The PGA Tour did not officially become known as such until 1975, but formally began eight years earlier, when the organisation that would become the PGA Tour, the Tournament Players Division, split from the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) of America. Since then, the golfer with most appearances is American Mark Brooks, who teed it up an astonishing 803 times during a career spanning 35 years.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas on March 25, 1961, Brooks made his PGA Tour debut in the Colonial National Invitation at Colonial Country Club in his hometown on May 15, 1983. He missed the cut on that occasion, as he did in his next three tournaments, but retained PGA Tour playing privileges by virtue of a tied-seventh place finish in the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament at the Tournament Players Club in Ponte Vedra, Florida.
It was a similar story in 1985, 1986 and 1987 but, in 1988, Brooks enjoyed a breakthrough year, in which he won the Greater Hartford Open (now the Travelers Championship) at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut after a three-way playoff. Thereafter, he would win six more PGA Tour tournaments, enjoying the best year of his career in 1996, when he won three times, including his one and only major championship, the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, again after a playoff.
Aside from his seven wins on the PGA Tour, Brooks also finished second four times, including in the US Open Championship at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2001, and third eight times, including tied-third in the Open Championship on the Old Course at St. Andrews in St. Andrews, Scotland in 1995. All told, he made 430 cuts, finished in the top ten 58 times and earned just shy of $9.5 million in official prize money. Brooks made his final PGA Tour appearance in the
CareerBuilder Challenge on the Stadium Course at PGA West in La Quinta, California in January, 2018.