Ahead of the 90th Masters, Action Network analyzed all the past winners of the Masters Golf Tournament since its inception in 1934 to determine what are the typical traits of the Masters winner – from average age, nationality, height, place of birth, and name to dress code during the victory and their education.
Note: In this analysis of typical characteristics of Masters winners, certain traits -like the first initial of a winner’s name or their place of birth – are counted only once per individual, even if they won multiple times, while variable characteristics such as age at the time of victory or outfit worn are recorded for each win.
AGE
The average age of the winner is 30 years old, while 28 is the median age of the winner.
Tiger Woods is the youngest winner of the tournament – when he won his first Masters in 1997, he was 21 years, 3 months and 14 days old.
Jack Nicklaus is the oldest winner of the tournament – when he won his 6th Masters in 1986, he was 46 years, 2 months and 23 days old.
21 is the average age of when the players turned professional, and 21 is also the median age of turning professional.
NATIONALITY
71.9% of the wins were secured by Americans. The United States has won 64 times. The United Kingdom (7 wins, 5 individual winners) & Spain (6 wins, 4 individual winners) are in second and third place, respectively.
Considering the fact that some players have won multiple times, Americans also hold the record for most individual wins – 39 players from the United States have won since 1934. The United Kingdom and Spain are once again in second and third place, respectively, with 5 individual winners from the UK and 4 winners from Spain.
FIRST NAME INITIAL
If winners who won multiple times are counted only once each, “B” is the most common letter of the winners first name – 7 individual winners had a name starting with “B”, which amounts to 12.3%. Namely they are: Ben Crenshaw, Ben Hogan, Bernhard Langer, Billy Casper, Bob Goalby, Bubba Watson and Byron Nelson. Byron, Bubba and Bob could be considered nicknames, but for the purpose of the analysis, the names that the players used in their golf careers were analyzed.
“C” and “J” are tied for the second most popular first name initials – 6 past winners' names started with a C and 6 with J, amounting to 10.5%: Cary Middlecoff, Claude Harmon, Craig Stadler, Craig Wood, Charles Coody and Charl Schwartzel. For J, they are: Jon Rahm, Jose Olazabal, Jordan Spieth, Jack Nicklaus, Jimmy Demaret & Jack Burke.
MONTH OF BIRTH
Amongst all of the individual winners, February and November are tied for the most common birth month of a Masters winner – 14% of the Masters champions (8 in total) were born in February and 14% in November.
Three most successful astrological signs are: Pisces (14% – 8 individual winners), Cancer (12.3% – 7 individual winners) and Virgo (10.5% – 6 individual winners).
REPEATED WINS
18 players won 2 or more times, 8 players won 3 or more times, 3 players won 4 or more times, 2 players won 5 times, and 1 player won 6 times.
CITIES AND STATES
San Diego is the only city which has produced three separate Masters champions – Billy Casper, Craig Stadler & Phil Mickelson were all born in San Diego, California.
If only the American winners are considered (and their respective states of birth), Texas has produced the most Masters champions – 9. California is the state that produced the second highest number of Masters champions – 5.
HEIGHT AND WEIGHT
The average weight of the Masters champion is 182.5lbs (=83 kg), the median weight is 185.18 lbs (=84 kg).
The average height of the Masters champion is 5 ft 11.4 in (=181.45 cm), the median height is 6 ft (=183 cm).
Ian Woosnam who won in 1991 is the shortest Masters winner – he is 5ft 4.5 inches tall (164 cm).
George Archer who won in 1969 is the tallest Masters winner – he was 6ft 5.5 inches tall (197 cm).
EDUCATION
56.1%of the winners have gone to university – 32 in total.
DRESS CODE
Due to the lack of photographs in color, unlike the rest of the analysis which goes all the way back to 1934, the dress code of the players was analyzed only from 1963. According to the results of the analysis:
77.8% of the winners (49 in total) wore short-sleeved golf polo shirts on the day of the final tournament.
61.9% of the winners (39 in total) wore plain one-color shirts / T-shirts (no motives) on the day of their final Masters win. 25.4% of the winners (16 in total) wore shirts / T-shirts with stripes. Meanwhile, white color was a component of the winner's shirt on at least 24 occasions (30.4% of winners), meaning the shirt was either entirely white or included white elements, while black and blue were incorporated into the winner's shirt 11 times each (13.9% of winners each).
Sponsorships and brand deals have become much more prevalent in the late 20th century, however, since 1963, Nike has been the most popular brand worn by the Masters champions – 17.7%of the winners (11 in total, 6 individuals) wore Nike on the day of their win. However, it has to be kept in mind that Tiger Woods who won 5 times wore Nike every time he won (1997, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2019). The other winners who wore Nike on their winning day are Rory McIlroy (2025) Scottie Scheffler (2022, 2024), Patrick Reed (2018), Charl Swartzel (2011) & Trevor Immelman (2008).
Even though it has not been worn by any of the winners in the 21st century, Lacoste was a popular choice in the second half of the 20th century and it is the second most popular brand to be worn on the winning day – 8.1%of the winners (5 in total, 4 individuals) wore Lacoste. Namely, José Maríja Olazábal (1999, 1994), Seve Ballesteros (1983), Raymond Floyd (1976) & Gay Brewer (1967)
When it comes to hats worn during the final tournament, 73% of the winners wore hats on the day of their Masters win (46 in total), while 27% did not (17 in total).
41.3% of the winners (26 in total) wore white hats while 23.8% of the winners (15) wore black hats.
You can see the data of all the individual winners below:
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METHODOLOGY
- Winners (from 1934 to 2025) of the Masters tournament were collected from the official Masters website and amended with missing information from their respective Wikipedia pages
- The dress code of the winners was analyzed only from 1963 due to the lack of photographs in colour from the 1st half of the 20th century
- The main source of the dress code analysis were the official videos of the Masters tournament on its official YouTube channel as well as Google Images
- If a given metric was not available for a player (less than 5% from the total players), that player was omitted from the analysis in that specific category and is not part of the % results
