Talk:List of golfers with most PGA Tour wins

Problem cases
It seems that the (unknown) source for this list is not fully reliable and in some cases it is hard to establish the correct number of wins. The existing golf reference materials are not very complete or trustworthy, but then that is one of the main reasons why "Wikipedia Golf" is such a worthwhile project. Please add any more doubtful cases below so that they can be looked at and hopefully resolved one day. Cases which have already been resolved are struck through. There is another list that goes down to golfers with five wins here but it can't be the original sources for this (or rather the source of the recent extension of the list from players with 20 wins down to players with 5) because it is not an exact match (eg. it excludes Peter Thomson, who won once in the United States and also won The Open Championship four times, which would not have been included until 2002 and he would have been easy to miss when updating the tallies for the retrospective changes made in 2002). Osomec 09:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The alternatively list also omits Tony Lema, which means it deserves little credence. Osomec 09:30, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I have added 'Henry Picard. (comment by Golfcam)

The following players are listed as having 15 or more wins on about.com but not here, and I plan to investigate them individually when I have time: Somebody needs to add Brooks Kepka. With 19 wins a d 5 majors he deserves to be apart of this list — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1702:1C50:8200:4927:AD6A:886B:2A10 (talk) 14:14, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Doug Ford
 * Jim Ferrier
 * Harold "Jug" McSpaden


 * Jack Burke has 15 here but 17 on the about.com list .Golfcam 18:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * And according to his article E.J. "Dutch" Harrison, who isn't on this list, "had a total of 18 career victories", but it doesn't say they were all PGA Tour victories.Golfcam 03:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC) Win list now added to article and name added to our list. Osomec 10:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Doug Ford also has 19 according to this source, ie 2 majors and 17 others if you follow how the points system works. I will add him to Wikipedia's list. Chicheley 01:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Bob Rosburg is missing. He had at least five wins. this list and his (partially complete) PGA Tour profile say 6 and Hokeman says he has seen sources which state it was 7. Osomec 08:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Gay Brewer may have had either 11 (as on this list and per his article, which may however have taken its total from this list) or 10 as per the other list already referred to and the list of wins added to his article by a second editor. I have asked the original writer of the article for comments. Osomec 09:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Harry Cooper I have amended his tally to 31 as per the Hall of Fame and alternative list. Note that amendments were made to his article which reduced his tally to 29, but as no explanation was given I have reverted them. Osomec 10:02, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Upcoming 50th birthdays

 * 4 May 2009: Bob Tway
 * 11 September 2009: David Frost
 * 3 October 2009: Fred Couples
 * 16 November 2009: Corey Pavin

Rejected deletion proposal
This page was voted on for deletion at Votes for deletion/Golfers with most PGA Tour wins. dbenbenn | talk 23:45, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wins before 35
The following was added to the article and I am moving it here. It's interesting, but the first part is personal opinion and the list isn't formatted and it isn't likely to be kept up to date:

Winning is becoming more difficult on the PGA Tour, maybe due to the increased depth of competition, the enormous amount of money that a PGA Tour member can make off the golf course even before he hits a shot in competition, the ability to make a good living by finishing 25th place each week, or new equipment technology allowing more mediocre players to compete, but whatever the reason there are only 5 active PGA Tour players aged 35 or under with 5 PGA Tour wins or more, Tiger Woods, David Duval, Justin Leonard, Stuart Appleby and Sergio Garcia. By comparison, following are how many wins some of the great players in golf history had by their 35th birthday: Jack Nicklaus - 59 wins, Byron Nelson - 52 wins, Arnold Palmer - 45 wins, Walter Hagen - 44 wins, Sam Snead - 42 wins, Ben Hogan - 42 wins, Cary Middlecoff - 40 wins, Gene Sarazen - 39 wins, Tom Watson - 36 wins, Billy Casper - 33 wins, Johnny Miller - 22 wins, Gene Littler - 20 wins, Lee Trevino - 19 wins, Hubert Green - 17 wins, Curtis Strange - 17 wins, Ben Crenshaw - 13 wins, Davis Love II - 13 wins, Gary Player - 13 wins, Tom Weiskopf - 13 wins, Lanny Wadkins - 12 wins, Hale Irwin - 11 wins, Raymond Floyd - 10 wins, Greg Norman - 10 wins, Mark O'Meara - 8 wins.

Order==

Some other parts of the page are not in alphabetical order - so why put Tiger lower? Either have everything in alphabetical order, or have Tiger higher because he's current and we like to see him higher.

Buddy Allin
According to his PGA Tour death notice Buddy Allin was a five time PGA Tour winner, but the article only lists three of them. Annandale 13:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * He's been added now. Annandale 22:38, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

South African players
Should the flag associatied with players be the one that they played under or the current one? There doesn't seem to be much consistency regarding this on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.142.101.172 (talk) 15:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe the flag should be the one where they were born and raised and learned their golf. If a foreign player plays his entire career in the U.S. then it should be the U.S. flag. If someone gains their golfing ability in another country and plays in that country for any length of time, then that should be the flag in which they are official recognized. This is especially important with so many young players playing in the U.S. If they come to the U.S. on a collegiate golf scholarship and end up playing primarily in the U.S., they are still a golfer from their native country. Tennis players are another example of this type of situation and classification.GoodSamaritan56 (talk) 01:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Recent additions, and a question
I've been working on this article for the past few days. I noted that, according to the book "The History of the PGA TOUR", by prominent golf writer Al Barkow, published in 1989, and written with the cooperation of PGA Tour staff and many golf historical resources, that there were several players missing who had won more than five official events. So, I have added Al Watrous (8), Lew Worsham (6), Henry Ransom (5), and George Von Elm (5). Those players already had articles on wiki. However, two more players -- Henry Ciuci (6) and Gilbert Nicholls (5) did not have wiki articles, so I started them, and these articles were filed on Feb. 12, and then extended and improved by other users in subsequent days. The magic of wikipedia; I believe that the Nicholls article is possibly better than anything else anywhere!

I have also added some explanatory information to the article, and a major reference, since this was missing and very much needed (the Barkow book). Today, I added a bold 'H' to indicate members of the World Golf Hall of Fame, in both this article and the corresponding one on Champions Tour wins.

Now for the question: with the PGA Tour having classified Open Championship (British Open) wins as now having official standing as PGA Tour wins, as the article explains, and with the Great Triumvirate of Harry Vardon (7 Majors), James Braid (5 Majors) and John H. Taylor (5 Majors) all being included in the lists for 'Most wins in a given PGA Tour event' data on wiki, does it not make sense to include them in this list as well, as winners of those PGA Tour events, to be consistent throughout!? I tried adding them to this list on Feb. 12, but these edits were quickly reverted. Rather than getting into a tedious and fractious edit war, I think we need some discussion here. FrankEldonDixon (talk, 18:12 GMT, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed major revision
I'm planning a major update of this article. Currently the article lists about 250 golfers who have 5 or more wins. Much of this is unreferenced and, in addition, 250 seems excessive for such an article. The PGA Tour have a list of the leading 50 (and ties) which seems a more sensible number. It seems to me that we should simply use the latest PGA Tour numbers given on their web site. There seems little reason to do otherwise.

The latest PGA Tour numbers are accessible in various way through http://mediaguide.pgatourhq.com/ (1) click "All-Time Records" at the top then "All-Time Records" in the left hand column (2) click "All-Time Records" in the left hand column then "Wins and Finishes" (3) Through the media guide: click "Guide archives" bottom of left hand column then "2019-20 PGA TOUR Media Guide" - this is the season start situation ie Tiger is on 81 (4) Directly here: http://mediaguide.pgatourhq.com/Tour/WebTemplate/ElectronicMediaGuide.nsf/vwMainDisplay/A13F853E95D224088525761D0057918A?openDocument

The "Guide archives" section is useful in seeing how the official totals have changed over the years. A comparison of the 2010 media guide with the latest one has the following differences: New additions: Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Jim Furyk. Later wins: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Davis Love III. Four with 16 wins in 2010 have dropped out of the top 50. The historical revisions are for Jim Barnes who has increased from 21 to 22 - seems to be 1914 Western Open (we have added this in the last year or so) and Bill Mehlhorn who has been cut from 20 to 19. Between the 2009 and 2010 media guide there were a number of changes: Harry Cooper (golfer) 31 to 29, Leo Diegel 30 to 28, Cary Middlecoff 40 to 39, Johnny Revolta 18 to 20, Paul Runyan 29 to 28, Gene Sarazen 39 to 38, Horton Smith 32 to 30 (Els, Mickelson, Woods had wins during the year). Currently we have the old (2009) numbers for all these 7. For Middlecoff, Sarazen and Horton Smith the new (2010+) numbers actually help us since we have comments "missing one win"/"missing two wins" in their articles. For the other 4 the situation is not so clear. I've also compared the 2003 and 2009 media guide lists. There are three differences in historical figures: Barnes 20 to 21, Burke 17 to 16, Hagen 44 to 45. From the perspective of the player biographies we should try to resolve differences. This should be possible in most cases but perhaps not all. Nigej (talk) 10:29, 18 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Yep, 250 is way too inclusive; leading 50 seems sensible, especially if that is all that can be reliably referenced. Which leads into the issue of the PGA Tour's constant rewriting of history... Obviously we should follow the tour's "current" "official" published list, but it would be good to also compile a list of all the revisions made by the PGA Tour; principally the major reassessment that was done in 1986, but also the smaller adjustments made since then. In the absence of definitive sources for all the adjustments, it may be useful to sandbox some of them for ease of reference/to highlight the differences/identify the tournaments that have changed? It seems back in the day, some tournaments may have been considered official by the PGA on the basis of direct lobbying by the player, and have since been removed, while others that weren't considered official now are included on an historical basis (i.e. the tournament is now considered important, but wasn't back then). wjemather please leave a message... 11:31, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, it would be nice to make a list of the changes. Of course, the whole thing's a can of worms. We have events like Sam Snead's first win in the West Virginia Closed Pro, an event that clearly shouldn't be included but has been retained to keep his total at 82. Nigej (talk) 13:54, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That's true. Thanks to the PGAoA, Snead's win total even counted a tournament he didn't win prior to the PGA Tour reassessment! The tour may not have done the job properly, or set appropriate criteria, but at least they removed some egregious errors. wjemather please leave a message... 14:30, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I've reduced to "10 or more wins" but unless we can source the list properly, we'll likely need to reduce to the top-50 as suggested above. wjematherplease leave a message... 17:55, 21 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep (add back) the full list of 5+ wins. Not broken, and as an encyclopedia listing these winning golfers seems both inclusive and interesting to readers and golf fans. Nothing is hurt by leaving the full list, and the gain is a comprehensive listing which has been fine on the page for a long time. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:30, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem we have is that there's no indication that the data here is actually correct. I think we'd all like a comprehensive list, if we could find one. Nigej (talk) 18:45, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The key issue is reliable sourcing – without it, much of the list constitutes original research and may be (is) inaccurate as far as verifiability goes. The secondary issue is what is the significance of $$x$$ (the number of wins)? Of course there needs to be a cut off somewhere, but why 5? Why not 2, or 4, or 10, or 15, or 20? Or top 50 (which we can source), top-100, top-200, etc.? wjematherplease leave a message... 19:05, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks Nigej and Wjemather. Five seemed a manageable and noteworthy number, as a golfer with five PGA wins certainly deserves historic-list status. In regards sourcing, like many lists wouldn't the sourcing be on each page itself? Which wouldn't have to be referenced again on the list. Did a quick check of a few names on a version of the five-win list] and they checked out on the linked pages. The full list has been worked up over many years, and seems a fair representation as well as good encyclopedic coverage. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:19, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * As has been touched on earlier in this thread, the PGA Tour have moved the goalposts many times over the years, and WikiPedia articles are not necessarily up to date with all those changes (a classic example of WP:Wikipedia is not a reliable source). It's worth noting that similar lists that could not be directly reliably sourced have been deleted at AfD (here and here). wjematherplease leave a message... 21:38, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * FYI, PGA Tour media guide and website lists top 50 only. https://www.pgatourmediaguide.com/records/all-time/36. https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.ATR727.html Jopal22 (talk) 23:25, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * A quick check shows that this page does not match the PGA Tour media guide link attached above. e.g. Cary Middlecoff and Gene Sarazen. Looks like the PGA Tour reclassified Greenbrier Pro-Am as unofficial https://www.pgatour.com/players/player.01811.cary-middlecoff.html. These sort of things obviously also impact individual player pages Jopal22 (talk) 23:30, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I've trimmed again – down to the top 50 and ties, and applied corrections per the official source. We will need to go through those that have changed:
 * Middlecoff (−1) ✅ (article stated "1 missing")
 * Sarazen (−1) ✅ (article stated "1 missing")
 * Cooper (−2) (earlier figures may have been incorrect as article had "1 missing" & suspect 1929 Old Westbury Invitational is the remaining anomaly, but need a source)
 * Horton Smith (−2) ✅ (article stated "2 missing")
 * Diegel (−2) ✅ (moved 1925 Mid-Southern Amateur-Professional to others, per WGHoF, and earlier figures may have been incorrect as article had "1 missing")
 * Runyan (−1) (suspect 1935 Metropolitan PGA is the anomaly, but need a source}}
 * Macdonald Smith (−1) (official most wins list contradicts official profile, which has 25; suspect 1912 Western Open is the anomaly, but need a source) ✅ (Update: now officially listed with 25)
 * Revolta (+2) (suspect 1935 & 1936 Miami International Four-Ball are the anomaly, as listed on Henry Picard's WGHoF profile, but would like an explicit source for Revolta)
 * Mehlhorn (−1) ✅ (article stated 20, but only 19 listed)
 * Would also be good to find a source explaining the changes. Winning spans will also need verification as changes may have affected them. wjematherplease leave a message... 16:06, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I've gone through the bios listed above and updated as best I can without diving into heavy research. Can anyone help with these? wjematherplease leave a message... 16:02, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Active Players?
The use of bold names seems to indicate that Phil Mickelson is not active, and that David Duval and Justin Leonard are active. Phil is now eligible for the Champions Tour, but he also just went deep into the main PGA Fedex Cup playoffs. Ke seems very active for PGA wins. Justin and David are not really competing anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EvilIntergalacticGenius (talk • contribs) 01:55, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Whether or not any are actively competing on the PGA Tour is largely irrelevant - what really matter is that reliable sources verify the content. At present, that does not seem to be the case so I would suggest we abandon all attempts to maintain active/inactive players and remove all bolding (which probably violates MOS:NOBOLD anyway). wjematherplease leave a message... 08:20, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Bolding relating to under/over 50 ("Players under 50 years of age are shown in bold"), not active/inactive. So it's a well-defined concept, although it needs to be kept up-to-date. Whether it's a useful idea is another matter. Personally I'd be more than happy to get rid of it. Nigej (talk) 08:34, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the correction. Over/under 50 doesn't seem especially relevant in relation to total wins, with several players competing successfully after reaching 50 (and many others not really competing long before). wjematherplease leave a message... 15:34, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * If anything, This shows exactly WHY the criteria being over 50 is useless. On almost every site, a bold/no bold differnece is for active players. And for a good reason. The list is about # of wins. So boldings makes it easier for the viewer to see who is not going to be adding to their win total anymore. He still has had a decent amount of top 5s over the last 104 weeks to show that he made add to his total. So his age is irrelevant. And why include information totally irrelevant to the list? Going by age makes this list inherently broken. You don't see the list of NBA players with the most rings without LeBron James being still bold, even though he is older than most players. And Roger Federer qualified for the ATP Champions Tour years ago, yet he is still listed as if he is still actively playing and potentially adding to his totals. And rightfully so. 68.194.44.253 (talk) 02:25, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I suppose the problem is defining what "active" means. We've seen this week at the Scottish Open that Craig Lee started with a first round 65, despite not having played an OWGR event for several years. Nigej (talk) 06:37, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Hall of Fame marking
How about a less distracting way of marking Hall of Fame members besides the large bolded H. An *, or, even better, a little ^, either should satisfy guidelines. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:51, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I recently removed the massive "H" markings and was reverted. These are ugly, disrupt the page by putting the focus on a distraction, and, as I suggest above, how about an unobtrusive ^ instead of a boldfaced H. That's if editors even want to keep them - I'd just remove them - or how about marking the golfers who are not in the Hall of Fame with a ^ instead. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:13, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I doubt a bold "H" complies with MOS anyway and it does distract attention from the main purpose of this list. I would support less intrusive notation. wjematherplease leave a message... 14:45, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Lifespan
Lifespan seems like an odd column to include, especially with such prominence, for a table of golfers with the most wins.

I'd also suggest that we use a site such as Stat Muse in order to establish which golfers to include in bold as those still active. Or, failing this, only embolden golfers that have participated in OWGR events in the last year (or two).

Felixsv7 (talk) 14:27, 25 April 2024 (UTC)