Most Masters Wins: Golf's Green Jacket Kings

Jack Nicklaus has the most Masters wins of any golfer, with six green jackets, captured in 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975 and 1986. Tiger Woods is second with five (1997, 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2019), and Arnold Palmer is third with four.

The Masters is unique among golf’s four majors because it is played on the same course, Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, every single year. That constancy turns multiple wins into a special kind of mastery: the champions at the top of this list did not just win big tournaments, they solved the same puzzle again and again. Here is the full picture of who owns the most green jackets, the records that surround them, and why the numbers matter. All figures are through 2025.

The record holder: Jack Nicklaus and six green jackets

Nicklaus first won the Masters in 1963 at age 23 and last won it in 1986 at age 46, a span of 23 years that no rival has come close to matching. His 1986 victory is among the most celebrated moments in the sport: written off before the final round, he surged home with a back-nine charge to become the oldest Masters champion ever, a record that still stands.

Six wins at a single major, on a single course, is the defining line of his Augusta legacy. It is also central to why he is so often named in debates about the greatest golfer of all time, alongside his all-time record of 18 professional major championships.

The full list of multiple champions

Beyond Nicklaus, a small group of the game’s biggest names cluster near the top. The table below shows every golfer with three or more Masters titles.

Wins	Golfer	Winning years
6	Jack Nicklaus	1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975, 1986
5	Tiger Woods	1997, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2019
4	Arnold Palmer	1958, 1960, 1962, 1964
3	Jimmy Demaret	1940, 1947, 1950
3	Sam Snead	1949, 1952, 1954
3	Gary Player	1961, 1974, 1978
3	Nick Faldo	1989, 1990, 1996
3	Phil Mickelson	2004, 2006, 2010

The names read like a history of golf itself, from Demaret and Snead in the tournament’s early decades through Palmer and Player, to Faldo, Mickelson and Woods in the modern era.

Tiger Woods and the modern chase

Tiger Woods put himself firmly into the conversation with five wins. His 1997 debut victory was a landmark: at 21 he became the youngest Masters champion, winning by a record 12 strokes with a then-record score of 18 under par. He went back-to-back in 2001 and 2002, added another in 2005, and completed one of golf’s great comebacks with his emotional 2019 win after years of injury and personal setbacks.

That 2019 title left him one green jacket short of Nicklaus. Whether anyone catches six remains one of the sport’s enduring storylines.

The records that surround the streaks

Multiple wins are the headline, but Augusta is also defined by its scoring and age records. Dustin Johnson set the 72-hole scoring record with 268 (20 under par) at the November 2020 edition, bettering the 270 shared by Woods (1997) and Jordan Spieth (2015). At the other end, Nicklaus’s 1986 win as a 46-year-old remains the mark for the oldest champion, while Woods in 1997 is the youngest.

Why the green jacket count matters

Because the Masters never changes venue, winning it repeatedly is a purer test of course mastery than any other major offers. Champions learn Augusta’s slopes, its lightning-fast greens and its risk-reward par 5s over a career, and the players with the most wins are precisely those who turned that knowledge into scoring. If you enjoy the traditions and traps of Augusta, our explainer on how to qualify for the Masters breaks down exactly how players earn a place in the field, and the career grand slam in golf shows how a Masters title fits into the rarest achievement in the sport.

The short version: Jack Nicklaus leads all golfers with six Masters wins, Tiger Woods has five and Arnold Palmer four, with Gary Player, Sam Snead, Nick Faldo and Phil Mickelson among those on three. Nicklaus’s total, capped by his record-setting 1986 win at 46, remains the standard every green jacket contender is measured against, through 2025.