Golf

50 at 50: Tiger Woods’ most impressive statistics as the golf legend hits the half century

On his 50th birthday, we review the numbers that have placed Tiger as one of the greatest athletes in history.

Mike Blake
Update:

In sports, nothing is unrepeatable forever, and tennis is proof of that. With the ‘bodies’ of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer still warm, Novak Djokovic still active, and with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner already threatening to surpass the heights reached by the Big Three, it can no longer be said that we will never again witness a career like Tiger Woods’.

Years, decades, centuries will pass, and eventually someone just as good – or better – will appear. But the figures presented here – 50 of the most astonishing statistics of the Californian, many of them compiled by Golf.com – will remain forever as testimony to what he was: a transformative phenomenon for golf, on a par with what Michael Jordan was for basketball, Michael Phelps for swimming, or Johan Cruyff for soccer.

As Tiger turns 50 on Tuesday, December 30, 2025 – sharing a birthday with another ‘king’ of professional sports – we celebrate the stats...

Tiger: 50 for 50

  1. He won 82 tournaments on the PGA Tour, a record tied with Sam Snead, and 110 across all tours.
  2. He captured 15 major championships, second only to Jack Nicklaus, who has 18.
  3. He spent 683 weeks as world No. 1, an all-time record – including 281 consecutive weeks from 2005 to 2010 and another 264 from 1999 to 2004.
  4. He won four majors in a row between the 2000 U.S. Open and the 2001 Masters, something never achieved before or since – known as the “Tiger Slam.”
  5. He posted a 95.7% win rate (44 of 46) in tournaments where he held the outright lead after three rounds.
  6. Between 1997 and 2008, his cumulative score in majors was 126 strokes under par. Of the 114 players who logged 50 or more rounds in majors during that span, none came within 200 strokes of that figure.
  7. He made 142 consecutive cuts on the PGA Tour from 1998 to 2005 – 29 more than the next-best streak, by Byron Nelson in the 1940s.
  8. Woods won the same tournament in consecutive years 23 times during his career. Over the past 30 years, the next-best is Phil Mickelson, with five successful title defenses.
  9. In the past 60 years, only one player has won in five straight PGA Tour starts: Woods, who managed streaks of seven, six, and five consecutive wins.
  10. Between 2003 and 2005, he attempted 1,543 putts from three feet or less on the PGA Tour and missed just three.
  11. In August alone, over the course of his career, Woods won 15 PGA Tour events, including four majors. The only players under 50 with 15 or more wins and at least four majors over their entire careers are Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
  12. Between the 1999 Deutsche Bank Open and the 2001 Memorial Tournament, he won 23 events by a combined margin of 79 strokes and finished outside the top 10 just six times.
  13. He owns 24 victories by margins of four strokes or more. Over the past 40 years, the next closest is Davis Love III, with nine.
  14. Woods won 51.6% of tournaments in which he led or co-led after the first round. The tour average over the past 20 years is 10.2%, and last season it was just 5.1%.
  15. Before turning 30, he had already won 46 PGA Tour events and 10 majors. Even if he had never played again, he would still be one of only two players in history – alongside Nicklaus – to reach those totals.
  16. Throughout the entire year 2000, Woods shot just one round higher than 73.
  17. Since the Masters began in 1934, only three players other than Woods have managed 12 or more PGA Tour wins and at least three majors over a two-season span. Scheffler has done it once; Arnold Palmer and Nicklaus did it twice. Woods did it four times.
  18. He recorded 48 rounds of 67 or better in majors – six more than any other player in history.
  19. From 1999 to 2009, Woods played the WGC Bridgestone Invitational 10 times and won it seven. His cumulative score over that stretch was 103 under par, 67 strokes better than the next closest player, Jim Furyk.
  20. He holds the largest winning margins of the past 100 years at the U.S. Open (15 strokes), the Masters (12), and the British Open (8).
  21. In the past century, only one man has won more than two majors by five strokes or more. Woods did it five times.
  22. Since the world rankings were introduced in 1986, players ranked No. 1 at the time have won eight majors combined. Woods alone won 11 while atop the rankings.
  23. Since 1900, the four current Grand Slam events have only twice been won by margins of 10 strokes or more – both times by Woods: the 1997 Masters (12) and the 2000 U.S. Open (15).
  24. He amassed 41 wins on the European Tour, third all-time, despite never playing a full season on that circuit.
  25. Over the past 15 PGA Tour seasons, players leading by three or more strokes after three rounds have gone on to win 64.5% of the time. Woods was a perfect 100% (25 for 25).
  26. Between 1996 and 2019, Woods finished 3,811 strokes better than his playing partners across all PGA Tour rounds.
  27. He is the last player to win three PGA Tour events in consecutive weeks – in 2006, capturing the PGA Championship, the WGC Invitational, and the Deutsche Bank Championship.
  28. Woods logged 199 top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour, the most in the past 40 years – one more than his great rival Mickelson.
  29. Between the 1999 Memorial and 2001, he won 20 of the 40 events he played. He repeated the feat between the 2005 WGC American Express and the 2008 U.S. Open. Fewer than 40 players in history have reached 20 PGA Tour wins total.
  30. In 2018, Webb Simpson won The Players Championship, marking the first time in 17 years that American players simultaneously held The Players and all four major titles – something Woods achieved all by himself in 2001.
  31. Woods won his 100th, 200th, and 300th PGA Tour starts.
  32. Between 1998 and 2009, he played 180 rounds in majors and scored below the field average in 164 of them – 91.1%. The next-best among players with 50 or more rounds in that span is Ernie Els at 78.4%.
  33. He won 14 of the 15 playoffs he contested across the PGA and European Tours, losing only once – to Billy Mayfair at the 1998 Nissan Open.
  34. In 2000, Woods led the PGA Tour in scoring average in first, second, third, and final rounds. Only Scheffler has managed to repeat that feat this year.
  35. That same year, he made a birdie or better 36.5% of the time after making a bogey or worse on the previous hole – the best mark in PGA Tour history. The tour average that year was 18.6%.
  36. Between 1999 and 2007, Woods played 17 World Golf Championships and won 12, finishing a combined 188 under par. The next best over that span was Furyk at 57 under.
  37. In strokes gained relative to the field, Woods posted a combined total of 81.3 strokes in majors in 2000 – the best four-major aggregate since the Masters began in 1934. Second-best: Palmer’s 74.4 in 1962.
  38. He won the U.S. Open wire-to-wire – leading outright after all four rounds – in both 2000 and 2002. No one else has done it more than once.
  39. He is the only player ever to win the U.S. Junior Amateur, U.S. Amateur, and U.S. Open championships, and he won each of them three times.
  40. In USGA history, there are six instances of a player winning one of its championships three consecutive times. Woods did it twice: the U.S. Junior Amateur from 1991 to 1993 and the U.S. Amateur from 1994 to 1996.
  41. Peter Thomson won the first five tournaments in which he held the 54-hole lead, but that is only the second-best mark. Woods won his first 14.
  42. He won the Arnold Palmer Invitational eight times. No other player has won it more than twice.
  43. Since World War II, only Woods has won the same tournament four consecutive years – at both the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Farmers Insurance Open.
  44. Only one player in PGA Tour history has won eight or more times on the same course. Woods did it at Bay Hill, Torrey Pines, and Firestone.
  45. Five times in PGA Tour history a player has won the same event seven or more times. Woods accounts for four of them.
  46. Scheffler has won the last eight tournaments in which he held the outright lead after three rounds – the best streak since Woods did it 37 times in a row.
  47. This week marks Scheffler’s 172nd week as world No. 1. If he stays there uninterrupted until October 2035, he will tie Woods’ record.
  48. Scheffler’s average score on the PGA Tour in 2025 was 68.13, the fifth-best mark in history. Woods owns the first, second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth.
  49. Nicklaus made his final appearances at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship in 2000, and at the Masters and British Open in 2005. Woods won all of them.
  50. Woods has led or co-led a major championship for 48 rounds – exactly the same as Nicklaus, and more than anyone else.

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