Jack Nicklaus still owns the answer to who won the Masters most often. He won six green jackets at Augusta National, a record that has held for decades and includes victories in 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975 and 1986.
That final win mattered for more than the number. Nicklaus was 46 years and 82 days old when he claimed his sixth Masters title, making him the oldest winner of the green jacket and giving him championships across three different decades.
Tiger Woods is next on the list with five wins, a run that began in 1997 when he won his first Masters at 21 years and 104 days. Woods went on to win back-to-back titles in 2001 and 2002, a feat that has helped define the modern era of the tournament.
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Augusta has long rewarded repeat excellence, but that kind of consistency remains rare. Only three players have successfully defended the Masters title with back-to-back wins, and Woods is one of them. Nick Faldo is the other modern marker in that line, after winning in 1989 and defending his title in 1990.
Nicklaus, Woods and Faldo are among only eight players with three or more career Masters titles, a club that also includes Arnold Palmer, Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead, Gary Player and Phil Mickelson. Palmer won four times between 1958 and 1964, while Demaret, Snead, Player and Mickelson are all three-time Masters winners.
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The recent history is more crowded at the top than the record book. Scottie Scheffler has won the Masters twice, in 2022 and 2025, joining a wider group of multiple champions that also includes Horton Smith, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Tom Watson, Ben Crenshaw, Bubba Watson, Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal and Bernhard Langer.
For anyone asking who won the Masters and who has set the standard, the answer still starts with Nicklaus. The 2026 tournament will arrive with the same old challenge hanging over Augusta National: no one has matched six green jackets, and no one has made winning there look so repeatable across so many years.
