List of golfers with most European Tour wins

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 PGA Tour Champions, 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 13 November 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 H	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
T15	Thomas Bjørn	1971–	Denmark	15	0	1996–2013	18
	Pádraig Harrington	1971–	Ireland	15	3	1996–2016	21
T17	Darren Clarke	1968–	Northern Ireland	14	1	1993–2011	19
	Retief Goosen	1969–	South Africa	14	2	1996–2007	12
	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
	Henrik Stenson	1976–	Sweden	11	1	2001–2016	16
T30	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
T35	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
	Justin Rose	1980–	England	9	1	2002–2016	15
T39	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
	Thongchai Jaidee	1969–	Thailand	8	0	2004–2016	13
	Paul Lawrie	1969–	Scotland	8	1	1996–2012	17
	Alexander Norén	1982–	Sweden	8	0	2009–2016	8
	Louis Oosthuizen	1982–	South Africa	8	1	2010–2016	7
	Eduardo Romero	1954–	Argentina	8	0	1989–2002	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 Senior 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