List of golfers with most European Tour wins

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This is a list of golfers who have won eight or more events on the European Tour since it was established in 1972. There are some complications in preparing such a list, and different publications have produced different numbers. This list is based on what the European Tour reports the victories being according to their own player guide (through the 2009 season).[1]

The number of wins a player can accumulate on the European Tour depends in part on how many years he devotes to the tour. There have always been some leading European players or European Tour members from outside Europe who have gone on to play part or full-time on the U.S.-based PGA Tour and cut back their commitments in Europe, and this seems to be an increasing trend.

Many of the players on the list have won many events on other tours and unofficial events. The numbers in the "Majors" column are the total number of major championships the player won in his career whether or not he was a member of the European Tour at the time.

Players under 50 years of age are shown in bold. At age 50, golfers become eligible for the major senior tours, most notably the European Senior Tour and the U.S.-based Champions Tour, competing for substantial prize money against other golfers in that age group. Only Miguel Ángel Jiménez has ever won a European Tour event after turning 50 (doing so four months after his 50th birthday in 2014),[2] and only three golfers of that age have won on the PGA Tour in the past 30 years.

This list is up to date through 22 May 2016.[3]

Rank Name Lifespan Country Wins Majors Winning span Span
(years)
1 Seve Ballesteros H 1957–2011  Spain 50 5 1976–1995 20
2 Bernhard Langer H 1957–  Germany 42 2 1980–2002 23
3 Tiger Woods 1975–  United States 40 14 1997–2013 17
4 Colin Montgomerie H 1963–  Scotland 31 0 1989–2007 19
5 Nick Faldo H 1957–  England 30 6 1977–1996 20
6 Ian Woosnam 1958–  Wales 29 1 1982–1997 16
7 Ernie Els H 1969–  South Africa 28 4 1994–2013 20
T8 José María Olazábal H 1966–  Spain 23 2 1986–2005 20
Lee Westwood 1973–  England 23 0 1996–2014 19
T10 Miguel Ángel Jiménez 1964–  Spain 21 0 1992–2014 23
Sam Torrance 1953–  Scotland 21 0 1976–1998 23
T12 Mark James 1953–  England 18 0 1978–1997 20
Sandy Lyle H 1958–  Scotland 18 2 1979–1992 14
14 Mark McNulty 1953–  Zimbabwe 16 0 1979–2001 23
15 Thomas Bjørn 1971–  Denmark 15 0 1996–2013 18
T16 Darren Clarke 1968–  Northern Ireland 14 1 1993–2011 19
Retief Goosen 1969–  South Africa 14 2 1996–2007 12
Pádraig Harrington 1971–  Ireland 14 3 1996–2008 13
Greg Norman H 1955–  Australia 14 2 1977–1994 18
T20 Paul Casey 1977–  England 13 0 2001–2014 14
Rory McIlroy 1989–  Northern Ireland 13 4 2009–2016 8
Vijay Singh H 1963–  Fiji 13 3 1989–2008 20
23 Ian Poulter 1976–  England 12 0 2000–2012 13
T24 Howard Clark 1954–  England 11 0 1978–1988 11
Sergio García 1980–  Spain 11 0 1999–2014 16
Robert Karlsson 1969–  Sweden 11 0 1995–2010 16
Martin Kaymer 1984–  Germany 11 2 2008–2014 7
Charl Schwartzel 1984–  South Africa 11 1 2005–2016 12
T29 Bernard Gallacher 1949–  Scotland 10 0 1972–1984 13
Graham Marsh 1944–  Australia 10 0 1972–1985 14
Graeme McDowell 1979–  Northern Ireland 10 1 2002–2014 13
Adam Scott 1980–  Australia 10 1 2003–2016 14
Jack Nicklaus H 1940–  United States 10 18 1972–1986 15
T34 Brian Barnes 1945–  Scotland 9 0 1972–1981 10
Phil Mickelson H 1970–  United States 9 5 2004–2013 10
Manuel Piñero 1952–  Spain 9 0 1974–1985 12
Henrik Stenson 1976–  Sweden 9 0 2001–2014 14
T38 Gordon Brand, Jnr 1958–  Scotland 8 0 1982–1993 12
Michael Campbell 1969–  New Zealand 8 1 2000–2005 6
Tony Jacklin H 1944–  England 8 2 1972–1982 11
Paul Lawrie 1969–  Scotland 8 1 1996–2012 17
Louis Oosthuizen 1982–  South Africa 8 1 2010–2016 7
Eduardo Romero 1954–  Argentina 8 0 1989–2002 14
Justin Rose 1980–  England 8 1 2002–2015 14
Des Smyth 1953–  Ireland 8 0 1979–2001 23

Detailed criteria

  • Only European Tour sanctioned events are counted. As all elite golfers enter the four major championships and the four (three before 2009) individual World Golf Championships each season it is possible for a player to accumulate eight wins in European Tour sanctioned events without ever joining the European Tour, and Tiger Woods (who has never joined the European Tour) reached that mark in the 2000 Open Championship.
  • The three U.S. based majors were not designated as European Tour events until 1997, so victories in them before that date were initially excluded. This is in contrast to the list of golfers with most PGA Tour wins, which includes Open Championship wins before that tournament became an official money event in 1995, because they were retrospectively designated as PGA Tour wins in 2002. Sometime prior to 2009, the European Tour made such a retrospective designation with respect to the three U.S. majors, as reflected in their 2009 media guide.
  • Wins in the Wentworth World Match Play Championship before 2003 are not included.
  • The win lists in the player profiles on the European Tour's official site include some miscellaneous items which are not regular individual tour wins and are therefore excluded: wins in 18 hole pro-ams associated with European Tour events; wins in the Volvo Bonus Pool; team wins in the Seve Trophy; wins on the Challenge Tour and the European Seniors Tour.

There are additional players who won eight or more tournaments on the pre-tour European circuit and the European Tour in the period straddling 1972 who are not included on the list. Members of the World Golf Hall of Fame are indicated by H.

References

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  3. Based on referenced table with incremental updates.