Golfers With the Most Holes in One: Ranked Career & Tour Records

Mancil Davis is the golfer most widely credited with the most career holes in one: 51 documented aces made between 1966 and 2007. Amateur Norman Manley claimed a higher total, 59, but that figure is now considered unreliable. On the sport’s official tours, no one has matched Hal Sutton and Robert Allenby’s 10 PGA Tour aces, or Kathy Whitworth’s 11 on the LPGA Tour.

There is no single governing body that tracks lifetime holes in one, so “the record” really splits into two categories: best-documented career totals, and verified official-tour totals. Below is a ranked look at both, with the actual figures behind each name.

At a glance: ranked holes-in-one leaders

Rank	Golfer	Tour / status	Aces	Why it ranks here
1	Norman Manley	Amateur (disputed)	59	Long-cited record, now discredited for unverified witnesses
2	Mancil Davis	Club pro (accepted record)	51	Best-documented lifetime total, made 1966–2007
3	Art Wall Jr.	1959 Masters champion	45	Unofficial record for decades; 5 came in tour play
4	Arnold Palmer	PGA Tour legend	21	Spanned 1940s–2011, across 11 U.S. states and 2 countries
5	Tiger Woods	PGA Tour	20	Only 3 came in official PGA Tour competition
6	Kathy Whitworth	LPGA Tour record	11	Most on any official pro tour, men’s or women’s
7	Hal Sutton & Robert Allenby	PGA Tour record (tied)	10	Allenby equalled Sutton’s mark in 2016
8	Miguel Angel Jimenez	European Tour record	10	Set the mark at the 2015 BMW PGA Championship
9	Hubert Green & Gil Morgan	PGA Tour (tied)	8	Next tier behind the PGA Tour’s 10-ace leaders
10	Barber, Marsh & Snead	Champions Tour record (tied)	6	Three-way share of the senior-tour mark

Lifetime totals rest on club and newspaper records rather than a central registry; official tour figures are independently tracked and far more reliable.

The ranked list of hole-in-one leaders

1. Norman Manley — 59 (disputed)

A retired California engineer, Manley claimed 59 aces between September 1963 and April 1988, with his 59th reportedly at Indian Hills Golf Club in Rubidoux. For years he was the default answer to “who has the most holes in one,” and his most repeated single feat, acing two consecutive par-4 holes at Del Valle Country Club in 1964, is still cited today. His total has since been set aside by most golf outlets because his witnesses were never systematically verified, leaving Mancil Davis as the name most sources now point to instead.

2. Mancil Davis — 51

A Texas club professional nicknamed the “King of Aces,” Davis recorded his first hole in one in 1966 at age 11 and his 51st in 2007. Nearly all are documented, one witnessed by future Masters champion Ben Crenshaw, and his career also includes 10 double eagles. Because his total holds up to scrutiny in a way Manley’s does not, Davis’s 51 is the figure most golf publications, including Golf.com, now cite as the de facto world record.

3. Art Wall Jr. — 45

The 1959 Masters champion tallied 45 career aces, an unofficial world record for decades before Davis and Manley entered the conversation. Five came in PGA Tour or Senior Tour competition, spanning events from the 1950 Texas Open to a 1986 Senior Tour round. Wall’s case is notable because a meaningful share of his total is tournament-verified rather than self-reported, giving him the strongest professional credibility among the sport’s high-volume acers.

4. Arnold Palmer — 21

Palmer’s 21 aces ranged in distance from 122 to 245 yards and were made across two countries and 11 different U.S. states, a total ace distance of roughly 1.8 miles. His first came in the 1940s at Latrobe Country Club, his hometown course, where he later added four more aces on the same hole. His last hole in one arrived in 2011 at age 82, giving him one of the longest documented ace careers of any recognizable name in the sport.

5. Tiger Woods — 20

Woods has 20 career holes in one, but just three came in official PGA Tour competition, underlining how much rarer aces are under tournament pressure than in casual or junior play. His first came at age six in 1982 at Heartwell Golf Course in Long Beach, and after his 19th in 1998 he went two full decades without another until 2018, also at Heartwell. His relatively modest tour tally, despite being widely considered the greatest golfer of his generation, is often cited as proof that aces reward opportunity and course setup as much as skill.

6. Kathy Whitworth — 11

Whitworth holds the LPGA Tour’s hole-in-one record with 11 career aces, more than any player on any major professional tour, men’s or women’s. Her 11th and final tour ace came at the 1983 Henredon Classic. Whitworth is also the winningest professional golfer in history with 88 LPGA Tour titles, so her ace record sits alongside a resume that already made her a Hall of Fame lock, adding rare precision to an already dominant career.

7. Hal Sutton & Robert Allenby — 10 (PGA Tour record, tied)

Sutton and Allenby share the official PGA Tour record with 10 career aces in tournament play, per Guinness World Records. Allenby, an Australian pro, equalled Sutton’s long-standing mark at the 2016 CareerBuilder Challenge, having made his first PGA Tour ace in 2001 and collecting all 10 within a 15-year window. Because ShotLink tracks every competition shot, this is one of the few hole-in-one totals in golf that is fully and independently verifiable.

8. Miguel Angel Jimenez — 10 (European Tour record)

Jimenez set the European Tour’s hole-in-one record with his 10th career ace at the 2015 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, holing his tee shot on the 158-yard par-3 second. He had equalled Colin Montgomerie’s previous record of nine at the Spanish Open just eight days earlier. The Spaniard’s late-career hot streak of aces, arriving well into his fifties, made him the outlier example of a veteran still adding to his tally deep into a decades-long career.

9. Hubert Green & Gil Morgan — 8 (PGA Tour)

One tier behind Sutton and Allenby, Green and Morgan share the next-highest PGA Tour hole-in-one total with eight apiece, according to Guinness World Records. Both were multiple major-tournament winners across the 1970s and 1980s, and their ace totals were built the traditional way: long careers, high round counts, and enough tour longevity to keep collecting chances on par-3 tee shots year after year.

10. Miller Barber, Graham Marsh & J.C. Snead — 6 (Champions Tour, tied)

The senior circuit’s hole-in-one record is a three-way tie at six career aces, shared by Miller Barber, Graham Marsh, and J.C. Snead. All three were accomplished touring pros before transitioning to the Champions Tour, where a lighter, more social competitive schedule still gave them enough rounds to add to totals they had already built during their regular-tour careers.

Why club pros out-ace major champions

The names near the top of the lifetime list are rarely the game’s biggest stars, and the odds explain why. For an average amateur, acing a given par-3 runs at roughly 12,500 to 1; for a touring professional, the odds shorten to about 2,500 to 1. But a hole in one still rewards opportunity as much as skill: a club professional who plays or teaches thousands of par-3 rounds a year simply gets more attempts than a tour player who competes 25 weeks a season. That is how Mancil Davis and Norman Manley, neither of them household names, sit above Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods, and why precision iron players tend to out-ace power hitters over a lifetime.

How this list is ranked

Golfers are ranked by their best-documented ace total, with lifetime totals (Manley, Davis, Wall, Palmer, Woods) kept separate from official tour records (PGA, LPGA, European, Champions), since lifetime figures rely on self-reporting while tour totals are independently tracked. Tied verified records credit both names rather than forcing an arbitrary tiebreaker. Figures are drawn from Guinness World Records, ESPN, Golf.com, and official tour reporting.

The record picture in 2026

As of the 2026 season, no active player realistically threatens Davis’s 51 or the disputed 59 attributed to Manley; both sit as history rather than a live chase. On tour, the real race is the PGA Tour’s 10-ace record held by Sutton and Allenby since 2016, and the European Tour’s 10 held by Jimenez since 2015. ShotLink and its European equivalent now log every competition shot, so any future tour record will be cleanly documented, while a new lifetime claimant would still need the kind of witness trail that lifted Davis above Manley in the first place.

Golf’s other career leaderboards follow the same pattern of hard-to-verify totals settling around a few trusted names. See how the most PGA Tour wins and most majors in golf rankings compare, check where these players sit among the greatest golfers of all time, or browse the full golf category for more records coverage.