The USPGA Championship

The USPGA Championship was first played in 1916, the year that the US Professional Golf Association was founded. It was originally a match-play event and the first winner was "Long" Jim Barnes, the Cornishman who had emigrated to the USA from England. Barnes also won the Open in 1925 and the US Open in 1921, and won the second PGA championship in 1919 after a gap of two years due to World War I. The early years of the event were dominated by Walter Hagen who won the title five times, four in succession from 1924. Gene Sarazen also won twice, beating Hagen at the 2nd extra hole in the final of 1923.

Thereafter the tournament was always won by American professionals and while the winners often included the great names of American golf, such as Byron Nelson, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan, there were many champions who were less well known. In 1958 the tournament changed from match-play to stroke-play and went abroad, so to speak, for the first time, when the great Gary Player won in 1962. Player won again in 1972. Jack Nicklaus is the most prolific winner in the years since the tournament became stroke play, winning five times in 1963, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1980. He has also been runner-up four times. Greg Norman's dismal luck in the major championships continued in 1986 with a titanic struggle with Bob Tway. The players were level as they came to the 72nd hole, Norman reached the green in regulation figures while Tway found a bunker but holed his bunker shot for a birdie and victory.

Recently, the tournament captured the public imagination as never before when John Daly won at Crooked Stick in 1991. Daly was the eighth reserve to play in the event and knew he was playing only the night before the event started. His mammoth, uninhibited hitting was phenomenal and he went on to win the Open at St Andrews in 1995. In the last five years the American stranglehold on this event has somewhat diminished. Wayne Grady, an Australian, won in 1990. Nick Price, the great player from Zimbabwe, won in 1992 and 1994 while Paul Azinger won in 1993, a most popular victory for the fine player who had so nearly won the Open in 1987 at Muirfield. Steve Elkington, another Australian who plays regularly on the US tour won in 1995, defeating Scotland's Colin Montgomerie in a play-off.