PGA Tour winner divides opinion with audacious Tiger Woods claim

One-time PGA Tour winner and Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee believes Tiger Woods deserves the outright record of PGA Tour wins.

Tiger Woods

Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee believes Tiger Woods has the most PGA Tour wins of all time despite being tied on 82 with late great Sam Snead.

Why? Well, Chamblee points to the fact that Snead has five team wins counting on his victory record, whereas Woods has none.

Snead, who died aged 89 in 2002, won 82 times on the PGA Tour between 1936 and 1965.

The seven-time major champion also won five times in team events at the following events:

1938 Inverness Invitational Fourball with Vic Ghezzi
1939 Miami Biltmore International Fourball with Ralph Guldahl
1940 Inverness Invitational Fourball with Ralph Guldahl
1950 Inverness Invitational Fourball with Jim Ferrier
1952 Inverness Invitational Fourball with Jim Ferrier

Woods’ sole WGC-World Cup win alongside David Duval in 2010 did not count as an official win on the PGA Tour, for those casting their minds back to that one.

That just sits as ‘other win’ on Woods’ record.

Chamblee, who won his sole PGA Tour title at the 1998 Greater Vancouver Open, made his feelings be known on X / Twitter following Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry’s team victory at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

McIlroy and Lowry won the Zurich Classic

McIlroy and Lowry revealed earlier this season that they had agreed to team up for the first time together in this year’s Zurich Classic after discussing the subject over a ‘drunken lunch’ over the Christmas period.

The win marked the 25th of McIlroy’s PGA Tour career, bumping him up to T23 on the all-time list, and it brought up the hat-trick for Lowry.

But Chamblee questions whether team events should really even count at all on the PGA Tour, especially given the Zurich Classic consists of both fourballs and foursomes across the four days of competition.

Chamblee tweeted:

“Team wins should have their own category amongst “tour wins”… most golf fans, if not ALL golf fans assume “individual” wins when a player’s total tour wins are named… but Sam Snead has 5 team wins counted amongst his 82 wins while Tiger has ZERO team wins in his 82 wins… so I ask you who has won the most tour events of all time??? It is Tiger.”

Taking a look at the thread to Chamblee’s tweet and it would appear golf fans are divided on such a claim.

Nevertheless, the Zurich Classic is very much an official PGA Tour event and the win count remains whether we all like it or not.

Perhaps the time has come for Woods to arrange a ‘drunken lunch’ with World No.1 Scottie Scheffler and rubber stamp that 83rd outright win on the PGA Tour.