PGA Championship
The PGA Championship is one of the four major championships in golf and it’s the only one these four competitions which does not explicitly invite amateurs to participate. It’s also the only major to reserve twenty places in the field for club professionals who qualify from the PGA Professional Championship. Organized by the PGA of America, this annual event is limited to 156 players.
It began as a match play tournament in 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in New York (with Englishman Jim Barnes receiving $500 and a diamond-studded gold medal for his win) and this format of knock-out competition continued until the 39th edition in 1957. From then on, the championship changed to the tried and trusted arrangement of four rounds of stroke play golf over four days.
Rodman Wanamaker, heir to a New York department store empire, was instrumental in establishing the PGA and he put up the $2,500 prize money for the inaugural contest, along with a magnificent silver cup – The Wanamaker Trophy – which stands 28 inches high, 10.5 inches in diameter, 27 inches from handle to handle and weighs in at 27 pounds.
Walter Hagen won the PGA for four straight years between 1924 and 1927 but, after he was beat in the quarter final in 1928, he was forced to admit that he didn’t have the trophy. The story goes that he’d lost it celebrating his 7th major championship win at the 1925 PGA in Olympia Fields by jumping out of a taxi at a nightclub in Chicago and leaving the Wanamaker Trophy behind. It turned up a few years later in Detroit in an unmarked case at L.A. Young & Company, the firm that made Hagen’s clubs.
Hagen’s five-time success rate in six finals is the record number of ...
The PGA Championship is one of the four major championships in golf and it’s the only one these four competitions which does not explicitly invite amateurs to participate. It’s also the only major to reserve twenty places in the field for club professionals who qualify from the PGA Professional Championship. Organized by the PGA of America, this annual event is limited to 156 players.
It began as a match play tournament in 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in New York (with Englishman Jim Barnes receiving $500 and a diamond-studded gold medal for his win) and this format of knock-out competition continued until the 39th edition in 1957. From then on, the championship changed to the tried and trusted arrangement of four rounds of stroke play golf over four days.
Rodman Wanamaker, heir to a New York department store empire, was instrumental in establishing the PGA and he put up the $2,500 prize money for the inaugural contest, along with a magnificent silver cup – The Wanamaker Trophy – which stands 28 inches high, 10.5 inches in diameter, 27 inches from handle to handle and weighs in at 27 pounds.
Walter Hagen won the PGA for four straight years between 1924 and 1927 but, after he was beat in the quarter final in 1928, he was forced to admit that he didn’t have the trophy. The story goes that he’d lost it celebrating his 7th major championship win at the 1925 PGA in Olympia Fields by jumping out of a taxi at a nightclub in Chicago and leaving the Wanamaker Trophy behind. It turned up a few years later in Detroit in an unmarked case at L.A. Young & Company, the firm that made Hagen’s clubs.
Hagen’s five-time success rate in six finals is the record number of match play PGA wins by any professional but he doesn’t hold the greatest margin of victory in a final. That honour belongs to Paul Runyans, who retained his title against Sam Snead by a score of 8&7 at The Shawnee Inn & Golf Resort in 1938. Snead would later go on to win the event three times between 1942 and 1951.
In the stroke play era, Jack Nicklaus also won the PGA five times, from 1963 to 1980, finishing in the runner-up position another four times. Only twelve editions of the stroke play championships had been claimed by a non-American player before Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland lifted the trophy on the Ocean course at Kiawah Island in 2012, recording a record eight-stroke victory against the field.
Most of the PGA Championship venues are located on the east side of the United States. Three states in this part of the country have been used for around a third of the events – New York (13), Ohio (11) and Pennsylvania (9) –while the Mountain and Pacific Divisions in the west have only ever hosted a total of ten PGAs at eight different clubs. Southern Hills in Oklahoma has held four tournaments, which is one more than seven other clubs.
In the list below, you’ll not find courses at the following three venues as they no longer exist: Fresh Meadow and Pomonock Country Club in Flushing, New York (1930 and 1939 respectively); and Pecan Valley Golf Club in San Antonio, Texas (1968).
Also absent from our list are: Cedar Crest (1927), Hermitage now Belmont (1949), Salisbury (now the Red course at Eisenhower Park) (1926) and Seaview (Pines) (1942).
PGA Championship host courses
Atlanta Athletic Club (Highlands)
6th
The Highlands course is invariably considered to be the premier layout at Atlanta Athletic Club and the 1976 US Open was played on this course.
BallenIsles (East)
97th
Extending to over 1,300 acres, the beautifully landscaped BallenIsles housing complex is laid out around the three top drawer golf courses named North, South and East.
Baltimore (East)
1st


Although the club was inaugurated in 1898, the East course at Baltimore Country Club was designed by the great genius of golf course architecture, A.W. Tillinghast and it opened for play in 1926.
Baltusrol (Lower)
5th
Baltusrol Golf Club takes its name from Mr Baltus Roll who once farmed this land in the 19th century before his untimely murder.
Bethpage (Black)
7th



The Bethpage Black course really is as difficult and penal as the high slope rating suggests. It’s not for the faint hearted.
Big Spring
5th
Host to the PGA Championship in 1952, the course at Big Spring Country Club has been altered a number of times down the years by the likes of William Diddel, Larry Packard, Arthur Hills and, most recently, Rees Jones in 2004.
Birmingham Country Club
26th
Host venue for the PGA Championship in 1953 and the US Women’s Amateur in 1968, the course at Birmingham Country Club was laid out by the prolific Tom Bendelow in 1920, four years after the club’s formation.
Blue Hill (Championship)
48th
The Championship course at Blue Hill Country Club is a 1925 Skip Wogan design that Ron Prichard lovingly restored in 2003. Keeping it in the family, the architect’s son Phil also laid out the club’s 9-hole Challenger course in 1961.
PGA Championship Leaderboard
Rank | Name | Courses Played |
---|---|---|
1 | Paul Rudovsky |
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2 | Mark White |
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= | Joseph Andriole |
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4 | James VanArsdall |
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5 | David Harak |
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6 | Joshua Asher |
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= | Bob McCoy |
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8 | James Gold |
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9 | Fergal O'Leary |
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10 | Steve Starika |
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