PGA Championship

PGA Championship, one of the world’s four major golf tournaments (along with the Masters Tournament, the U.S. Open, and the British Open [officially the Open Championship]). Run by the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA of America), it is a major media event played on a different American course each year and routinely features the best players in the world. It has been held, with some exceptions, each year since 1916. In addition to sizable prize money, the winner of the tournament receives a lifetime invitation to participate in all future PGA Championships, five-year allowances for participation in the three other major tournaments, and points toward the PGA Player of the Year Award and toward the next Ryder Cup team.

(Read Britannica’s biography of Padraig Harrington, author of this entry.)

History and notable moments

The PGA Championship was the brainchild of merchandising magnate Rodman Wanamaker. At a luncheon at the Taplow Club in New York City on January 17, 1916, before 35 enthusiasts including legendary golfers Walter Hagen and Francis Ouimet along with golf course designer A.W. Tillinghast, Wanamaker aired his vision of what golfing could be. The following month the PGA of America was formed.

The new association, believing that it needed a signature annual event, launched the PGA Championship later the same year. The first event was not the 72-hole stroke-play competition that the PGA Championship is today but instead a 36-hole elimination match-play tournament. Held at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, New York, the inaugural event featured an Englishman, James Barnes, and a Scot, Jock Hutchison, battling it out in the final round. For his victory, Barnes won $500, the Wanamaker Trophy (given to all subsequent winners of the tournament), and a diamond-studded medal contributed by Wanamaker, who was also a master jeweler, collector, and designer. The nascent tournament was then postponed for two years as a result of World War I, whereupon Barnes returned as reigning champion and won the tournament again in 1919.

Several tournament records were set in the 1920s. In 1922, 20-year-old Gene Sarazen became the youngest golfer to win the championship, and his defense of his title the following year, in which he defeated Hagen in a play-off on the 38th hole, is considered one of the classic matches in tournament history. When Sarazen played in the 1972 PGA Championship, he also became the oldest golfer ever to play the tournament. Hagen’s play in the 1920s, however, eclipsed all others and included four straight championships from 1924 through 1927.

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A Hole in One

The PGA Championship shifted from being a fall event to being a summer one in the 1930s and then adopted the 72-hole stroke-play format in 1958. In the 1960s Arnold Palmer established himself as the finest golfer never to win this coveted tournament, the only one of the four majors to elude him. Jack Nicklaus, on the other hand, won the tournament five times between 1963 and 1980 and finished in the top five a record 14 times. Tiger Woods’s series of PGA championships began in 1999, when he, then 23 years old, became the fifth youngest champion in history. He repeated as champion in 2000 and again amassed back-to-back championships in 2006 and 2007.

Padraig Harrington’s personal reflections on the PGA Championship

My victory at the 90th PGA Championship at Oakland Hills Country Club on August 10, 2008, in Bloomfield Township, Michigan—when I became the first European to win the tournament since Scotland’s Tommy Armour in 1930—is one of the highlights of my career. My chief competitors that day were Sergio García, whom I had defeated in a play-off the year before at the Open Championship to win my first major, and Ben Curtis.

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The 2008 PGA Championship occurred just three weeks after I successfully defended my Open Championship, and it was hard for me to believe that I was so quickly in contention for a third major. Fatigue and dehydration, however, were my enemies that week, and for logical reasons. First, I was still struggling to get over the excitement and events surrounding my second Open Championship win. Second, the course was exceptionally difficult, leading several competitors that week to complain about the length of the rough and “unfair” pin placements. Winning championships in golf is often more of a mental feat than a physical accomplishment, and the PGA Championship that year would prove no different.

After the second round I was six shots off the lead and felt awful. I was mentally fried, and my coordination had gone. I spoke to my trainer, and, after a few questions, he decided that I must be dehydrated. This actually made me feel better, as hydration was something I could control. I immediately drank more liquids and rested as much as possible.

The third round was tough, and, due to thunderstorms, play was stopped after nine holes and delayed until Sunday morning. This was fine by me, as I could get more rest and everyone would be playing in similar conditions the next morning. I ended up shooting 66 for my third round, making me one over par for the tournament. I returned home and slept for a few hours while the leaders were still playing, and by the time I got up the leaders had finished. I was now four strokes off the lead and positioned in the second-to-last group, with Sergio and Charlie Wi, for our final round. I was in a good position to get into contention.

In the major championships, the real tournament begins on the final nine holes on Sunday. Due to my group’s finishing the third round earlier that morning, our final round did not begin until the afternoon. I started out well, making a par on the first hole and then a birdie on the second. In my mind Sergio, my playing partner, was the man to chase. On the eighth hole I hit the green in two with a good five wood, and on the ninth I made a par from the right bunker. But it still seemed like Sergio’s tournament to win, as he had played well on the front nine and made several good saves. However, the back nine was still to come.

I birdied the 10th hole after hitting an eight iron to within about 15 feet (4.6 metres) of the pin to get me to one under par. I then parred the 11th but had a bad drive on the par-five 12th. I had a risky second shot but felt at this stage that I needed to make some birdies, so I hit a big hook with a five wood around a tree. The ball hit the middle of the green and ran over the back, from where I got up and down for a birdie. This got me to one behind Sergio as he made a par. I finally caught him on the 13th but then bogeyed the next hole. Sergio hit the flagstick with his second shot on the 15th, and I hit my second shot to within about 12 feet (3.6 metres) from the pin, just beyond Sergio’s placement; we both missed and tapped in for pars, leaving me still one shot behind.

The tournament reached a critical stage on the 16th hole. After two good drives, Sergio was first to play. He was farther back than me, and his second shot landed in the water. It was a critical opening, yet in trying to play safe I pulled my eight-iron second shot into the bunker. I hit a good bunker shot, but a stone got between the clubface and the ball, causing my ball to not spin and check, which meant I was left with a long 14-foot (4.3-metre) putt for par. Sergio made a 4-foot (1.2-metre) putt for bogey. I knew this was the opportunity I had to seize. I hit a great putt and saved par, drawing even with Sergio with two holes to play.

As I walked to the 17th tee, I finally felt that the tournament was there for the taking. I hit a five iron at the pin, as did Sergio. In fact, when we walked onto the green, there were two balls close to the hole, and neither of us knew which ball was whose. In fact, mine was farthest away, which meant that I would putt first. I holed it for a birdie, while Sergio missed his putt. I now had a one-stroke lead, and I felt victory would be mine if I could simply make par on the 18th, one of the most difficult and demanding holes on the course.

Closing out a victory on the 72nd hole of a major tournament is seldom easy, and I did myself no favours as I pushed my drive and landed in a bunker. My ball was close to the bunker’s face, and I was forced into an awkward stance, so shooting for the green was out of the question. I hit an eight iron but caught it fat and landed in the rough. Fortunately, I was left with a good lie and was able to get a club on the ball. I hit a good seven iron just right of the pin to about 18 feet (5.5 metres) from the hole. Sergio had hit his drive to the right and his second stroke into the greenside bunker, from where he played to within 9 feet (2.7 metres) of the hole. As I lined up my putt, I felt this was the stroke to win the coveted Wanamaker Trophy. It was a nice putt to have, as I saw the line immediately, but it was a double breaker and one I knew would come back from the left at the very end. I hit an excellent putt, and I felt I had holed it as soon as it left the club. Watching the ball roll in is a memory for a lifetime.

Sergio bogeyed the 18th, leaving him two strokes behind me, and from the reporters’ hut I watched Ben Curtis bogey the 17th, which meant he needed an eagle on the 18th hole to catch me. Once his second shot came to a stop on the green, a third victory in a major tournament was mine. I was PGA Champion, and the exhilaration I felt is still hard to describe.