List of world number one male golfers

The following is a list of golfers who have been top of the Official World Golf Ranking, since the rankings started on April 6, 1986. As of February 1, 2026, Scottie Scheffler is the number one ranked golfer.
The rankings are calculated each week based on finishing positions in individual tournaments over a "rolling" two-year period with a maximum of 52 tournaments and a minimum divisor of 40 events. During 2018, nearly 400 tournaments on 20 tours were covered by the ranking system. All players competing in these tournaments are included in the rankings. In 2023, 24 tours factored into the world rankings.
A total of 25 golfers from ten countries spanning four continents have been ranked world number one. Five countries; the United States, England, Australia, Spain and Germany have had multiple world number ones. The United States has had nine golfers ranked number one, the most of any country.
Tiger Woods has spent the most consecutive weeks and most total weeks at the top of the rankings, and Tom Lehman the fewest total weeks, having spent just a single week at the top in April 1997. Four golfers have spent one or more entire calendar years atop the rankings: Nick Faldo, Greg Norman, Woods, and Scheffler. Lee Westwood and Luke Donald are the only world number one golfers to have not won a major championship.

WWW owgr.com

Number one ranked men

*	Current number one player as of February 1, 2026

Weeks at number one

Rank

Player

Weeks

Order

Majors

sortname|Tiger|Woods

Weeks at number one by country

Rank	Country	Weeks	Order	Majors	Players	Top player	First player	Latest player
1	*	1,104	6	34	9
2		393	3	4	3
3		188	4	7	4
4		122	10	5	1
5		113	2	7	2
6		50	5	1	1
7		44	7	3	1
8		32	9	3	1
9		11	1	4	2
10		9	8	4	1

Order – indicates the sequence in which the country first had a number 1 player.
Majors – number of major championships the country's world-ranked number 1 players have won throughout their golfing careers.
Players – number of players from that country who have been world-ranked number 1.
Top player – the player from that country who has spent most weeks as the world-ranked number 1 player.
First player – the player from that country who was first to be world-ranked number 1 player, left blank if that country has only one such player.
Latest player – the player from that country who was most recently world-ranked number 1 player, left blank if that country has only one such player.

Earlier number ones

Before the start of the Official World Golf Ranking in 1986, unofficial end of year world golf rankings were published by Mark McCormack in his World of Professional Golf annual from 1968 to 1985. McCormack's rankings listed Jack Nicklaus as the number one from 1968 to 1977, Tom Watson from 1978 to 1982 and Seve Ballesteros from 1983 to 1985.