Golfers Who Won the Week Before Winning a Major

How often has a tour player won a "regular" PGA Tour tournament one week, then won a major championship the following week? Not very often! It's a rare achievement.

But it does happen every so often. The PGA Tour keeps track of this accomplishment starting with the 1934 season and continuing to the present day. So let's take a look. Following are all the golfers ince 1934 who've won a PGA Tour event followed by a major championship victory in the next scheduled event (listed from the most-recent to the earliest):

• Rory McIlroy: Won WGC Bridgestone Invitational followed by the 2014 PGA Championship
• Tiger Woods: Won WGC Bridgestone Invitational followed by the 2007 PGA Championship
• Phil Mickelson: Won BellSouth Classic followed by the 2006 Masters Tournament
• Sandy Lyle: Won Greater Greensboro Open followed by the 1988 Masters Tournament
• Lee Trevino: Won the Canadian Open followed by the 1971 British Open
• Art Wall: Won the Azalea Open followed by the 1959 Masters Tournament
• *Sam Snead: Won the Greater Greensboro Open followed by the 1949 Masters Tournament
• *Ben Hogan: Won the Winnipeg Open followed by the 1946 PGA Championship
• *Byron Nelson: Won the Chicago Victory Open followed by the 1945 PGA Championship
• Ralph Guldahl: Won the Greater Greensboro Open followed by the 1939 Masters Tournament
• *Henry Picard: Won the Scranton Open followed by the 1939 PGA Championship

What does the asterisk (*) mean? Golfers without an asterisk won their two events in back-to-back weeks. When the asterisk appears, those golfers won their major championship as the next tournament played on the schedule, but with a gap of one week in-between the two events.

Let's give a shout-out to Lee Trevino, too. In 1971, Trevino won the U.S. Open on June 21, the Canadian Open on July 4 and the British Open on July 10. Not only did he win the Canadian and British Opens back-to-back, but he won the U.S., Canadian and British Opens in a four-week period. And Trevino remains the only golfer to win all three of those national championships in the same PGA Tour season.

And also note that while the PGA Championship, Masters and British Open all have winners who won the previous week, there has never been a golfer who won on the PGA Tour one week and then won the U.S. Open the following week.

Compare the above list to the list of golfers who've won a major and won the next week on the PGA Tour.

Photo credit: "File:Phil Mickelson 20.jpg" by Peetlesnumber1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0