Tiger Woods, the record holder of most weeks spent as world No. 1.
The following is a list of golfers who have been top of the Official World Golf Ranking (originally known as the Sony Ranking), since the rankings started on April 6, 1986. As of December 22, 2024, Scottie Scheffler is the number one ranked golfer.
The rankings are calculated each week based on finishing positions in individual tournaments (i.e. not pairs or team events) over a "rolling" two-year period with a maximum of 52 tournaments and a minimum divisor of 40 events. During 2018, nearly 400 tournaments on 20 tours were covered by the ranking system. All players competing in these tournaments are included in the rankings. In 2023, 24 tours factored into the world rankings.
A total of 25 different golfers from ten countries spanning four continents have been ranked world number one. Five countries; the United States, England, Australia, Spain and Germany have had multiple world number ones. The United States has had nine golfers ranked number one, the most of any country.
Tiger Woods has spent the most consecutive weeks (281) and most total weeks (683) at the top of the rankings, and Tom Lehman the fewest total weeks, having spent just a single week at the top in April 1997. Three golfers have spent an entire calendar year atop the rankings: Nick Faldo (1993), Greg Norman (1996), and Woods (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009). Lee Westwood and Luke Donald are the only world number one golfers to have not won a major championship.
Number one ranked men
Note 1: In the first column, each number signifies the first time that golfer was ranked number one.
Note 2: In the "Cumulative total" column, each boldface number signifies total weeks as of the most recent time that golfer was ranked number one.
Bernhard Langer was the first golfer to be ranked world No. 1.Greg Norman spent the most weeks atop of the world rankings in both the 1980s and 1990s.Nick Faldo is one of only three players to have held the world No. 1 ranking for an entire calendar year, doing so in 1993.Vijay Singh was the only golfer other than Woods to be ranked world No. 1 in the 2000s.Dustin Johnson's 135 weeks spent atop the world rankings are the 3rd most of all time.Rory McIlroy was the world No. 1 for 95 weeks in the 2010s, the most of any golfer.
Order – indicates the sequence in which the players first reached number 1. Majors – number of major championships each player has won throughout his golfing career.
Weeks at number one by country
*
Country with the current number one player as of December 8, 2024
Order – indicates the sequence in which the country first had a number 1 player. Majors – number of major championships the country's world-ranked number 1 players have won throughout their golfing careers. Players – number of players from that country who have been world-ranked number 1. Top player – the player from that country who has spent most weeks as the world-ranked number 1 player. First player – the player from that country who was first to be world-ranked number 1 player, left blank if that country has only one such player. Latest player – the player from that country who was most recently world-ranked number 1 player, left blank if that country has only one such player.
Earlier number ones
Before the start of the Official World Golf Ranking in 1986, unofficial end of year world golf rankings were published by Mark McCormack in his World of Professional Golf annual from 1968 to 1985. McCormack's rankings listed Jack Nicklaus as the number one from 1968 to 1977, Tom Watson from 1978 to 1982 and Seve Ballesteros from 1983 to 1985.
^ abcdThe rankings were frozen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rankings were produced on March 15, 2020 and restarted on June 14, 2020. No rankings were produced for the 12 weeks between these dates and so Rory McIlroy's total weeks at number one do not include these 12 weeks.
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