He is the player who won 11 PGA Tour events in a row and now has a tournament named after him

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You might think that Tiger Woods’ dominance in the early 2000s is as unbeatable as a player has ever been.

Tiger Woods held all four majors at the same time, didn’t miss a cut on the PGA Tour for 142 straight events, and was ranked number one in the Official World Golf Rankings for 281 consecutive weeks. 

But Woods ranks only second in the list of players with the most wins in a row on the PGA Tour. For many, 11 wins on the PGA Tour is a career achievement. It’s as many as Jon Rahm has in his professional career. 

Yet one player won 11 in a row, and no one has broken his record in 80 years. 

Byron Nelson won a PGA Tour record 11 events in a row

Byron Nelson won 11 straight PGA Tour events in 1945, and he won an incredible 18 tournaments that season. Neither of those records have been beaten in the 80 years that have since passed. 

Nelson won the first of these events at the Miami International Four-Ball. He won the PGA Championship during his run, one of his five major championship victories in his career. 

To make this record even more impressive, Nelson finished second at a further seven events in 1945, meaning he finished outside of the top two just five times in 30 tournaments.

Now, some have called this achievement into question, as Nelson took these victories while some of the world’s best golfers were fighting in the Second World War. Nelson had a blood disorder, which prevented him from fighting.

But in reality, the likes of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead played parts of the schedule that year, so it’s unfair to say that this record doesn’t count. And some of the greats in the game don’t discredit the record either! 

What Tiger Woods said about Byron Nelson’s record

Woods broke Nelson’s record of consecutive PGA Tour cuts made, and he came the closest to breaking Nelson’s record of consecutive victories, too.

But even the greatest golfer of all time in his prime couldn’t match Nelson, and he paid homage to the icon Woods said, “What Byron accomplished that goes down as one of the great years in the history of our sport.”

And the great Arnold Palmer thought that no one would ever break the record. He once said, “I don’t think that anyone will ever exceed the things that Byron did by winning 11 tournaments in a row in one year.”

Jack Nicklaus’ 18 major wins looks like the safest record in sport after Woods has fallen short of breaking it, but what appears to be equally unbeatable is Nelson’s incredible 1945 season.