CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A look at some of the anniversaries this year at the PGA Championship:
100 years ago (1925)
Site: Olympia Fields
Winner: Walter Hagen
Runner-up: Bill Mehlhorn
Score: 6 and 5
Winner’s share: $1,000
Noteworthy: This was the second of six straight years that Hagen won a major.
AP story: Walter Hagen has the national professional golf championship tucked away as the result of one of the most spectacular matches in the history of golf played yesterday at Olympia Fields Country Club when he defeated William Mehlhorn, 6 and 5. To win the title for the third time, Hagen played 31 holes in 114 strokes, or 10 under fours and six better than par. Hagen to win had a few breaks of luck and fought with all his skill throughout the tournament to retain his only major title.
75 years ago (1950)
Site: Scioto Country Club
Winner: Chandler Harper
Runner-up: Henry Williams
Score: 4 and 3
Winner’s share: $3,500
Noteworthy: This was the only year Harper made it as far as the quarterfinals in the PGA.
AP story: The state of Virginia can continue in a state of elation. Long used to crowing about its homered hillbilly golf champion, Sam Snead, it now has Chandler Harper, too. Harper won the national PGA title yesterday. He defeated little-known Hank Williams, 4 and 3, in the scheduled 36-hole finale over the range Scioto Country Club acres. At 36, Harper succeeded Snead as PGA king. He became the oldest player to grab the crown since Jock Hutchinson won in 1920 at the same age.
50 years ago (1975)
Site: Firestone Country Club
Winner: Jack Nicklaus
Runner-up: Bruce Crampton
Score: 70-68-67-71—276
Margin: 2 strokes
Winner’s share: $45,000
Noteworthy: Nicklaus won the Masters and PGA in 1975 and was a combined three shots behind in the other two majors.
AP story: Jack Nicklaus, the greatest player of his age and perhaps the finest this ancient game has ever produced, methodically turned back challenging Bruce Crampton with a 1-over-par 71 and acquired an incredible 16th major golf title Sunday by winning the 57th PGA National Championship. Nicklaus, who now has only his own records to break, led all the way on the hot, humid, hazy day and won this one by two strokes over Australian Crampton with a 276 total. That’s four strokes below par on the vast, sprawling acres of the famed Firestone Country Club course, 7,180 yards of rolling Ohio countryside that, through the years, has served as Nicklaus’ happiest hunting grounds. He’s now collected, $374,830 in winnings from events on this course alone.
25 years ago (2000)
Site: Valhalla Golf Club
Winner: Tiger Woods
Runner-up: Bob May
Score: 66-67-70-67—270
Margin: Playoff.
Winner’s share: $900,000
Noteworthy: Woods and Jack Nicklaus played in the same group for the first time at a major.
AP story: Tiger Woods finally got a fight to the finish. All summer long, he had been winning major championships with frightening ease. Fifteen strokes in the U.S. Open. Eight strokes in the British Open. He was no less spectacular Sunday in the PGA Championship, when he had to reach down and battle back against a player few people even knew until their thrilling drama unfolded on the back nine of Valhalla Golf Club. When it was over, the legend grew. In a fitting conclusion to perhaps the greatest summer of golf, Woods birdied the last two holes in regulation and won the PGA Championship in a playoff over Bob May to become the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year. Both made five birdies, two sensational par saves and had a 31 on the back nine. Woods outlasted May by taking only three putts in the three-hole playoff, the last one a 2-foot par putt for his third consecutive major.
20 years ago (2005)
Site: Baltusrol Golf Club (Lower)
Winner: Phil Mickelson
Runners-up: Steve Elkington and Thomas Bjorn.
Score: 67-65-72-72—276
Margin: 1 shot
Winner’s share: $1,170,000
Noteworthy: Mickelson was the first player since Bob Tway in 1986 to win the PGA by one shot with a birdie on the last hole.
AP story: Phil Mickelson delivered another dramatic finish in a major on Monday, flopping a chip out of deep rough to 2 feet for a birdie on the final hole and a one-shot victory in the PGA Championship. The putt wasn’t nearly as long as his 18-footer to win the Masters last year, and there was no need to jump for joy this time. Still, it was a sweet conclusion to a major championship season that had gone sour until he put together his best golf of the summer stretched over five days at Baltusrol by a storm-delayed final round. It was the first Monday finish at the PGA Championship in 19 years. And not since 1986 at Inverness had a player from the last group won with a birdie on the 72nd hole at the final major.
10 years ago (2015)
Site: Whistling Straits GC (Straits)
Winner: Jason Day
Runner-up: Jordan Spieth
Score: 68-67-66-67—268
Margin: 3 shots.
Winner’s share: $1,800,000
Noteworthy: Day had at least a share of the 54-hole lead in the final three majors of the year.
AP story: Worried that this year might turn out to be a major failure, Jason Day never gave Jordan Spieth or anyone else a chance Sunday. He delivered a record-setting performance at Whistling Straits that brought him a major championship he started to wonder might never happen. Three shots ahead with three holes to play on a course with trouble everywhere, Day blasted a drive down the fairway on the par-5 16th and hit a towering 4-iron into 20 feet. He bit his lower lip, swatted his caddie on the arm, knowing his work was almost done. The two-putt birdie put him at 20-under par. He shared the 54-hole lead at the U.S. Open and the British Open and had to watch someone else celebrate.
5 years ago (2020)
Site: Harding Park GC
Winner: Collin Morikawa
Runners-up: Dustin Johnson and Paul Casey
Score: 69-69-65-64—267
Margin: 2 shots
Winner’s share: $1,980,000
Noteworthy: It was the first major played without spectators because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
AP story: The shot will be remembered as one of the best under pressure that hardly anyone witnessed. It made Collin Morikawa a major champion Sunday in a thrill-a-minute PGA Championship that not many will forget. Morikawa hit driver on the 294-yard 16th hole that was perfect in flight and even better when it landed, hopping onto the green and rolling to 7 feet for an eagle that all but clinched victory on a most quiet Sunday afternoon at Harding Park. In the first major without spectators, the 23-year-old Californian finished with a bang. He closed with a 6-under 64, the lowest final round by a PGA champion in 25 years, for a two-shot victory over Paul Casey and Dustin Johnson, two of 10 players who had a chance on the back nine.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press
