Back-to-Back Winners of The Players Championship

How many golfers in the history of The Players Championship have won the tournament in consecutive years? So far, the answer to that question is: One. There has only been a single back-to-back champion at The Players.

The one golfer to pull off the feat of winning The Players Championship two years in a row is Scottie Scheffler, in 2023-24. The Players Championship, the so-called "fifth major" in men's professional golf, was first played in 1974, so it took 50 years for this feat to first be accomplished.

The Only Back-to-Back Winner of Players Championship

The only golfer in this tournament's history to successfully defend his title is Scottie Scheffler. Scheffler won The Players Championship in both 2023 and 2024. He became the seventh golfer to win multiple Players Championship titles, but the first to do so in back-to-back years.

In 2023, Scheffler won by five strokes over runner-up Tyrrell Hatton. That victory, after Scheffler's 2022 Masters win, made Scheffler just the third golfer to hold The Masters and The Players Championship titles simultaneously. (Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods were the other two.)

In 2024, Scheffler had a much closer call in The Players, winning by a single stroke over three runners-up, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman and Xander Schauffele. Then Scheffler won The Masters again about a month later, completing a Players/Masters same-season sweep. Only Tiger Woods, in 2001, had previously won both those tournaments in the same calendar year.

Has Anyone Else Come Close?

Our definition of "coming close" to winning back-to-back Players Championship titles is this: finishing runner-up in either the year before or the year after winning the tournament.

There are two golfers who fit that definition, so two golfers who came close to consecutive wins in The Players Championship: Woods and Sergio Garcia.

Woods was second by one stroke to Hal Sutton in 2000, then won the 2001 Players Championship by one stroke over Vijay Singh. Garcia was second by two strokes to Phil Mickelson in 2007, then won the 2008 Players Championship in a playoff against Paul Goydos.

Related articles:

• Scoring records for The Players Championship
• All aces on island green and other holes in Players Championship
• Highest scores ever on island green during Players Championship

Sources:
PGA Tour. Official Media Guide The Players 2025, History at a Glance, Championship Records, and The Players Championship Summaries.