The P.G.A. Championship, which gets underway Thursday at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C., might not be as popular or prestigious as the game’s other three majors, but there have been plenty of magical moments and striking duels.
That includes from its inception in 1916 through 1957, when it featured a match play format — one competitor pitted against another — as well as since 1958 when the tournament switched to medal play, the winner being the one with the fewest total strokes.
Among the high-profile champions: Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen, who each captured the title a record five times, and Tiger Woods who has four victories.
Here, in chronological order, are five P.G.A. Championships that stand out:
1923: Pelham Country Club, Pelham Manor, N.Y.
The battle in the 36-hole final was between two of the greatest players in the game: Hagen and Gene Sarazen. They would go on to win a combined 18 major championships. And the fight delivered from start to finish.
Sarazen, the defending champion, appeared in control down the stretch, up by two holes with just three to go. He bogeyed 16 and 17, however, and the match was suddenly all square. Both players made pars on the final hole of regulation to set up a sudden-death playoff.
Which was when things really got interesting. After each birdied the first extra hole, Sarazen hooked his tee shot on the second. Fortunate that it didn’t go out of bounds, he hit his next shot to within two feet of the hole and knocked in the putt for the victory.
Safe to say that Hagen got over it. He won the tournament the next four years in a row.
1977: Pebble Beach Golf Links, Pebble Beach, Calif.
With nine holes to go, Gene Littler was leading by five strokes, and what a remarkable story it would be.
In 1972, Littler had a tumor removed from his left arm. The doctors told him he would never play professional golf again, but before long, Littler was practicing at La Jolla Country Club in California. In 1973, he won the St. Louis Children’s Hospital Classic and picked up three more victories in 1975.
In the 1977 P.G.A., he was unable to hold on. He bogeyed 10, 12, 13, 14 and 15, and lost in a playoff to Lanny Wadkins, who won it with a four-foot putt on the third extra hole.
Littler wasn’t the only one to make a comeback. So did Wadkins.
A star at Wake Forest University, he won one tournament in 1972, his rookie year, and two more in 1973, but went three full seasons without another victory. He finished with 21 wins.
1986: Inverness Club, Toledo, Ohio.
This was Greg Norman’s tournament to win or lose.
He lost.
Norman turned in a four-over 40 on the back nine, squandering a four-shot advantage. It started on No. 11 when he made a double bogey, the lead down to two. Capitalizing was his playing partner, Bob Tway, who birdied 13 and made pars the rest of the way heading to the 18th hole.
Then it happened, the shot of Tway’s life — and one of the most memorable shots of the P.G.A. Championship.
Tway holed out from the green-side bunker, prevailing when Norman failed to convert his long attempt for a matching birdie.
“I wasn’t trying to make it,” Tway said afterward. “I was just trying to get it close to the hole. For it to go in was unbelievable.”
For Norman, it was another missed opportunity in major championships. Eight months later, he lost in heartbreaking fashion once more when Larry Mize chipped in on the second playoff hole at Augusta National.
2000: Valhalla Golf Club, Louisville, Ky.
Over the last nine holes, Tiger Woods, going for his third straight major victory — he’d won the United States Open at Pebble Beach and the British Open at St. Andrews — seemed a shoo-in. The only other golfer with a prayer was Bob May, who had never won on the PGA Tour.
It was no shoo-in.
May, who trailed by one after 54 holes, matched Woods shot for shot down the stretch, both shooting a five-under 31 on the back nine. Woods, in fact, faced a six-footer on the final hole of regulation to stay alive. Which he made.
In a three-hole aggregate playoff, Woods knocked in a 20-footer on the first hole to seize a one-shot lead, and that’s how it ended up.
“The way it happened and the battle that took place, when you look at it now, it’s something very unique,” May told Golf Digest in 2014. “People go, ‘you lost the tournament.’ No, I didn’t really lose it. He won it.”
2021: Kiawah Island Golf Resort, South Carolina
No one gave Phil Mickelson much of a chance heading into the week.
Except maybe Mickelson.
After all, Mickelson was 50 years old and hadn’t finished in the top 10 of a major since the 2016 British Open.
He started with a two-under 70, trailing the leader, Corey Connors, by three strokes. A 69 on Friday gave him a share of the lead, and he followed with 70 and 73 to prevail by two over Brooks Koepka.
The two had been tied through six holes on Sunday but Mickelson gained a two-shot advantage on No. 7 and never relinquished the lead. It was his sixth major title.
“I hope that others find that inspiration,” said Mickelson, who became the oldest player to win a professional major. “It might take a little extra work, a little harder effort, but it’s so worth it in the end.”
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