The golfer who holds the record for consecutive wins on the PGA Tour is John Byron Nelson Jr., better known as Byron Nelson, who, in 1945, played in 30 PGA tournaments and won 18 of them, including 11 in a row. In so doing, he set two records that are unlikely to be broken.
‘Lord Byron’, as he was known, began his winning streak in a team matchplay tournament, known as the Miami International Four Ball, at what is now the Miami Springs Golf and Country Club in Miami, Florida. Nelson and his partner, Harold ‘Jug’ McSpaden, had finished first and second on the PGA Tour Money List in 1944 and were duly dubbed the ‘Gold Dust Twins’. Despite Nelson complaining that he played ‘just horrible’ when sixth behind Sam Snead in the Jacksonville Open the previous week, they justified their nickname, winning all four matches with a minimum of fuss.
Thereafter, Nelson won 10 individual tournaments in a row, starting with the Charlotte Open, in which he defeated Sam Snead by four strokes in a second 18-hole playoff, and ending with the Canadian Open, in which he defeated Herman Barron by four strokes. In between times, he also won only major championship played that year, the PGA Championship – which, at the time, involved strokeplay qualifying and a matchplay tournament – with the other three cancelled due to World War II.
The winning streak came to an end when Nelson could only finish tied for fourth, behind 29-year-old amateur Fred Haas, in the Memphis Invitational at Chickasaw. Nevertheless, he won four more tournaments before the end of 1945, including the last two and, just for good measure, won the first two tournaments of 1946 as well.