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Golf Monthly
Golf Monthly
Sport
Paul Higham

Who Is The Youngest Winner In PGA Tour History?

Some of the youngest winners on the PGA Tour.

We often say that pro golf is becoming more of a young man's game every year, with hotshots coming straight out of college and performing from the get-go on the PGA Tour.

However, although there's a lot of famous recent names on the list of the youngest ever winners on the PGA Tour, the very top is dominated by a few from way back.

The likes of Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson all won on the PGA Tour before they turned 21, which in itself is a superb achievement.

Of what you'd class as the modern-day crop, only Jordan Spieth has managed to win a PGA Tour event while still a teenager - although only just as his 2013 John Deere Classic success came just a couple of weeks before his 20th birthday.

But it was the old guard who managed to claim wins at an even younger age - four of them in fact won a PGA Tour event while younger than Spieth was.

Charles Kocsis has the honor of being the youngest PGA Tour winner as he won the first of his three Michigan Open titles in 1931 while still only 18.

Harry 'Light Horse' Cooper was long considered to be the youngest winner on the PGA Tour from his 1923 Galveston Open Championship victory four days after his 19th birthday.

However, a PGA Tour researcher unearthed the record of Kocsis - an amateur playing in the Michigan Open alongside the pros - for him to take top spot.

Woods appears on the list twice thanks to the first two wins of his PGA Tour career coming just a couple of weeks apart - but this is one list where Mickelson beats his old nemesis as he captured a first title at a slightly younger age.

Tom Kim is the only other player to get two wins onto the list thanks to a pair of victories in 2022 just a couple of months apart, and they sandwich Matt Wolff who made his breakthrough in 2019.

Youngest PGA Tour winners

(Image credit: Getty Images)
  • 18 years, 6 months, 9 days: Charles Kocsis - 1931 Michigan Open
  • 19 years, 4 days: Harry Cooper - 1923 Galveston Open Championship
  • 19 years, 2 months, 3 days: Ralph Guldahl - 1931 Santa Monica Open
  • 19 years, 10 months, 14 days: John McDermott - 1911 U.S. Open
  • 19 years, 11 months, 17 days: Jordan Spieth - 2013 John Deere Classic
  • 20 years, five days: Gene Sarazen - 1922 Southern Open
  • 20 years, 29 days: Nick Dunlap - 2024 American Express
  • 20 years, 1 month, 15 days: Charles Evens - 1910 Western Open
  • 20 years, 1 months, 17 days: Tom Kim - 2022 Wyndham Championship
  • 20 years, 2 months, 23 days: Matthew Wolff - 2019 3M Open
  • 20 years, 3 months, 18 days: Tom Kim - 2022 Shriners Children's Open
  • 20 years, 6 months, 28 days: Phil Mickelson - 1991 Northern Telecom Open
  • 20 years, 9 months, 6 days: Tiger Woods - 1996 Shriners Children's Open
  • 20 years, 9 months, 20 days: Tiger Woods - 1996 Walt Disney World Classic
  • 20 years, 10 months, 8 days: Joaquin Niemann - 2019 Greenbrier Classic
  • 20 years, 11 months, 28 days: Rory McIlroy - 2010 Wells Fargo Championship
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