8 Wins (Twice)

First up on this list is Tiger Woods with 8 wins. There are actually quite a few golfers on this list with 8 wins in a single season and Tiger will appear again later but he did have 8 wins on the PGA Tour in a single year twice, both in 1999 and 2006.

In 1999, Tiger Woods only finished outside of the top 20 in 3 tournaments out of 21 tournaments played. He had 13 Top-5 finishes, won the PGA Championship at Medinah, and rattled off 4 straight wins in a row to finish the season.

4 consecutive wins is pretty impressive, right? Well in 2006, Tiger Woods would win six straight events, his final 6 events of the season, for a total of 8 that year including a British Open at Royal Liverpool and PGA Championship at Medinah (again). Just an insane season.

Johnny Miller: 8 Wins

1974 was the year of Johnny Miller on the PGA Tour. Coming into the year, he was the reigning U.S. Open champion and had just 3 PGA Tour wins in his career, a mark he would more than double in 1947.

His incredible run began with a January 6th win at the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. He would follow that up with a win one week later at the Phoenix Open and another win the next following week at the Dean Martin Tucson Open for 3 wins in 3 weeks.

Miller wouldn’t win another Major Championship in 1974, he’d have to wait 2 more years for that, but his 8 wins that year were good enough for a tour-record $353,201 that season, a mark that wouldn’t be beaten for 4 more years even despite the prize money going up annually.

Arnold Palmer: 8 Wins (Twice)

Arnold Palmer, one of the all-time greats, had 8-win seasons in two separate years: 1960 and 1962. It is pretty wild that 16 of his 62 PGA Tour wins came in just 2 years (95 total professional wins).

In 1960, Arnold Palmer began with a win at the Palm Springs Desert Golf Classic in February and picked up 4 wins on the PGA Tour before The Masters, which he also won. After Augusta, Arnie won the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills Country Club and picked up 2 more wins that season for 8.

Two years later, he’d hit the 8-win mark again in 1962 and he would add another green jacket at The Masters to his tally along with an Open Championship title, his second, at Troon Golf Club in Scotland.

Byron Nelson: 8 Wins

Byron Nelson would tally up 52 PGA Tour wins (64 professional wins) in his career including 8 wins in 1944 alone. Nelson had a rare blood disorder that caused his blood to clot at 4x slower than a normal human being’s and thus he was deemed unfit to serve in the military during the World War II years, if you were wondering about the dates…

Bryson Nelson did win 5 Majors in his career but none in 1944, which started with win at the San Francisco Victory Open in January. Interestingly, Nelson’s year would start and end with wins at the same tournament. It would be renamed to just the San Francisco Open and moved up a month on the calendar, which he would win on December 4, 1944.

I cannot think of another player to win the same PGA Tour event in the same calendar year due to the tournament being moved on the schedule.

Sam Snead: 8 Wins

Sam Snead came into the 1938 season red hot after racking up 5 wins in 1937. It would take him less than three weeks into 1938 to notch his first win when Snead took down the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, then called the Bing Crosby Pro-Am.

Two of Sam Snead’s 8 wins in 1938 would require a playoff. He would beat Gene Sarazen in a playoff at the 1938 Palm Beach Round Robin in late June… Late June in Florida! And would later beat Harry Cooper in a playoff at the Canadian Open.

Gene Sarazen: 8 Wins

38 of Gene Sarazen’s 48 professional wins came on the PGA Tour and 8 of those 38 wins were in 1930 alone. Sarazen is one of just six golfers in history to win the Career Grand Slam, winning all 4 of golf’s Major Championships at some point in their career.

None of those Major Championships, however, would come in 1930. That year he had wins at the Miami Open, Agua Caliente Open, Florida West Coast Open, Concord Country Club Open, United States Pro Invitational, Western Open, Lannin Memorial Tournament, and the Middle Atlantic Open. Two years later, Sarazen would win 2 more majors though…and then 2 more after that.

Horton Smith: 8 Wins

A year before Gene Sarazen rattled off 8 wins on the PGA Tour in a single year, Horton Smith did it in 1929. Horton Smith is best known as the winner of the very first Masters and the 3rd, but he saw considerable success outside of Augusta as well with 30 total PGA Tour wins.

In 1929, Horton won the Berkeley Open Championship, Pensacola Open Invitational, Florida Open, La Gorce Open, Fort Myers Open, North and South Open, Oregon Open, and the Pasadena Open (December).

Vijay Singh: 9 Wins

Vijay Singh aka ‘The Big Fijian’ managed to peel off 9 wins in a single PGA Tour season during PEAK Tiger Woods years (2004) which is a feat that should be applauded alongside any other wins total on this list just due to the competition he was facing.

Vijay has 66 professional wins and 34 of them were on the PGA Tour with NINE of those 34 in 2004 alone. The 3-time Major champion would start his run with a win at Pebble Beach followed by 3 more wins before taking down the 2004 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.

Vijay would stay hot, winning the Deutsche Bank Championship, Bell Canadian Open, 84 Lumber Classic, and the Chrysler Championship that season.

Tiger Woods: 9 Wins

For my money, Tiger Woods’ 2000 season was the greatest single season of golf in history. El Tigre started off with back-to-back wins on his calendar at the Mercedes Championships in Kapalua and at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

He would later win the Bay Hill Invitational at -18. Then pick up wins at The Memorial, U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by a record-setting 15 strokes over the field, the Open Championship at St. Andrews, PGA Championship at Valhalla, and Tiger would cap off his season with 2 more wins at the WGC-NEC Invitational and Canadian Open.

Tiger holding 3 Major Championships in 2000 would set up his ‘Tiger Slam’ with a 2001 Masters win where he would become the first person in history to hold all four Majors at the same time.

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Paul Runyan: 9 Wins

Paul Runyan, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, was indomitable in 1933 with 9 wins that year. Runyan had 29 PGA Tour wins in his entire career making it all the more remarkable he had 9 in 1933.

That year, Runyan took down the Agua Caliente Open, Miami Biltmore Open in March, Virginia Beach Cavalier Open, Eastern Open Championship, National Capital Open, and the Mid-South Pro-Pro alongside Willie Macfarlane. He won the Mid-South Open in a playoff after a tie with Willie Macfarlane and Joe Turnesa, the Miami International Four-Ball with Horton Smith, and finished his year with a win at the Pasadena Open.

Ben Hogan: 10 Wins

The great Ben Hogan had 71 professional wins in his career with 64 of those coming on the PGA Tour. His 9 career Major Championships only trail Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Walter Hagen.

1948 was a banner year for Hogan with 10 total wins including 2 Major Championships. Hogan took down the Los Angeles Open, PGA Championship, U.S. Open, Inverness Invitational Four-Ball with Jimmy Demaret, Motor City Open, Reading Open, Western Open, Denver Open, Reno Open, and the Glendale Open.

Some how this wasn’t even the best year of Ben Hogan’s illustrious career!

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Sam Snead: 11 Wins

Another golfer to appear twice on this list is Sam Snead with the 3rd most PGA Tour wins in a single year by any golfer in history with 11 wins in 1950.

His year began with a win at the Bing Crosby Pro-Am (Pebble Beach) followed by wins at the Los Angeles Open, Texas Open, Miami Beach Open, Greater Greensboro Open, Western Open, Colonial National Invitation, Inverness Invitational Four-Ball with Jim Ferrier, Reading Open, North and South Open, and the Miami Open in December which is a perfectly reasonable time of year to be playing competitive golf in Miami.

Ben Hogan: 13 Wins

With the second most wins in a single year on the PGA Tour, Ben Hogan was on a whole different level than the competition in 1946 when he tallied up 13 wins including a PGA Championship at the Portland Golf Club.

In 1946, Ben Hogan would get the best of his competition with wins at the Phoenix Open, San Antonio Texas Open, St. Petersburg Open, Miami International Four-Ball with Jimmy Demaret, Colonial National Invitation, Western Open, Goodall Round Robin, Inverness Invitational Four-Ball with Jimmy Demaret, Winnipeg Open, PGA Championship, Golden State Open, Dallas Invitational, and he would finish it off with a win at the North and South Open.

Byron Nelson: 18 Wins

While 1944 was an incredible year for Byron Nelson with 8 wins, it would pale in comparison to 1945. No player in PGA Tour history has been able to come close to matching Lord Byron‘s record of 18 wins in a single year.

It would almost save time to list the tournaments he didn’t win that year… But in 1945, Byron Nelson won the Phoenix Open, Corpus Christi Open, New Orleans Open, Miami International Four-Ball, Charlotte Open, Greater Greensboro Open, Durham Open, Atlanta Open, Montreal Open, Durham Open…This was all by April 1st, by the way. From there he would win the Atlanta Open, Montreal Open, Philadelphia Inquirer Open, Chicago Victory National Open, PGA Championship, All American Open, Canadian Open, Knoxville Invitational, Esmerelda Open, Seattle Open, and finish off the year with a win at the Fort Worth Open.

He is credited with being the ‘Father of the Modern Golf Swing’ and many of his wins came against depleted fields but that is not somethign he had control over, is it?