Who are the 10 youngest winners in PGA Tour history? Here’s the list.

August 8, 2022

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Joohyung “Tom” Kim entered some exclusive company among the history of professional golf on the PGA Tour.

By winning the 2022 Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, he became one of the youngest players to ever win on the PGA Tour.

The PGA Tour has been around for more than a century. Many of the youngest winners happened in the early years of the Tour, but in the past decades, three golfers, including Kim, have joined the exclusive youngest winner’s club, as well.

Here’s a look at the 10 youngest players who have been victorious on the PGA Tour:

Francis Ouimet was the first amateur to win the U. S. Open, doing so in 1913 at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. (Photo by FPG/Getty Images)

Age: 20 years, 4 months, 12 days
Tournament: 1913 U.S. Open
Buzz: Still an amateur, Ouimet earned what is considered by many to be the most important victory in the development of golf in the United States in the 1913 U.S. Open. The young Ouimet, who was both a former caddie and a “commoner,” stunned Harry Vardon and Ted Ray of Great Britain, along with the golf world, with a 5-shot victory at Brookline Country Club in an 18-hole playoff. Ouimet, inducted into World Golf Hall of Fame inaugural class in 1974, is one of only four golfers to have a stamp created in their honor.

Matthew Wolff takes the trophy from 3M vice president Jeff Lavers after winning the 3M Championship golf tournament at TPC Twin Cities. (Photo: Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports)

Age: 20 years, 2 months, 23 days
Tournament: 2019 3M Open
About: In just his fourth start after turning pro, Wolff scored a thrilling victory at TPC Twin Cities thanks to a 26-foot eagle putt on the tournament’s final hole. He would defeat fellow 20-year-old Collin Morikawa and Bryson DeChambeau by one shot. DeChambeau had eagled 18 ahead of Wolff to take a one-shot lead. That lead would not last.

Joohyung Kim lifts his trophy after winning the Wyndham Championship golf tournament. (Photo: Nell Redmond/USA TODAY Sports)

Age: 20 years, 1 month, 17 days
Tournament: 2022 Wyndham Championship
About: Joohyung ‘Tom’ Kim entered the 2022 Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, on a Special Temporary Exemption. He left as a PGA Tour winner, in the FedEx Cup playoffs and as the second-youngest winner on Tour since World War II. He also is the first golfer since at least 1983 to begin a tournament with a quadruple bogey to go on to win.

Chick Evans, golfer, shown in 1920. Exact date and location unknown. (AP Photo)

Age: 20 years, 1 month, 15 days
Tournament: 1910 Western Open
About: Evans is perhaps best known for being the founder of the Evans Scholarship Foundation. An amateur for his entire golf career, Evans won the Western Open at Beverly Country Club in Chicago as a 20-year-old. In 1916, he would become the first amateur to win the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur in the same year. Evans led that 1916 U.S. Open at Minikahda wire-to-wire and did it while using seven hickory-shafted clubs. His record 286 stood for 20 years. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1975.

Gene Sarazen hits the first ball to open the 1985 Masters Golf Championship at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., on April 11, 1985.

Age: 20 years, 5 days

Tournament: 1922 Southern Open

About: The self-taught Sarazen would remain associated with golf until his 90s. His Hall of Fame career spanned eight decades as a player, course/equipment designer and resident living legend. The first of his 39 PGA Tour victories came less than a week after his 20th birthday at the 1922 Southern Open in New Orleans. That event was played just once. “The Squire” won seven majors, including the PGA Championship three times, and won what is now considered Grand Slam before anyone else. Sarazen played on six Ryder Cup teams, including the first in 1927, and is credited with inventing the sand wedge.

Jordan Spieth after winning the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run. (Photo: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports)

Age: 19 years, 11 months, 17 days

Tournament: 2013 John Deere Classic
About: Spieth became just the fifth player to win on the PGA Tour before the age of 20. Spieth was just shy of his 20th birthday when he won the 2013 John Deere Classic in a three-way playoff. He continued an amazing run in 2015 at age 21 by becoming the second-youngest player ever to win the Masters – behind Tiger Woods. He followed that with a U.S. Open triumph two months later. His third major title, the 2017 Open Championship, came just four days after he turned 24.

Johnny McDermott

Age: 19 years, 10 months, 14 days

Tournament: 1911 U.S. Open

About: McDermott’s tale is perhaps golf’s greatest legend lost to history. He won the U.S. Open less than two months shy of his 20th birthday at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in 1911 after boldly predicting he would win. He became the first American to win the nation’s golf championship and remains the youngest U.S. Open winner in history. McDermott would win the U.S. Open a year later in Buffalo. McDermott’s abrasive speech ahead of the 1913 U.S. Open, won by fellow American Francis Ouimet, would be immortalized in the movie “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” His brash manner and erratic behavior clashed with golf’s elite. After arriving too late for his tee time in the 1914 British Open, McDermott headed for home but his ship collided with another in the English Channel, leaving McDermott stranded for hours in a lifeboat. That event changed him. McDermott suffered a mental breakdown and would be committed by his mother to what is now known as Norristown (Pa.) State Hospital outside Philadelphia in 1916. He would live there until his death in 1971.

Ralph Guldahl won the 1937 and 1938 U.S. Opens as well as the 1939 Masters. (Photo: Associated Press)

Age: 19 years, 8 months, 3 days

Tournament: 1931 Santa Monica Open

About: Guldahl holds two spots on this list. When he won the 1931 Santa Monica Open, he was more than three months shy of his 20th birthday. Guldahl had 16 pro victories and entered the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1981. He also won the 1932 Arizona Open, now known as the WM Phoenix Open, when he was 20 years, 2 months and 9 days old. He held his own and won three majors while competing against the likes of Sam Snead, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson. Guldahl won 16 pro events in a career that was interrupted by a self-imposed year-long hiatus in 1935 before he left the game for good after winning two more events in 1940.

Harry Cooper, aka “Light Horse Harry,” is shown during the opening play of the New York State Open Gold Championship tournament at the Westchester Biltmore Country Club in Rye, N.Y., March 21, 1929. (AP Photo)

Age: 19 years, 4 days
Tournament: 1923 Galveston Open
About: Harry “Light Horse” Cooper is golf’s original “greatest player never to win a major.” A member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Cooper had 31 pro victories during the 1920s and ’30s, but none came in major championships. “Something always happened that I had no control over,” he once said. “I still dwell on the big ones that got away.” Those “big ones” would be the the 1927 and 1936 U.S. Opens and the 1936 Masters. In the 1927 Open at Oakmont, Tommy Armour holed a 15-foot putt on the 18th green to catch Cooper in regulation and a 50-footer on the 15th hole of the playoff to tie the match. Cooper had the clubhouse lead at the 1936 Open after a then-record 72-hole score of 284. He led the 1936 Masters after 54 holes. But victory eluded him all three times. Cooper was a teaching pro until age 93. He died in 2000 at the age of 96. Hard luck followed Cooper even after his death. Long considered to be the youngest winner in PGA Tour history, that record was supplanted when a PGA Tour researcher recently discovered the No. 1 player on the list.

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Chuck Kocsis first gained national attention in 1930, when as a 17-year-old he defeated Francis Ouimet in the first round of the U.S. Amateur at Merion. The next year he knocked off Armour in the Michigan Open. (University of Michigan)

Age: 18 years, 6 months, 9 days
Tournament: 1931 Michigan Open
About: Long overlooked on this list, Kocsis grew up in Detroit and amassed a stellar amateur career. One of 14 children, he began his golf career as a caddie and he quickly learned the game. He won low amateur at the U.S. Open twice and Masters once. He enjoyed a successful college career at Michigan, leading the Wolverines to three consecutive Big Ten championships and the National Collegiate Championships in 1934 and ’35. He also won the collegiate individual title in 1936. An auto accident nearly ended his career in 1945, but Kocsis recovered and kept winning. He took low amateur honors at the 1952 Masters and played on the Walker Cup teams in 1938, ’49 and ’57. The first of his three Michigan Open (which featured pros and amateurs at the time) victories came in 1931, when Kocsis was still 18, making him No. 1 on the list.

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