The PGA Cup is a men's golf competition for club professionals played between a Great Britain and Ireland team and a United States team. The winning team is presented with the Llandudno Trophy. The competition is run by the British PGA and the PGA of America. It was first played in 1973 and was an annual event until 1984, after which it became biennial. The 2019 PGA Cup, the 29th contest, was held on the Fazio Foothills course at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa, Austin, Texas from 27 to 29 September and was won by the United States by a score of 14 to 12, their first outright victory since 2011. The 2021 event will be held at the Foxhills Club in Surrey, England, the second time that the course has been chosen to host the event.
History
The first two contests, at Pinehurst, North Carolina in 1973 and 1974, were contested for the Diamondhead Cup. Diamondhead Corp. was the owner of Pinehurst and sponsored the event. From 1975, the event was organised by the two PGAs and became known as the PGA Cup. In 1990 the event was opened up to the golfers from continental Europe but from 1996 the British PGA team was again restricted to players from Great Britain and Ireland.
Trophy
The trophy was first used for the Llandudno International Golf Trophy contested by the leading professionals from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The first tournament was held in September 1938 and Llandudno council presented a silver trophy to the P.G.A. for the winning team. Percy Alliss, the captain of the winning English team, took possession of the trophy. It was intended that the tournament would be the first of a series of matches but the Second World War interrupted these plans and the contests were not restarted after the war. During Alliss's later years, the trophy was returned to the P.G.A. and was then used as the trophy for the PGA Cup.
Format
The event is contested by teams of ten players over three days, with four foursomes and four fourball matches on each of the first two days, and ten singles matches on the final day. All matches are over 18 holes. The format of the PGA Cup has changed over the years. In 1973 and 1974 it was a two-day competition but in 1975 the event was expanded to three days. In the initial format only 8 of the 9 players contested the singles but from 1977 the whole team play in this session. From 1980 both foursomes and fourballs have been played on the first two days. The team size was increased from 9 to 10 in 1988 and the format has been unchanged since then, the only variation being the order of the foursomes or fourballs on the first two days.
