The Black Sheep of the Majors
August is seen by many as marking the end of summer. That probably comes from having children and looking toward the beginning of a new school year. Not that many years ago August was seen as marking the end of the professional golf season as well. This month, the PGA will hold the 90th PGA Championship at Oakland Hills Country Club outside of Detroit.
Not that many years ago, the PGA Championship was thought by some to be losing its luster as the fourth major. I don’t think there is any doubt that it ranks lowest of the four. People may argue about which of the other three is best, most prominent, or their personal favorite. But I don’t recall reading or hearing one of those lists that has the PGA ranked anywhere but fourth. It occasionally benefits from being the last of the four on the calendar when someone wins all of the first three. But that rarely occurs.
Anyway, the PGA made a concerted effort to upgrade their site selection for the championship and the courses are usually very similar to those selected by the USGA for the U.S. Open. Television coverage of golf used to fall off dramatically after the PGA Championship. About the only thing covered after the PGA not that many years ago was the old World Series of Golf at Firestone Country Club. At that time, the World Series of Golf was contested by only the winners of each of the four majors that year.
Now, you can hardly say that the PGA signals the end of the year. Especially with the three FedEx Cup tournaments and the Tour Championship that follow with prize money at $7 million for each of them, the season is hardly over in August anymore. In 1916 a department store magnate named Rodman Wanamaker hosted a meeting of professional golfers at which the idea of a Professional Golfers’ Association of America and their own tournament was conceived. The first PGA Championship was played in 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, N.Y. Wanamaker provided the trophy and the initial purse of $2,580 for the match-play event.
The PGA Championship retained the match-play format until 1958 when it was changed to a stroke-play event. But its original match-play format provided much of its unique history. Walter Hagen won five PGA championships in the match-play era, including four in a row from 1924 through 1927. Hagen was also in the 1923 final match against Gene Sarazen that is considered by golf historians to be one of golf ’s greatest matches. Hagen had rallied to tie the 36-hole match by winning the 29th, 34th and 35th holes. The last hole was halved, sending the match into extra holes. On the second extra hole, Sarazen hit his tee shot into heavy rough, just inches from an out-of-bounds fence. With a crowd gathered around him, Sarazen was heard by spectators to say, “I’ll put this one up so close to the hole that it will break Walter’s heart,” which he did.
In what has been described as one of the most magnificent shots ever played in championship golf, he dropped the ball just short of the pin and it came to rest just inches from the hole and a certain birdie. Hagen bunkered his approach and his last-gasp effort to tie Sarazen out of the bunker stopped inches short of the hole. Jack Nicklaus has added to PGA Championship lore by tying Hagen’s record of five wins as well as having four runner-up finishes.
The Golden Bear won his first in 1963 at the age of 23. Just back from a third place finish, one stroke out of a playoff at the British Open, he overcame a three stroke deficit to beat Bruce Crampton in the final round. Professional golf ’s reigning dominant player, Tiger Woods, made PGA Championship history in 2000 at Valhalla, outside of Louisville. He had become the fifth-youngest winner of the Wanamaker Trophy the previous year, out-lasting a 19-year-old Sergio Garcia at Madinah.
In 2000 he became the first back-to-back winner of the PGA since Denny Schute in 1936-1937 by defeating Bob May in a three-hole playoff. One of the other times the tournament was held at this year’s venue, in 1972, Gary Player produced the “miracle at Oakland Hills.” After making consecutive bogeys and then slicing his tee shot on the 16th in the final round, Player appeared to have little chance of winning. From where his ball lay, Player couldn’t see the flag stick. He borrowed a chair from someone in the gallery and stood on it to line up his shot. He then hit a spectacular recovery; a 9-iron that barely cleared the trees and a lake, rolling to within four feet of the hole. He sank his birdie putt and won his second PGA with pars on the final two holes. I’ve been lucky enough to see three PGA Championships in person.
In 1991 my business travel schedule miraculously found me in the Indianapolis area the exact same week that the PGA was held at Crooked Stick Country Club. I took advantage of this lucky break and witnessed the emergence of a new tour superstar in John Daly, that year’s shocking winner. Without looking up the statistics, I’m not sure if Daly has had more wins than wives since then, but I can say I was there when it all began. The very next year, 1992, was Nick Price’s win at Bellerive Country Club. Thank goodness the St. Louis area has at least one course deemed worthy of holding big tournaments. Bellerive has also hosted the men’s Senior U.S. Open recently and will host the BMW Championship this September as part of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Of the three PGAs I’ve seen, though, the 2004 tournament at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisconsin was the most spectacular.
Vejay Singh won in a threeway playoff, but what I remember most vividly is the golf course. Whistling Straits is truly one of the most beautiful golf courses anywhere. It is a mostly links design perched on cliffs overlooking Lake Michigan. And it is great for viewing a tournament because of the hundreds of grass-covered sand dunes. They provide wonderful views for the spectators without the “contrived” feeling of “spectator mounds” found at stadium courses. Set right next to Whistling Straits, on the inland side, is the Irish Course. It was closed during the tournament but I had a lot of fun walking some of those holes as well.
The 2010 PGA Championship returns to Whistling Straits. It is not a bad drive from our metro area. When we went in 2004, we stayed in Milwaukee and Kohler is only about an hour to the north. Masters tickets keep getting more expensive and harder to get.
The U.S. Open schedule doesn’t have any Midwestern sites on it in the near future. International travel gets more and more expensive with rising fuel costs and poor exchange rates, so the British Open is not a viable option for most. The PGA Championship is our best bet to see a major championship in person. It may be in August, but it’s still a major.
