PGA Championship


The PGA Championship is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It is one of the four major championships in professional golf.
It was formerly played in mid-August on the third weekend before Labor Day weekend, serving as the fourth and final major of the golf season. Beginning in 2019, the tournament is played in May on the weekend before Memorial Day, as the season's second major. It is an official money event on the PGA Tour, European Tour, and Japan Golf Tour, with a purse of $11 million for the 100th edition in 2018.
In line with the other majors, winning the PGA gains privileges that improve career security. PGA champions are automatically invited to play in the other three majors and The Players Championship for the next five years, and are eligible for the PGA Championship for life. They receive membership on the PGA Tour for the following five seasons and on the European Tour for the following seven seasons. The PGA is the only one of the four majors to be a tournament almost exclusively for professional players.
The PGA Championship has been held at various venues. Some of the early sites are now quite obscure, but in recent years, the event has generally been played at a small group of celebrated courses.

History

In 1894, with 41 golf courses operating in the United States, two unofficial national championships for amateur golfers were organized. One was held at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island, and the other at St. Andrew's Golf Club in New York. In addition, and at the same time as the amateur event, St. Andrew's conducted an Open championship for professional golfers. None of the championships was officially sanctioned by a governing body for American golf, causing considerable controversy among players and organizers. Later in 1894 this led to the formation of the United States Golf Association, which became the first formal golf organization in the country. After the formation of the USGA, golf quickly became a sport of national popularity and importance.
In February 1916 the Professional Golfers Association of America was established in New York City. One month earlier, the wealthy department store owner Rodman Wanamaker hosted a luncheon with the leading golf professionals of the day at the Wykagyl Country Club in nearby New Rochelle. The attendees prepared the agenda for the formal organization of the PGA; consequently, golf historians have dubbed Wykagyl "The Cradle of the PGA." The new organization's first president was Robert White, one of Wykagyl's best-known golf professionals.
The first PGA Championship was held in October 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, New York. The winner, Jim Barnes, received $500 and a diamond-studded gold medal donated by Rodman Wanamaker. The 2016 winner, Jimmy Walker, earned $1.8 million. The champion is also awarded a replica of the Wanamaker Trophy, which was also donated by Wanamaker, to keep for one year, and a smaller-sized keeper replica Wanamaker Trophy.

Format

Initially a match play event, the PGA Championship was originally played in early fall but varied from May to December. Following World War II, the championship was mostly played in late May or late June, then moved to early July in 1953 and a few weeks later in 1954, with the finals played on Tuesday. As a match play event, it was not uncommon for the finalists to play over 200 holes in seven days. The 1957 event lost money, and at the PGA meetings in November it was changed to stroke play, starting in 1958, with the standard 72-hole format of 18 holes per day for four days, Thursday to Sunday. Network television broadcasters, preferring a large group of well-known contenders on the final day, pressured the PGA of America to make the format change.
During the 1960s, the PGA Championship was played the week following The Open Championship five times, making it virtually impossible for players to compete in both majors. In 1965, the PGA was contested for the first time in August, and returned in 1969, save for a one-year move to late February in 1971, played in Florida. The 2016 event was moved to late July, two weeks after the Open Championship, to accommodate the 2016 Summer Olympics in August.
Before the 2017 edition, it was announced that the PGA Championship would be moved to May on the weekend before Memorial Day, beginning in 2019. The PGA Tour concurrently announced that it would move its Players Championship back to March the same year; it had been moved from March to May in 2007. The PGA of America cited the addition of golf to the Summer Olympics, as well as cooler weather enabling a wider array of options for host courses, as reasoning for the change. It was also believed that the PGA Tour wished to re-align its season so that the FedEx Cup Playoffs would not have to compete with the start of football season in late-August.

Location

The PGA Championship is primarily played in the eastern half of the United States; only ten times has it ventured west. It was last played in the Pacific time zone in 1998, at Sahalee east of Seattle. The last time that the championship was played in California was in 1995, at Riviera. The 102nd edition in 2020 is scheduled for TPC Harding Park in San Francisco, the first for the Bay Area and a return to California after a quarter century.
The state of New York has hosted thirteen times, followed by Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Promotion

The tournament was previously promoted with the slogan "Glory's Last Shot". In 2013, the tagline had been dropped in favor of "The Season's Final Major", as suggested by PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem while discussing the allowance of a one-week break in its schedule before the Ryder Cup. Finchem had argued that the slogan was not appropriate as it weakened the stature of events that occur after it, such as the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup playoffs. PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacqua explained that they had also had discussions with CBS, adding that "it was three entities that all quickly came to the same conclusion that, you know what, there's just not much in that tag line and we don’t feel it's doing much for the PGA Championship, so let's not stick with it. Let's think what else is out there." For a time, the tournament used the slogan "This is Major" as a replacement.

Trophy

The Wanamaker Trophy, named after business man and golfer Rodman Wanamaker, stands nearly 2.5 feet tall and weighs 27 pounds. The trophy was lost, briefly, for a few years until it showed up in 1930 in the cellar of L.A. Young and Company. Ironically, this cellar was in the factory which made the clubs for the man responsible for losing it, Walter Hagen. Hagen claimed to have trusted a taxi driver with the precious cargo, but it never returned to his hotel. There is a smaller replica trophy that the champion gets to keep permanently, but the original must be returned for the following years tournament.

Qualification

The PGA Championship was established for the purpose of providing a high-profile tournament specifically for professional golfers at a time when they were generally not held in high esteem in a sport that was largely run by wealthy amateurs. This origin is still reflected in the entry system for the Championship. It is the only major that does not explicitly invite leading amateurs to compete, and the only one that reserves so many places, 20 of 156, for club professionals. These slots are determined by the top finishers in the club pro championship, which is held in late April.
Since December 1968, the PGA Tour has been independent of the PGA of America.
The PGA Tour is an elite organization of tournament professionals, but the PGA Championship is still run by the PGA of America, which is mainly a body for club and teaching professionals. The PGA Championship is the only major that does not explicitly grant entry to the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking, although it invariably invites all of the top 100 players who are not already qualified.
List of qualification criteria to date:

Stroke play era winners

Match play era winners

^ These players were British born, but they were based in the United States when they won the PGA Championship, and they became U.S. citizens:
The table below lists the field sizes and qualification methods for the match play era. All rounds were played over 36 holes except as noted in the table.
YearsField sizeQualification18 hole rounds
1916–2132sectional*
192264sectional1st two rounds
192364sectional
1924–343236 hole qualifier
1935–416436 hole qualifier1st two rounds
1942–453236 hole qualifier
1946–556436 hole qualifier1st two rounds
1956128sectional1st four rounds
1957128sectional1st four rounds, consolation matches

* In 1921, the field consisted of the defending champion and the top 31 qualifiers from the 1921 U.S. Open.

Summary by course, state and region

Records

The PGA Championship is televised in the United States by CBS and ESPN. Beginning 2020, ESPN holds rights to early-round and weekend morning coverage, and will air supplemental coverage through its digital subscription service ESPN+ during weekend broadcast windows. CBS holds rights to weekend-afternoon coverage. Both contracts run through 2030, with ESPN's contract replacing a prior agreement with TNT. CBS has televised the PGA Championship since 1991, when it replaced ABC.

Future sites

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