Tiger Woods won this award eleven times. Nobody else has cracked five. That gap tells you almost everything about how hard this particular vote is to win even once, let alone repeatedly.
I’ve followed every one of these announcements since Justin Thomas took the trophy home in 2017, and the pattern that never gets old is how often the “obvious” winner isn’t obvious until the ballots come back. Below sits every PGA Tour Player of the Year since the award began in 1990, updated through Scottie Scheffler’s fourth consecutive trophy in 2025 — plus the streak data, the nationality breakdown, and the one-time-winner list that the other lists floating around don’t bother to run.
Quick Answer: Scottie Scheffler is the reigning PGA Tour Player of the Year, winning in 2025 for a fourth straight season — a streak matched only by Tiger Woods (1999–2003). Known as the Jack Nicklaus Award, the honor has gone out every year since 1990, and Woods still holds the all-time record with 11 total wins.
How the PGA Tour Player of the Year Award Actually Works
Officially, it’s the Jack Nicklaus Award. Nicklaus doesn’t run the vote or sit on a committee — it’s just the trophy’s name.
Here’s the part most write-ups skip: this isn’t a committee decision or a stats formula. It’s a straight peer vote. Any PGA Tour member who played at least 15 official events during the season gets a ballot, and the voting window opens right after the Tour Championship wraps — in 2024, for example, it ran from November 25 through December 4.
I play off a 9 handicap out of a public course, and even our little men’s club argues over a “player of the year” pot every December. The Tour’s version runs on the same basic logic, just with better spreadsheets and a lot more on the line. The Tour never releases full vote totals, but it occasionally shares the winning percentage — Scheffler took 91% of the vote in 2024, beating out nominees Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy by a landslide.
That 15-event bar matters more than it sounds. Plenty of Tour regulars play well past that number every season without a single top-10 finish to show for it — the kind of grinding, steady-paycheck year we tracked in our Rickie Fowler 2026 season guide. Getting a ballot is easy. Getting votes is not.
Every PGA Tour Player of the Year Winner (1990–2025)
| Year | Winner | Signature Achievement |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Wayne Levi | Tour-best 4 wins, no major |
| 1991 | Fred Couples | Multiple wins in a breakout year that set up his major breakthrough in 1992 |
| 1992 | Fred Couples | Won the Masters, his only major |
| 1993 | Nick Price | Led the Tour in wins, setting up his historic 1994 major double |
| 1994 | Nick Price | Won the Open Championship and PGA Championship in the same summer |
| 1995 | Greg Norman | One of his most consistent seasons, anchored by the world No. 1 ranking |
| 1996 | Tom Lehman | Won the Open Championship, his only major |
| 1997 | Tiger Woods | Won the Masters by 12 strokes in his first major as a pro |
| 1998 | Mark O’Meara | Won the Masters and the Open Championship at age 41 |
| 1999 | Tiger Woods | Won the PGA Championship as part of an 8-win season |
| 2000 | Tiger Woods | Won three majors: the U.S. Open by 15, the Open Championship, and the PGA Championship |
| 2001 | Tiger Woods | Won the Masters to complete the “Tiger Slam,” holding all four majors at once |
| 2002 | Tiger Woods | Won the Masters and the U.S. Open |
| 2003 | Tiger Woods | Five wins and world No. 1 all year, despite no major title |
| 2004 | Vijay Singh | Won nine times, including the PGA Championship, and unseated Woods at No. 1 |
| 2005 | Tiger Woods | Won the Masters and the Open Championship |
| 2006 | Tiger Woods | Won the Open Championship and PGA Championship, his first majors after his father’s death |
| 2007 | Tiger Woods | Won the PGA Championship and the inaugural FedExCup |
| 2008 | Padraig Harrington | Won back-to-back majors — the Open Championship and PGA Championship — in one summer |
| 2009 | Tiger Woods | Six wins and world No. 1, despite a rare major near-miss at the PGA Championship |
| 2010 | Jim Furyk | Won the FedExCup and the Tour Championship |
| 2011 | Luke Donald | First golfer ever to top both the PGA Tour and European Tour money lists in one season |
| 2012 | Rory McIlroy | Won the PGA Championship by eight strokes and finished the season world No. 1 |
| 2013 | Tiger Woods | Five wins and world No. 1, without a major title |
| 2014 | Rory McIlroy | Won the Open Championship and PGA Championship back to back |
| 2015 | Jordan Spieth | Won the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the FedExCup in a near-Grand Slam bid |
| 2016 | Dustin Johnson | Won the U.S. Open — his first major after a string of painful near-misses — plus three more Tour titles |
| 2017 | Justin Thomas | Won the PGA Championship, shot a final-round 59 at the Sony Open, and finished with five Tour titles |
| 2018 | Brooks Koepka | Won the U.S. Open for a second straight year |
| 2019 | Rory McIlroy | Won the FedExCup and The Players Championship, without a major title |
| 2020 | Dustin Johnson | Won the Masters and the FedExCup off five wins in a pandemic-shortened season |
| 2021 | Patrick Cantlay | Won the BMW Championship in a playoff and the FedExCup |
| 2022 | Scottie Scheffler | Won four times, including the Masters, his first major |
| 2023 | Scottie Scheffler | Won The Players Championship and led the Tour in top-10 finishes |
| 2024 | Scottie Scheffler | Won seven Tour titles, Olympic gold, and the FedExCup |
| 2025 | Scottie Scheffler | Won two majors — the PGA Championship and the Open Championship — plus six Tour titles total |
That table alone corrects two things you’ll find on other sites right now. Golf Monthly’s version stops in 2023 — they never updated it for Scheffler’s third or fourth wins. And most slideshow-style lists skip the “why” column entirely.
Knowing Padraig Harrington won in 2008 is trivia. Knowing he won it by taking back-to-back majors in the same summer is the actual story.
Most PGA Tour Player of the Year Awards, All-Time
| Player | Wins | Seasons |
|---|---|---|
| Tiger Woods | 11 | 1997, 1999–2003, 2005–2007, 2009, 2013 |
| Scottie Scheffler | 4 (active) | 2022–2025 |
| Rory McIlroy | 3 | 2012, 2014, 2019 |
| Fred Couples | 2 | 1991–1992 |
| Nick Price | 2 | 1993–1994 |
| Dustin Johnson | 2 | 2016, 2020 |
Woods is on a different planet here — 11 wins out of a possible 36 means he claimed nearly a third of every award given out since 1990. But the streak data is where this gets genuinely interesting, and it’s the number most competitor pages never isolate on its own.
Woods won it five years running from 1999 through 2003, then reeled off a second streak of three straight from 2005 to 2007. Scheffler’s current run of four in a row (2022–2025) is the second-longest streak in the award’s 36-year history, active or historical. Win it again in 2026, and Scheffler ties Woods’ five-year record outright. I’d bet on it happening, honestly, even in a season that’s been quieter than his last three by his own ridiculous standard.
One-and-Done: The Winners Who Only Got It Once
Eighteen different golfers have won this award since 1990. Twelve of them won it exactly once and never again:
- Wayne Levi (1990)
- Greg Norman (1995)
- Tom Lehman (1996)
- Mark O’Meara (1998)
- Vijay Singh (2004)
- Padraig Harrington (2008)
- Jim Furyk (2010)
- Luke Donald (2011)
- Jordan Spieth (2015)
- Justin Thomas (2017)
- Brooks Koepka (2018)
- Patrick Cantlay (2021)
Two of those names surprise people every time I bring this up. Brooks Koepka strung together one of the most dominant major runs in modern golf — back-to-back U.S. Opens in 2017 and 2018, then the PGA Championship in 2018 and again in 2019 — and he still has just one Player of the Year trophy, because his 2017 and 2019 seasons happened to land in years when Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy were having career years of their own. Brooks Koepka getting a single Player of the Year award for that stretch is one of the stranger outcomes in modern golf voting, and I’ll die on that hill.
Luke Donald’s the other one worth knowing. He won it in 2011 without a major to his name, riding the strength of becoming the first golfer ever to top both the PGA Tour and European Tour money lists in the same season. That’s a genuinely rare feat, and it’s exactly the kind of context a bare winners list never gives you.
PGA Tour Player of the Year by Nationality
American golfers have won this award 27 times out of 36 — exactly 75%. Only six players born outside the U.S. have ever taken it home:
- Nick Price, Zimbabwe (1993, 1994)
- Greg Norman, Australia (1995)
- Vijay Singh, Fiji (2004)
- Padraig Harrington, Ireland (2008)
- Luke Donald, England (2011)
- Rory McIlroy, Northern Ireland (2012, 2014, 2019)
McIlroy is the only international golfer to win it more than once, and his three wins alone account for a third of every international victory in the award’s history. No continental European golfer has ever won it, and neither has anyone from Asia or South America. If you’ve ever heard a golf fan outside the U.S. grumble that this particular award feels like an American club with the occasional visitor, the numbers back that up.
PGA Tour Player of the Year vs. PGA Player of the Year: What’s Actually Different
This trips more people up than it should, so here’s the short version.
| Category | PGA Player of the Year | PGA Tour Player of the Year |
|---|---|---|
| First awarded | 1948 | 1990 |
| Selection method | Points system (majors, money list, scoring average) | Peer vote by Tour members |
| Awarded by | PGA of America | PGA Tour |
| Still given out | No — discontinued after 2022 | Yes |
| Trophy name | No widely used name | Jack Nicklaus Award |
The PGA of America ran its points-based award for 44 years before the Tour introduced its own player-voted version in 1990, and for a long stretch, having both meant two different winners in the same year. Nick Faldo won the PGA of America’s award in 1990 while Wayne Levi took the Tour’s peer vote. The next year split the same way — Corey Pavin got the points-based trophy, Fred Couples got the players’ vote.
Those splits are the exception, not the rule. Most years, the same golfer won both. But they happened often enough that “PGA Tour Player of the Year” and “PGA Player of the Year” were never truly interchangeable, even before the older award quietly ended after 2022.
The 2026 PGA Tour Player of the Year Race (Updated August 2026)
If you clicked in hoping for a lock-it-in pick for 2026, I can’t give you one. The FedExCup Playoffs haven’t finished, voting doesn’t open until after the Tour Championship in late August, and nobody tallies the ballots until the season wraps in November. Treat everything below as a snapshot, not a prediction.
Scottie Scheffler
Scottie Scheffler still leads the FedExCup standings, and he’s the reason. But by his own absurd standard, 2026 has been a step down — one win (The American Express, back in January) against a runner-up finish at the Masters and a pair of T4s at the U.S. Open and Open Championship. No major title in 2026 would be the first time that’s happened to him since 2023. For the full arc of how he got here, our breakdown of Scottie Scheffler’s career covers the run that makes even a “down” year like this one look historic by comparison.
Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy is the other real name in this conversation, and on paper his case reads better than his FedExCup rank (11th) suggests. He won the Masters for a second straight year — the first back-to-back green jacket since Tiger Woods in 2001–02 — for his sixth career major, tying him with Phil Mickelson, Nick Faldo, and Lee Trevino. One win against Scheffler’s ten top-10s is a real trade-off, and it’s exactly the kind of split-decision year that has produced upset winners before. Just ask 2019, when McIlroy himself won it over Brooks Koepka without a major to his name.
The rest of the 2026 major winners round out a genuinely wide-open year. Aaron Rai broke through at the PGA Championship for his first major, Wyndham Clark won a wire-to-wire U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills — a course we previewed in detail before the 2026 championship — and Ryan Fox claimed a maiden Claret Jug at Royal Birkdale. None of those three are realistic Player of the Year threats on their own, but a hot FedExCup Playoffs run from any of them could scramble the standings enough to matter once Tour members finally fill out their ballots.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who has won PGA Tour Player of the Year the most times?
Tiger Woods, with 11 wins between 1997 and 2013. Nobody else has more than four.
What is the PGA Tour Player of the Year award officially called?
The Jack Nicklaus Award. Nicklaus has no formal role in choosing the winner — it’s simply the name on the trophy.
How is the PGA Tour Player of the Year decided?
Through a straight vote among PGA Tour members who played at least 15 events that season. Voting happens after the Tour Championship, and the Tour doesn’t publish full vote totals.
What’s the difference between PGA Player of the Year and PGA Tour Player of the Year?
The PGA of America ran a points-based award called PGA Player of the Year from 1948 through 2022. The PGA Tour’s version started in 1990, runs on a player vote instead of points, and the Tour still hands it out today.
Who won PGA Tour Player of the Year in 2025?
Scottie Scheffler — his fourth consecutive win, tied for the second-longest streak in the award’s history behind Tiger Woods’ run from 1999 to 2003.
Has anyone won PGA Tour Player of the Year without winning a major that year?
Yes. Wayne Levi (1990), Jim Furyk (2010), Luke Donald (2011), Rory McIlroy (2019), and Patrick Cantlay (2021) all won it on the strength of wins, FedExCup performance, or overall consistency rather than a major title.
Does the PGA Tour Player of the Year award come with prize money?
No. Unlike the FedExCup, which pays its champion a bonus of $25 million, the Player of the Year vote comes with the Jack Nicklaus Trophy and the respect of your peers — nothing more.
Where This Leaves Things
Thirty-six years in, this award has gone to just 18 different golfers, and one of them has nearly a third of the total wins by himself. Scottie Scheffler is the only active threat to that kind of dominance, and a fifth straight trophy in 2026 would put him in territory only Tiger Woods has ever visited.
If a five-time or six-time winner is going to emerge from the current generation, Scheffler is the only realistic candidate on the board — and his full career profile is worth the read if you want the complete picture of how he got here.