Tiger's 82nd Win As An Excuse To Fine-Tune The PGA Tour Record Book

I’ve been uncomfortable with the belittling of Sam Snead’s 82 wins, because while the record books do credit him with some odd wins, he’s also had many chipped away from his career mark since tied by Tiger Woods.

The bashing also ignores that the war years stripped Snead of opportunities to win at the peak of his powers.

But, that said, MorningRead.com’s Gary Van Sickle penned an interesting look at the various issues Snead had with his record, the changes in his victory total over the years and other PGA Tour marks that are worth examining. Or maybe re-examining. This one was interesting:

The main one worth mentioning is Byron Nelson’s streak of finishing in the money in 113 consecutive tournaments. It was broken by Tiger Woods, who extended his streak to 142 tournaments. Except, Johnson noted, from the 1939 PGA Championship through the 1950 Los Angeles Open, Ben Hogan was in the money 177 events in a row.

Did Hogan maybe miss a cut during that time and therefore not appear in the final tournament results, which happened occasionally? Did he have a missed cut that is unfindable because it didn’t appear in a newspaper box score? Possibly. The same can be said of Nelson’s record, which the Tour accepted on the basis of an Oklahoma golf statistician’s say-so. Neither proposed record is bulletproof.