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The 15 best PGA Championships, ranked

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 15 May 2020 00:54:29 +0000

By Shane Ryan
In a world without COVID-19, the PGA Championship would have been played this week at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco (it has been rescheduled for Aug. 6-9), which makes now as good a time as any to remember the best iterations of the major that began in 1916 when England’s Jim Barnes beat Scotland’s Jock Hutchison 1-up in the final match to win the first Wannamaker Trophy. Rather than take on that task myself, though, I thought it would be more fun—and more accurate—to bring in PGA of America historian Bob Denney.

There is probably no man on the planet who has a better perspective for this particular question, and the rankings you see below are mostly his, with an occasional (but rare) thumb-on-the-scale from me … and only in cases where we neglected to talk about a Championship or two. Aside from those anomalies, what you see below comes from Denney—I’m just the transcriber.

Let’s count it down from 15.

15. 1955, Doug Ford, Meadowbrook Country Club

This one is mostly about personal achievement. From 1916 until 1957, the PGA Championship was decided by match play, with stroke-play qualification rounds starting in 1924. In that time, only four men were both medalists (for winning the stroke-play rounds) and overall champions. They included Byron Nelson, Walter Hagen, Olin Dutra and Doug Ford in ’55. Of those, Ford was the only one who managed it in a field of 128 golfers, meaning he had to win a 36-hole qualifier and then prevail in six straight matches. He pulled it off, capping the incredible week with a 4-and-3 win over Cary Middlecoff in the final. As it happens, Denney was the last person to interview Ford before he passed in 2018 at age 95.

14. 1963, Jack Nicklaus, Dallas Athletic Club

Nobody has won more PGA Championships than Nicklaus and Walter Hagen (with five each), and this was Jack’s first. He won the long drive contest that week, hitting 341 yards with a persimmon-headed driver, and the gold money clip he won became his good luck charm starting that week. He was also exhausted, having just flown in from the Open Championship where he finished one-shot out of a playoff after bogeying his the last two holes. Somehow, with temperatures in the triple digits on Sunday in Texas, Nicklaus came from three strokes back to win. That made him just the fourth player to have won all three American majors, and he was only 23. Safe to say he had a good career ahead of him.

13. 1921, Walter Hagen, Inwood Country Club

Photo by E. Bacon

This was the first American-born player to win the PGA Championship run by the PGA of … AMERICA. We have to include this, right? Right?!? Anyway, Hagen is a legend, but the real story here is that in the final, he defeated a man named Johnny Golden from Tuxedo, N.Y. Tell me that’s a real person, and not a character from a Michael Scott improve scene.

12. 1945, Byron Nelson, Moraine Country Club

Photo by Bettmann

As Denney pointed out, this was the ninth victory of Nelson’s famous 11-victory streak in 1945, at a time when he was burning out to a great degree. This was the only major championship played that year because of World War II (bad luck for Nelson, right??), and in the championship match, he defeated Sam Byrd, who had played for the Yankees as a backup outfielder from 1929 to 1934 as a reserve to none other than Babe Ruth. Which makes him one of the few people who could say to Nelson, “I’ve lost to better men than you,” and have it be true. This was a different era, but there was still a ton of pressure on Nelson … imagine winning almost every tournament played that year, but losing the only major.

11. 1942, Sam Snead, Seaview Country Club

This was Snead’s last event before joining the U.S. Navy—he would report for duty the next day. As it happened, he met an army corporal named Jim Turnesa in the final, and Turnesa was no slouch, having upset Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson in the quarters and semis. Snead won on the 35th hole by chipping in from 60 feet for birdie, and Denney noted there’s a photo of both men signing war bonds from after the round. Snead said at the time, and later repeated in Denney’s hearing, that it was his most meaningful victory because like many other Americans at that time, he didn’t know what the war might bring. (He never went overseas, serving mostly in San Diego before earning a medical discharge in 1944.)

10. 1968, Julius Boros, Pecan Valley Golf Club

This course no longer exists, but Boros’ record does—52 years later, he’s still the oldest man to ever win a major. Boros was 48, and it didn’t come easy. Arnold Palmer, a shot behind him, hit a spectacular curving 3-wood on the 72nd hole to eight feet, but couldn’t make the birdie putt. Boros had to make par, and went up and down to seal the deal. Also, as a footnote, Boros’ choice of hat that Sunday (Amana Refrigeration) seems to have accidentally spawned the clothing logo craze we know and hate today.

9. 2001, David Toms, Atlanta Athletic Club

“The layup to remember.” This one flies under the radar because it came one year after a certain other entry we’ll see later on the list, but the ending was spectacular. Dueling with a then major-less Phil Mickelson all day (Phil holed a dramatic long chip on 15 before giving it right back with a bogey on 16), and leading by a single stroke on the 72nd hole, Toms put his tee shot in the rough. Rather than risk the water on the par-4 home hole (playing a tick over 500 yards that day), he laid up and prayed for his short game to save him. His wedge came to rest 12 feet from the hole, and when Phil missed his birdie putt, Toms had his moment. Start at the 11:50 mark here for the layup and all that came after:

Afterward, Denney was the one who escorted Toms from the green to the trailer, and Toms was on the phone with his young son, saying, “Did you see that one?”

8. 1986, Bob Tway, Inverness Club

The next two entries belong in the long litany of Greg Norman heartbreaks, and this one comes from the year when he became the first man to lead every single major after 54 holes in a single year … and won just one of them. In this case, he held a four-shot lead heading into Sunday and still held it after nine holes before going into a tailspin. But in typical Norman fashion, he got very unlucky too. That twist came on the 72nd hole, when Tway, in the worse position of the two and tied with Norman, holed-out improbably from a greenside bunker. Norman, on the fringe, missed his birdie putt, and it was another chance gone. Watch Tway’s shot, one of the most famous in major history:

That’s some good leaping!

7. 1993, Paul Azinger, Inverness Club

Paul Azinger claims his one and only major at Inverness Club in 1993. (Photo by David Cannon)

This one actually went in Denney’s top five, but I’m being a jerk and knocking it back a few spots … but only because Denney admits he’s a bit biased. It was the first PGA Championship he worked, and he watched as Azinger emerged from “the greatest assembly of contenders on a Saturday leader board,” a group that collectively boasted 23 majors. Just like Bob Tway, Azinger overcame Norman, though this time Norman was very good, with a final-round 69. That’s the thing about Norman—when he wasn’t booting a major, he was the victim of terrible luck. In this case, Azinger had to birdie four of the last seven holes just to make a playoff, and then Norman missed a four-foot par putt on the second sudden-death hole to lose it. With the loss, Norman earned a dubious distinction, becoming just the second golfer after Craig Wood to have lost each of the four majors in a playoff. The legacy with Azinger is happier—it was his only major, but it opened up the chance for him to become a Ryder Cup captain back when winning the PGA was seen as an unwritten prerequisite for the Americans. He got the job in 2008, and was brilliant, providing one of the few bright spots for the U.S. in the past 40 years.

6. 1961, Jerry Barber, Olympia Fields

Let’s put it this way: If the last three holes of Barber’s Sunday round happened today, social media would cease to exist—it would be too overwhelming for all the 1s and 0s to process. Here’s how Denney described what Barber, who stood all of 5’3”, pulled off starting on the 16th hole, to force a tie with Don January:

On the 16th, a 458-yard par 4, he hit a 4-wood to 20 feet and made the birdie. On 17, he topped his drive and watched it roll barely 100 yards. Another 4-wood brought him within 90 yards of the green, but his approach was mediocre, leaving him with a 40-foot putt for par. He nailed it. Then, needing a birdie on the 436-yard 18th, in near darkness, he hit a 3-iron approach 60 feet away…AND MADE THAT PUTT TOO.

Barber came back in the 18-hole playoff the next day and beat January by a stroke on the 18th by hitting a 3-iron from the sand to 18 feet. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, he also became the oldest major winner ever at age 45 … a record that wouldn’t stand for very long. (Lucky for January, he won a PGA in 1967, and thank God, because that is a brutal way to go down.)

5. 2009, Y.E. Yang, Hazeltine National

Y.E. Yang acknowledges the fans as he walks up the 18th hole during the final round of the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National, runner-up Tiger Woods trailing behind him. Yang was the first Asian-born golfer to win a men’s major. (Photo by Icon Sports Wire)

It seems almost unfair to say this, but Yang’s win is more exciting after the fact than it was at the time. I was never the No. 1 Tiger homer, but I remember that Sunday at Hazeltine feeling like the ultimate anticlimax, a slow energy drain as we realized that Tiger would fail. What Yang pulled off is beyond incredible—the first (and still only) Asian-born golfer to win a men’s major, and the first person to beat Tiger at a major when Woods had a 54-hole lead. It’s the ultimate underdog story, but what we remember most is Tiger’s struggles that day and, of course, the worse struggles waiting for him just three months down the road. So let this be my attempt to right the wrongs: Yang was a monster that day, and made history in two indelible ways. He deserves to be thought of as more than just Tiger’s foil.

4. 1923, Gene Sarazen, Pelham Country Club

There are a lot of good reasons not have a match-play major championship, but then again, you could get the kind of action we got in 1923 when Sarazen met Walter Hagen in the championship match. You could make a good argument that this was the best match ever played, according to Denney, and it was dramatic until the finish. Sarazen actually blew a 2-up lead with three to play, Hagen sent it to extra holes, they birdied the 37th, and on the 38th, a drivable par 4, Hagen got in a bunker and couldn’t get out. (Again, imagine social media.) It’s worth noting that Hagen responded by going on one of the great revenge tears, winning the next four PGA Championships and three more Open Championships for good measure. Also worth noting that both men remain in the record books for the most holes playing in a single event as every match was a scheduled 36 holes—Sarazen played 194, Hagen 188.

3. 2014, Rory McIlroy, Valhalla

I was thrilled when Denney had this in his top five, because my own personal bias was likely to land it there anyway. I followed Rory that day, and the way he ignored Mickelson and Fowler on the sixth tee box (rain delays had stacked the groups up), almost creating a force field of energy around himself as he glared at nothing, was one of the most fierce and hostile acts I’d ever witnessed in this very polite sport. The ending is what everyone will remember—Rory playing on Rickie and Phil’s heels in the darkness, hitting a controversial approach shot before they had finished that privately left Phil fuming—and it was every bit the epic to Rory’s brilliant season. But the real story for me will always be one of the greatest golfers of his generation out-willing his rivals because he’d allow for no other outcome than a win. It’s made more special because, six years later, it remains the last time we saw that level of defiant greatness.

2. 2000, Tiger Woods, Valhalla

Are you steaming with rage that the Tiger-Bob May duel is only No. 2? Hang on to your hat, because there are a lot of nice things to say about it. Denney called it “the greatest modern shot-making duel” (distinguishing it from Henrik Stenson-Phil Mickelson, 2016 British Open at Troon, which he called a “scoring duel”), and “easily the best modern-era playoff.” My personal hot take is that May’s pitch on the first playoff hole followed by Tiger nailing his birdie putt is the greatest two-shot sequence I’ve ever seen, considering the circumstances. You can see those, and the rest of the staggering face-off, here:

One interesting side note from Denney: According to Ron Hickman, a rules official who was on the course at the time, Ken Venturi was wrong when he said that someone might have interfered with Tiger’s drive on 18, sending it to a better position. Per Hickman, who watched the ball, nobody touched it, and it was only a fortunate carom.

1. 1991, John Daly, Crooked Stick

You’re still mad about Tiger, aren’t you? Well shake it off, because this is one of the greatest golf stories ever, and that’s what it would take to usurp Tiger v. May. John Daly only made it into this tournament because nine—NINE—people dropped out, and Denney told me that when the PGA of America official called Daly to tell him he was in (at 5 p.m. on Wednesday), Daly was in Memphis and had to drive seven and a half hours to Indianapolis. Nick Price was one of the ones who dropped out, so Daly hired his caddie, Jeff (Squeaky) Medlen. They had never worked together before, and after seeing Daly’s swing, Medlen’s advice was simple: “Kill it.” Daly did, but did a lot more than just bomb on the tough Pete Dye course. He took the lead in the second round and never let it go, finishing at 12 under for the most shocking major-championship victory … ever? Daly has become an infamous character, iconic in his own way, but back then he was beyond unknown. This is the tournament that birthed the legend.

Photo by Stephen Munday

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Into his 80s, Gary Player remains an underrated and unappreciated treasure

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 05:03:29 +0000

By Joel Beall

Gary Player’s stature in golf is unapproachable. Players of his caliber come once a generation, the type of artistry that transcends the constraints of time. He’s a globetrotter, an activist, a visionary, a gentleman. Everything the sport wants out of its stars.

In short, Player should be viewed as a treasure of the game.

But he’s not, and it’s a crime.

Certainly most know Player as a great performer. Conversely, when discussing the upper echelon, “Mt. Rushmore” classification of golf’s best, Player is often on the outside looking in.

His resume begs to differ. He was just the third person to win the career Grand Slam. Only Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Walter Hagen own more major victories. Player boasts over 160 professional wins across the world.

More importantly are his contributions off the course. As an architect or designer, Player has had a hand in over 300 golf layouts. He’s a pioneer in the fitness, diet and health realms. The Player Foundation, which focuses on aiding disadvantaged children, has been going strong for 30 years.

So why isn’t Player held in the same breath as Nicklaus, Palmer, Hogan and Jones?

He didn’t have the charisma of Palmer, the audacity of Nicklaus, the steel reserve of Hogan. He was a surgeon, meticulous in nature, staying the course while others faltered. A disposition that makes for a complete golfer, but a hard sell to galleries.

Some of the blame resides at the feet of Player. His Napoleon complex is infamous; it’s been said that Player will never miss an opportunity to tell you how good he is. While it’s cooled down in his later years, that sentiment is still on display.

In most athletics, that demeanor is common. But in golf, one is supposed to be humble, deferential, modest. No one ever accused Player of these traits.

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Two on-course controversies haven’t helped his image. He was accused by Tom Watson of cheating, moving a growing leaf…in a Skins Game. There is also the belief that Player’s caddie made an illegal drop of a lost ball at the 1974 British Open on the penultimate hole; since, an apocryphal story has existed that the original ball was been found and is sitting in a safe at Royal Lytham.

While the validity of the tale is in question, cheating is a scarlet letter in golf. It’s a blemish that can never be wiped clean.

Then there are external positions that have lacerated Player’s standing.

Historically, golf has been an exclusive, restrictive sport. A sense of xenophobia needs to be accounted for. That Player was competing against crowd favorites Palmer and Nicklaus often made him the de facto villain.

Worse, Player came from South Africa during the time of apartheid. He was seen as an extension of this byzantine, inhumane system. That America was dealing with its own civil rights issues was conveniently swept under the rug.

This last part is particularly tragic, because Player has been one of the more outspoken champions of diversity in golf. Outside of Tiger Woods, no golfer has done more to open closed doors to the game.

Getty Images

Certainly no one is perfect, but, in performance and personality, the good far outweighs the bad when discussing Gary Player. He remains the epitome of health even as he turns 82 on Nov. 1, 2017. He continues to be an ambassador for golf. He brings up matters that most are afraid to touch.

In American culture, we tend to have a revisionist and selective memory towards eminence, remembering the triumphs and brushing away the failures. For Player, the inverse has been true.

Gary Player is a legend in every sense of the word. It’s time we treat him as such.

Editor’s Note: This story was first published on Gary Player’s 80th birthday in 2015.

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How Jordan Spieth’s Grand Slam pursuit stacks up to the 5 who have done it—and the 5 who came closest

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 12:39:41 +0000

By Alex Myers
The modern career Grand Slam in men’s golf is something that has only been achieved by five golfers: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. If you didn’t know this by now, you certainly will have it memorized within 30 minutes of watching this year’s PGA Championship. That’s because most all of the attention will be on Jordan Spieth as he attempts to become the youngest player to join this elite group. How does Spieth’s pursuit of history compare with those who came before him? Here’s a look back at the five who did it — and the five others who came close, but never (“haven’t” in the case of one) quite got there.

THE “BIG” FIVE

Gene Sarazen
Major titles: 7 — PGA Championship (3), U.S. Open (2), Masters (1), British Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 2
The Squire’s “shot heard ‘round the world” at the 1935 Masters – an albatross on the 15th hole during the final round – also made him the first player to complete the modern Grand Slam. He nearly did it as quickly as possible considering the inaugural Masters was played just the year before. Not that he realized what he had done. The concept of a modern Grand Slam has been traced to Arnold Palmer trying to win the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship the same year after he began 1960 with wins at the Masters and U.S. Open. So really, all the players on these lists who came before Palmer didn’t have the added pressure of knowing they were trying to complete the modern career Grand Slam.

Ben Hogan
Major titles: 9 – U.S. Open (4), Masters (2), PGA Championship (2), British Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 1
Hogan won at Carnoustie in 1953, which was his only trip to the British Open. The victory was part of a historic campaign in which he also won the Masters and U.S. Open. Hogan might have just won the entire Grand Slam in one year, but that year’s British Open overlapped with the PGA Championship. Tiger Woods is the only other male golfer to win three modern majors in the same season.

Gary Player
Major titles: 9 – Masters (3), British Open (3), PGA Championship (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 3
Player completed the slam at 29 by winning an 18-hole playoff over Kel Nagle at Bellerive Country Club. The South African, who remains the only international golfer to pull off the feat, would win five more majors, but this was his final U.S. Open title.

Jack Nicklaus
Major titles: 18 – Masters (6), PGA Championship (5), U.S. Open (4), British Open (3)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 3
Just one year after Gary Player became the third golfer to complete the slam, Nicklaus made it a foursome at the 1966 British Open at Muirfield. Nicklaus would complete the slam two more times in his illustrious career.

Tiger Woods
Major titles: 14 – Masters (4), PGA Championship (4), U.S. Open (3), British Open (3)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 1
Woods completed the career slam during his legendary 2000 campaign with an eight-shot victory at St. Andrews. He would also win that year’s PGA Championship and the 2001 Masters to make him the only player to hold all four major trophies at the same time. Although Tiger didn’t technically pull off the calendar slam, the feat was dubbed the “Tiger Slam.”

RELATED: Assessing Jordan Spieth’s Grand Slam chances

Keystone

THE “CLOSE” FIVE

(Note: We’re not counting Walter Hagen, who racked up 11 majors — 5 PGAs, 4 British Opens and 2 U.S. Opens — but never won the Masters, because he was well past his prime when the Masters was founded in 1934. And of course, Masters co-founder Bobby Jones, who won what were considered the four biggest golf tournaments at the time — the original Grand Slam of the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Amateur and British Open — in 1930, doesn’t make either of these lists at no fault of his own. When Jones retired, he had 13 major titles on his resume, but now he’s only credited with seven. Again, we’re talking about the modern Grand Slam.)

Tom Watson
Major titles: 8 – British Open (5), Masters (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 24
Closest call(s): T-2 at 1978 PGA Championship
Four years before his lone U.S. Open win is when Watson actually had his best shot at winning the PGA, so he wasn’t in position to complete the slam yet. However, that doesn’t make what happened any less painful as Watson blew a five-shot lead after 54 holes and lost in a playoff to John Mahaffey. Of his 24 attempts at the PGA after winning his third major, his best finish was a solo fifth in 1993.

RANKING: Which current players perform the best in the four majors?

Arnold Palmer
Major titles: 7 – Masters (4), British Open (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 34
Closest call(s): T-2 at 1964, 1968, and 1970 PGA Championships
The King never quite ruled all four major championships, coming up just short of claiming the Wanamaker Trophy on three occasions. He came the closest at the 1968 PGA at San Antonio’s Pecan Valley Golf Club when he slashed a 3-wood from the rough to about eight feet on the final hole, but missed the putt. Julius Boros, 48, won by a shot to become the oldest major champ ever — a record that still stands.

Sam Snead
Major titles: 7 – Masters (3), PGA Championship (3), British Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 23
Closest call(s): Four runner-ups at U.S. Open
Snead’s most heartbreaking losses at the U.S. Open came before he had secured titles in the other three majors. In 1937, he triple bogeyed the final hole when par would have won, and 10 years later, he missed a two-footer to lose to Lew Worsham in a playoff. But Snead also nearly completed the slam in his first chance, finishing T-2 at the 1949 U.S. Open after he had won that year’s Masters.

Lee Trevino
Major titles: 6 – U.S. Open (2), British Open (2), PGA Championship (2)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 16
Closest call(s): None
Trevino made it clear he was never a big fan of either Augusta National’s co-founder, Cliff Roberts, or the course itself. And it showed. In 20 career starts at the Masters, Trevino never finished better than T-10, and he even skipped the event four times during his prime.

Byron Nelson
Major titles: 6 – Masters (2), PGA Championship (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 1
Closest call(s): None
Nelson never won the British Open because he basically never played in it. After finishing fifth in his debut in 1937, Nelson only competed in the event one more time — his only time after winning the other three majors — in 1955, when he finished T-32. This wasn’t that unusual at the time. As mentioned, Hogan only played in one British Open, and Arnold Palmer is largely credited for making the event popular with American players.

Phil Mickelson
Major titles: 5 – Masters (3), British Open (1), PGA Championship (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam:
Closest call(s): Has a record SIX runner-ups at the U.S. Open
Mickelson’s numerous close calls at the national championship have been well documented, but the one that hurts the most came at Winged Foot in 2006. With a one-shot lead on the 72nd hole, Mickelson made a double bogey, handing the title to Geoff Ogilvy. Mickelson’s Grand Slam hopes remain alive, but at 47, he’s running out of chances. That’s what made his decision to skip the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills for his daughter’s high school graduation such a big story.

And now there are two golfers in their primes, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, who are just one major away from completing the career Grand Slam. So far, McIlroy, 28, is 0-for-3 at the Masters since winning the third leg at the 2014 British Open, but he’s finished in the top 10 in each try, and he has the benefit of trying to complete the task on the same course each year — a place where he was the 54-hole leader in 2011 when he was just 21.

Spieth, who just turned 24, will face a rotating target of tracks at the PGA starting with the 2017 edition at Quail Hollow, but he’ll have even longer to finish this feat than McIlroy. Not that either should need much time if they’re going to do it. The five guys who have completed the career Grand Slam needed an average of just two attempts to get it done. Regardless, throw in an aging Mickelson and we’ve now got three of the four majors where the career Grand Slam will be a big topic of conversation. And it could be a fun thing to talk about for years to come — well, fun to talk about for everyone other than the three trying to achieve it.

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