I was wondering which WGT golfer has attained the most awards (out of the 309 available). There doesn't seem to be a search function for this, so I wondered if anyone knew anecdotally.
I tend to look at opponents' award count in the lulls as I am playing them. I don't think I have even seen anyone reach 200. As pointed out in other places on this forum, some of the awards seem impossible. Even though the award is cumulative, hitting the flagstick on every hole of a course is insanity, and I have never looked through an opponent's award list who has done this on any course. The "ace award" seems a tiny bit more plausible, since on St. Andrews there are only 2 par-3's, etc., but I have also never seen anyone achieve any of these. Others are impossible because of longevity (who is going to win 10,000 match play games?), or skill involved (18 birdies in a round?! 100 double eagles?), and at least one requires the best possible equipment and perfect conditions (the 400 yard drive).
And a lot of awards are for "undesirables"--a choked tee shot, balls in the sand or water, missing 1-foot putts, or having extraordinarily long putts throughout a round (necessary for attaining the high Long Distance Putter awards). If there weren't awards for these, no one would ever want them as part of their golf rounds. And some of these have incredibly high requirements for the highest awards (5,000 yips, 10,000 chokes). So these should probably also be deemed essentially "impossible".
The person who has the most awards, then, probably has to be of a high tier (you have no chance for long drives or water saves or Boom Booms with anything lower than Pro clubs), yet have a ton of mistakes on their record (yips, chokes, bunkers, water, long putts), even though they also have a mastery of their short game (consistently perfect Greens in Regulation, long holed Approach shots). And they have to be utterly obsessive about playing (to get anywhere close to any of the longevity awards), but probably not move too quickly up the tiers (because it is too hard to birdie every shot when the tees are so far back), not to mention that most obsessive WGT elites are interested in tournaments, not in building up their award count.
So who has the most?