Traditionally, the contest participants have invited family members to
caddie for them, sometimes allowing them to play shots on their behalf. Through the 2019 contest, ninety-four
holes in one have been recorded, including nine in the 2016 event.[4][5]
Snead became the contest's first multiple winner in 1974, fourteen years after his first. The most recent is
Tom Watson, who won his second Par-3 contest in 2018, 36 years after his first in 1982.
Pádraig Harrington is the only one with three wins; he won his first pair in consecutive years (2003, 2004), as did
Sandy Lyle (1997, 1998). Seven players have multiple wins; the other three are
Isao Aoki,
Jay Haas, and
David Toms.
Jimmy Walker holds the course record of 19 (–8), set in 2016, which included an
ace. The contest has been decided by a playoff on 21 occasions, and concluded with a tie twice. Just 14 of the 59 winners (including ties) are non-American. No winner of the Par-3 contest has gone on to win the Masters in the same year.[4]
Winners
Sam Snead(pictured in 1967) won the inaugural contest in 1960, and again in 1974Vijay Singh(pictured in 2007) won in 1994Sandy Lyle(pictured in 2006) won consecutive contests in 1997 and 1998Pádraig Harrington(pictured in 2007) has three contest victories; two shared and one playoff win
No player has won the Par-3 contest and the Masters in the same year, a fact well known by the players.[4][40] Raymond Floyd came the closest in the
1990 tournament, but lost in a sudden-death playoff.[41]
Ben Crenshaw and Vijay Singh are the only players to win a Masters after winning a Par-3 contest.
Tom Watson is the only player to hold both titles at once, for four days, winning the Par-3 contest in 1982 as defending Masters champion.[11]
Notes
a Par is a predetermined number of strokes that a golfer should require to complete a hole, a round (the sum of the total pars of the played holes), or a tournament (the sum of the total pars of each round). E stands for even, which means the round was completed in the predetermined number of strokes.[6]