From Byron Nelson to Tiger Woods to Nelly Korda, Here Are Golf's Greatest Win Streaks

The world's top female player added her name to this list last month and is trying for six straight this week.

Nelly Korda's streak of five consecutive wins tied an LPGA record. / Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports

Scottie Scheffler and Nelly Korda are each on impressive heaters. Both have won a major championship in recent weeks. Korda has won five consecutive starts, matching the LPGA record held by Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam.

Scheffler has lost to exactly one player over his last five starts. Along the way he’s won the Masters, the Players and two Signature Events. In the one event he didn’t win—the Texas Children's Houston Open—he missed a playoff by a stroke when a 5-footer on the final green did not drop.

Both players are dominating their respective tours with incredible play and consistency, and Korda’s drive for a sixth straight win starts Thursday at the Cognizant Founders Cup.

Here’s a look at some of the game’s great winning streaks.

11: Byron Nelson

Golf’s record streak went from March 1945 through August of the same year, with 50 consecutive rounds of par or better. Nelson won a total of 18 events that year. The streak is often qualified with how it came during World War II, when several star players served. Still, the par-or-better streak knows no names. In his attempt for a 12th straight, Nelson finished fourth in Memphis.

7: Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods landed on the cover of SI after his 2006 British Open win. / Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated

Second on the PGA Tour list of consecutive victories with seven, Tiger’s first such streak came in 2006-07. Starting with the British Open at Royal Liverpool, Woods won six straight PGA Tour events to end his 2006 season, including wins at the PGA Championship and WGC-Bridgestone. The streak extended into 2007 when Woods started the year with a victory at Torrey Pines. (During his PGA Tour winning streak, Woods played three times overseas, twice finishing second, but these were not Tour events).

6: Tiger Woods

Six straight wins from 1999-2000 tied what had been the second-longest streak held by Ben Hogan. Starting with the NEC Invitational, Woods won four in a row to end the 2000 season on the PGA Tour, including the Tour Championship and the American Express event that was played afterward. He then began 2000 with victories at the Tournament of Champions (a playoff win over Ernie Els) and a riveting win at Pebble Beach, where he came back from seven strokes down with seven to play. In his bid for seven straight, he tied for second at Torrey Pines.

6: Ben Hogan

His 10-victory season in 1948 included six straight victories that began with a victory at the U.S. Open played at Riviera, where he set a tournament scoring record at the time. Hogan also won the PGA Championship that year.

5: Nancy Lopez

Nancy Lopez took the LPGA by storm in 1978. / Harry Benson/Sports Illustrated

Imagine compiling an all-time streak as a 21-year-old rookie—that’s what the New Mexico native did in 1978, winning five in a row plus nine overall. The streak included a major (LPGA Championship) and landed her on the cover of Sports Illustrated. “There was a good bit of talk if I was a flash in the pan,” Lopez told SI’s Bob Harig last month. “Would I be able to do well the next year? Was it luck? I decided I was going to prove myself.” She won eight times in 1979. 

5: Annika Sorenstam

The Swede had 54 LPGA wins on her resume late in 2004 when she went on a run that ended early in the 2005 season with an eight-shot win at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, her eighth major title. She would end her career with 72 wins.

5: Nelly Korda

The world No. 1 started her current streak in January in Florida then rattled off three straight in March-April, including the LPGA’s match play event. Then after a week off her fourth straight win came a major victory at the Chevron Championship. In the 12 stroke-play rounds during her streak only two were higher than 69.

5: Tiger Woods

Here he is again, winning five in a row starting with the 2007 BMW Championship and continued with the Tour Championship—where Woods captured the first-ever FedEx Cup title. In 2008, he won his first three starts of the year at the Buick Invitational, WGC Match Play and Arnold Palmer Invitational. Not included was a win at the European Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic. He finished fifth at Doral to end the streak, then second at the Masters before capturing the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines—followed by knee surgery that kept him out the rest of the year.