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The 15 best PGA Championships, ranked

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 15 May 2020 00:54:29 +0000

By Shane Ryan
In a world without COVID-19, the PGA Championship would have been played this week at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco (it has been rescheduled for Aug. 6-9), which makes now as good a time as any to remember the best iterations of the major that began in 1916 when England’s Jim Barnes beat Scotland’s Jock Hutchison 1-up in the final match to win the first Wannamaker Trophy. Rather than take on that task myself, though, I thought it would be more fun—and more accurate—to bring in PGA of America historian Bob Denney.

There is probably no man on the planet who has a better perspective for this particular question, and the rankings you see below are mostly his, with an occasional (but rare) thumb-on-the-scale from me … and only in cases where we neglected to talk about a Championship or two. Aside from those anomalies, what you see below comes from Denney—I’m just the transcriber.

Let’s count it down from 15.

15. 1955, Doug Ford, Meadowbrook Country Club

This one is mostly about personal achievement. From 1916 until 1957, the PGA Championship was decided by match play, with stroke-play qualification rounds starting in 1924. In that time, only four men were both medalists (for winning the stroke-play rounds) and overall champions. They included Byron Nelson, Walter Hagen, Olin Dutra and Doug Ford in ’55. Of those, Ford was the only one who managed it in a field of 128 golfers, meaning he had to win a 36-hole qualifier and then prevail in six straight matches. He pulled it off, capping the incredible week with a 4-and-3 win over Cary Middlecoff in the final. As it happens, Denney was the last person to interview Ford before he passed in 2018 at age 95.

14. 1963, Jack Nicklaus, Dallas Athletic Club

Nobody has won more PGA Championships than Nicklaus and Walter Hagen (with five each), and this was Jack’s first. He won the long drive contest that week, hitting 341 yards with a persimmon-headed driver, and the gold money clip he won became his good luck charm starting that week. He was also exhausted, having just flown in from the Open Championship where he finished one-shot out of a playoff after bogeying his the last two holes. Somehow, with temperatures in the triple digits on Sunday in Texas, Nicklaus came from three strokes back to win. That made him just the fourth player to have won all three American majors, and he was only 23. Safe to say he had a good career ahead of him.

13. 1921, Walter Hagen, Inwood Country Club

Photo by E. Bacon

This was the first American-born player to win the PGA Championship run by the PGA of … AMERICA. We have to include this, right? Right?!? Anyway, Hagen is a legend, but the real story here is that in the final, he defeated a man named Johnny Golden from Tuxedo, N.Y. Tell me that’s a real person, and not a character from a Michael Scott improve scene.

12. 1945, Byron Nelson, Moraine Country Club

Photo by Bettmann

As Denney pointed out, this was the ninth victory of Nelson’s famous 11-victory streak in 1945, at a time when he was burning out to a great degree. This was the only major championship played that year because of World War II (bad luck for Nelson, right??), and in the championship match, he defeated Sam Byrd, who had played for the Yankees as a backup outfielder from 1929 to 1934 as a reserve to none other than Babe Ruth. Which makes him one of the few people who could say to Nelson, “I’ve lost to better men than you,” and have it be true. This was a different era, but there was still a ton of pressure on Nelson … imagine winning almost every tournament played that year, but losing the only major.

11. 1942, Sam Snead, Seaview Country Club

This was Snead’s last event before joining the U.S. Navy—he would report for duty the next day. As it happened, he met an army corporal named Jim Turnesa in the final, and Turnesa was no slouch, having upset Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson in the quarters and semis. Snead won on the 35th hole by chipping in from 60 feet for birdie, and Denney noted there’s a photo of both men signing war bonds from after the round. Snead said at the time, and later repeated in Denney’s hearing, that it was his most meaningful victory because like many other Americans at that time, he didn’t know what the war might bring. (He never went overseas, serving mostly in San Diego before earning a medical discharge in 1944.)

10. 1968, Julius Boros, Pecan Valley Golf Club

This course no longer exists, but Boros’ record does—52 years later, he’s still the oldest man to ever win a major. Boros was 48, and it didn’t come easy. Arnold Palmer, a shot behind him, hit a spectacular curving 3-wood on the 72nd hole to eight feet, but couldn’t make the birdie putt. Boros had to make par, and went up and down to seal the deal. Also, as a footnote, Boros’ choice of hat that Sunday (Amana Refrigeration) seems to have accidentally spawned the clothing logo craze we know and hate today.

9. 2001, David Toms, Atlanta Athletic Club

“The layup to remember.” This one flies under the radar because it came one year after a certain other entry we’ll see later on the list, but the ending was spectacular. Dueling with a then major-less Phil Mickelson all day (Phil holed a dramatic long chip on 15 before giving it right back with a bogey on 16), and leading by a single stroke on the 72nd hole, Toms put his tee shot in the rough. Rather than risk the water on the par-4 home hole (playing a tick over 500 yards that day), he laid up and prayed for his short game to save him. His wedge came to rest 12 feet from the hole, and when Phil missed his birdie putt, Toms had his moment. Start at the 11:50 mark here for the layup and all that came after:

Afterward, Denney was the one who escorted Toms from the green to the trailer, and Toms was on the phone with his young son, saying, “Did you see that one?”

8. 1986, Bob Tway, Inverness Club

The next two entries belong in the long litany of Greg Norman heartbreaks, and this one comes from the year when he became the first man to lead every single major after 54 holes in a single year … and won just one of them. In this case, he held a four-shot lead heading into Sunday and still held it after nine holes before going into a tailspin. But in typical Norman fashion, he got very unlucky too. That twist came on the 72nd hole, when Tway, in the worse position of the two and tied with Norman, holed-out improbably from a greenside bunker. Norman, on the fringe, missed his birdie putt, and it was another chance gone. Watch Tway’s shot, one of the most famous in major history:

That’s some good leaping!

7. 1993, Paul Azinger, Inverness Club

Paul Azinger claims his one and only major at Inverness Club in 1993. (Photo by David Cannon)

This one actually went in Denney’s top five, but I’m being a jerk and knocking it back a few spots … but only because Denney admits he’s a bit biased. It was the first PGA Championship he worked, and he watched as Azinger emerged from “the greatest assembly of contenders on a Saturday leader board,” a group that collectively boasted 23 majors. Just like Bob Tway, Azinger overcame Norman, though this time Norman was very good, with a final-round 69. That’s the thing about Norman—when he wasn’t booting a major, he was the victim of terrible luck. In this case, Azinger had to birdie four of the last seven holes just to make a playoff, and then Norman missed a four-foot par putt on the second sudden-death hole to lose it. With the loss, Norman earned a dubious distinction, becoming just the second golfer after Craig Wood to have lost each of the four majors in a playoff. The legacy with Azinger is happier—it was his only major, but it opened up the chance for him to become a Ryder Cup captain back when winning the PGA was seen as an unwritten prerequisite for the Americans. He got the job in 2008, and was brilliant, providing one of the few bright spots for the U.S. in the past 40 years.

6. 1961, Jerry Barber, Olympia Fields

Let’s put it this way: If the last three holes of Barber’s Sunday round happened today, social media would cease to exist—it would be too overwhelming for all the 1s and 0s to process. Here’s how Denney described what Barber, who stood all of 5’3”, pulled off starting on the 16th hole, to force a tie with Don January:

On the 16th, a 458-yard par 4, he hit a 4-wood to 20 feet and made the birdie. On 17, he topped his drive and watched it roll barely 100 yards. Another 4-wood brought him within 90 yards of the green, but his approach was mediocre, leaving him with a 40-foot putt for par. He nailed it. Then, needing a birdie on the 436-yard 18th, in near darkness, he hit a 3-iron approach 60 feet away…AND MADE THAT PUTT TOO.

Barber came back in the 18-hole playoff the next day and beat January by a stroke on the 18th by hitting a 3-iron from the sand to 18 feet. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, he also became the oldest major winner ever at age 45 … a record that wouldn’t stand for very long. (Lucky for January, he won a PGA in 1967, and thank God, because that is a brutal way to go down.)

5. 2009, Y.E. Yang, Hazeltine National

Y.E. Yang acknowledges the fans as he walks up the 18th hole during the final round of the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National, runner-up Tiger Woods trailing behind him. Yang was the first Asian-born golfer to win a men’s major. (Photo by Icon Sports Wire)

It seems almost unfair to say this, but Yang’s win is more exciting after the fact than it was at the time. I was never the No. 1 Tiger homer, but I remember that Sunday at Hazeltine feeling like the ultimate anticlimax, a slow energy drain as we realized that Tiger would fail. What Yang pulled off is beyond incredible—the first (and still only) Asian-born golfer to win a men’s major, and the first person to beat Tiger at a major when Woods had a 54-hole lead. It’s the ultimate underdog story, but what we remember most is Tiger’s struggles that day and, of course, the worse struggles waiting for him just three months down the road. So let this be my attempt to right the wrongs: Yang was a monster that day, and made history in two indelible ways. He deserves to be thought of as more than just Tiger’s foil.

4. 1923, Gene Sarazen, Pelham Country Club

There are a lot of good reasons not have a match-play major championship, but then again, you could get the kind of action we got in 1923 when Sarazen met Walter Hagen in the championship match. You could make a good argument that this was the best match ever played, according to Denney, and it was dramatic until the finish. Sarazen actually blew a 2-up lead with three to play, Hagen sent it to extra holes, they birdied the 37th, and on the 38th, a drivable par 4, Hagen got in a bunker and couldn’t get out. (Again, imagine social media.) It’s worth noting that Hagen responded by going on one of the great revenge tears, winning the next four PGA Championships and three more Open Championships for good measure. Also worth noting that both men remain in the record books for the most holes playing in a single event as every match was a scheduled 36 holes—Sarazen played 194, Hagen 188.

3. 2014, Rory McIlroy, Valhalla

I was thrilled when Denney had this in his top five, because my own personal bias was likely to land it there anyway. I followed Rory that day, and the way he ignored Mickelson and Fowler on the sixth tee box (rain delays had stacked the groups up), almost creating a force field of energy around himself as he glared at nothing, was one of the most fierce and hostile acts I’d ever witnessed in this very polite sport. The ending is what everyone will remember—Rory playing on Rickie and Phil’s heels in the darkness, hitting a controversial approach shot before they had finished that privately left Phil fuming—and it was every bit the epic to Rory’s brilliant season. But the real story for me will always be one of the greatest golfers of his generation out-willing his rivals because he’d allow for no other outcome than a win. It’s made more special because, six years later, it remains the last time we saw that level of defiant greatness.

2. 2000, Tiger Woods, Valhalla

Are you steaming with rage that the Tiger-Bob May duel is only No. 2? Hang on to your hat, because there are a lot of nice things to say about it. Denney called it “the greatest modern shot-making duel” (distinguishing it from Henrik Stenson-Phil Mickelson, 2016 British Open at Troon, which he called a “scoring duel”), and “easily the best modern-era playoff.” My personal hot take is that May’s pitch on the first playoff hole followed by Tiger nailing his birdie putt is the greatest two-shot sequence I’ve ever seen, considering the circumstances. You can see those, and the rest of the staggering face-off, here:

One interesting side note from Denney: According to Ron Hickman, a rules official who was on the course at the time, Ken Venturi was wrong when he said that someone might have interfered with Tiger’s drive on 18, sending it to a better position. Per Hickman, who watched the ball, nobody touched it, and it was only a fortunate carom.

1. 1991, John Daly, Crooked Stick

You’re still mad about Tiger, aren’t you? Well shake it off, because this is one of the greatest golf stories ever, and that’s what it would take to usurp Tiger v. May. John Daly only made it into this tournament because nine—NINE—people dropped out, and Denney told me that when the PGA of America official called Daly to tell him he was in (at 5 p.m. on Wednesday), Daly was in Memphis and had to drive seven and a half hours to Indianapolis. Nick Price was one of the ones who dropped out, so Daly hired his caddie, Jeff (Squeaky) Medlen. They had never worked together before, and after seeing Daly’s swing, Medlen’s advice was simple: “Kill it.” Daly did, but did a lot more than just bomb on the tough Pete Dye course. He took the lead in the second round and never let it go, finishing at 12 under for the most shocking major-championship victory … ever? Daly has become an infamous character, iconic in his own way, but back then he was beyond unknown. This is the tournament that birthed the legend.

Photo by Stephen Munday

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What’s in a name? At the Masters, more than you know, including a Lion and a Tiger

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 08 Apr 2020 06:36:36 +0000

Watson and Holmes, though not Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

By Dave Shedloski
“But these are deeds which should not pass away, and names that must not wither,” Lord Byron once wrote, and we don’t mean Byron Nelson, but, rather, the poet of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

At Augusta National Golf Club, names certainly do not wither. Analytics might be all the rage in golf, but numbers and stats are ephemeral. Names resonate. And at the Masters Tournament, they are given homage. The Hogan, Nelson and Sarazen Bridges are famous landmarks, named for three legends – Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen. Arnold Palmer, the first man to win four green jackets, and Jack Nicklaus, who owns a record six of them, have had plaques dedicated to them on the grounds.

Tiger Woods, that transcendent figure who won his fifth Masters title last year in a comeback that on which we get to reminisce a bit longer with the 84th Masters postponed, is likely to one day join them with his own monument of sorts – and, thus, further prove that Augusta National is not Tiger-proofed.

And, of course, other celebrated names come to mind, such as Sam Snead, Seve Ballesteros, Jimmy Demaret, Ben Crenshaw and Phil Mickelson, who are among the 17 men who have multiple green jackets.

With the addition of 17 first-time participants in last year’s 83rd Masters Tournament, the total number of players – including one Player, Gary – who have competed at Augusta National Golf Club is 1,307.

Nearly a third of those players, 469 of them, have competed just once in the tournament. More interestingly, almost half of the participants, 608, haven’t once made a cut – and that’s with the cut having not been instituted until 1957.

There have been 52 different Masters winners, and 37 of those men have unique surnames in the tournament’s annals. How many players have at least one top-25 finish in their careers? Try 548. Only 315 players have ever had a top-10 finish, with six-time winner Jack Nicklaus, unsurprisingly, having the most (22) not only as an individual but against any collection of surnames.

There have been 1,086 different surnames on the all-time contestants list. We numbered them starting with No. 1 Tommy Aaron and ending with No. 1,086 Richard Zokol. And the absolute most astounding and eerie coincidence – no, not Errie, as in Ball, who played in the inaugural Augusta National Invitation Tournament in 1934 – in this entire exercise is the name that landed on 747 before we added the 17 first-timers in 2019: Palmer. And the first of the four Palmers who competed in the Masters, is, of course, Arnie, the famed golfing aviator.

The leader in the clubhouse as the most common name in Masters history is the combined surnames of Clark and Clarke, which beat the Thompson/Thomson group 8 to 7. Close behind are Smith and Wilson, with six apiece.

But for sheer domination, the patronym “Mc” or “Mac” appears a combined 35 times starting with Bob MacDonald and ending with Harold “Jug” McSpaden. Translated, Mac or Mc means “son of.” Finish that thought at your own risk.

T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month, but only January (Don) and May (Bob), ever were invited past the august gates of Augusta National. Daly (John) and Weekley (Boo) made appearances, too.

Holmes (J.B.) would not be complete without Watson. There have been four, including two-time Masters winners Tom and Bubba. And as for those five Lewis boys, they are complemented by the Clarks.

George Burns couldn’t hold a candle to David Frost. There was a huge difference between a Little (Lawson), who played in 19 Masters, and a Lott (Lyn), who appeared in only three. David Peoples played in two Masters, but Peter Persons got there first, in 1986, when the people’s choice made his back-nine charge to an unexpected triumph. Augusta has seen the Golden Bear, the Shark, the Walrus, and, of course, Tiger. Nicknames all. Meanwhile, an authentically named Lion (Lion Kim) made a lone start in 2011.

Colour me surprised, but there has been only one Black, two Whites and three Browns. Also, one Gray (Downing, one of the game’s best first names) and a Redman (Doc). Naturally, at sylvan Augusta, Green leads the field with five (or six, if you count Charles H. Greene).

Frank Champ didn’t become one in his only start in 1953, finishing 59th. Neither did Bob Wynn in ’77-78 nor either Victor Regalado or Victor Dubuisson.

Deepest apologies, especially to the poet John Donne, for even typing this: “Perchance he for whom this Bell (Art) tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it Tolles (Tommy) for him. …”

At the Masters, Lee (Danny), beats Grant (James A.), as it relates to best career finish. But Grant, a northerner from Connecticut, won low amateur in 1966, while Lee, a native of South Korea, missed the cut in his 2009 amateur start. Before this piece really goes South – and it will, if it hasn’t already – we can point you in the direction of a North (Andy) and a West (Martin), plus an Eastwood (Bob) and a Westwood (Lee). Edgar Updegraff counters previously mentioned Downing Gray. Names that begin with the letter “U” number three, fewest in the alphabet.

Funny that there has been a Baker, a Brewer, two Cooks, and a Butler, not to mention two Hunters (Haas and Mahan), an Archer and a Potter, plus two Barbers. Wondering if Ken Still ever crossed paths with Gordon Sherry. Who was better, Peter Senior or Lee Elder?

For those who love the film Caddyshack, there is a Wang (Jeunghun). CIA analyst Jack Ryan might be a fictional character from Tom Clancy, but there was a real-life Jack Ryan in the 1941 and ’42 Masters.

If there’s a Will (George), then there’s gotta be a Way, but not at Augusta, although there is a Tway (Bob), whose son Kevin made his debut last year, bringing the number of father-son combos to 13.

A Walrus and a Shark, aka Craig Stadler and Greg Norman. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Azaleas and dogwoods bloom annually at Augusta. So have Roses (Clarence and Justin), Vines (Ellsworth), Cherry (Don), Cotton (Henry), and even, um, Pott (Johnny).

Four of seven Turnesa brothers – Jim, Joe, Mike and William (who was an amateur) – helped secure the title of most family members represented. In the inaugural event, Joe, Mike and Willie all were present. We really thought there’d be more Johnsons than four: Dustin, Howie, Terl and Zach, the 2007 winner. There’s a punchline in there somewhere.

The Smiths (six) have no Wessons with which to pair up, but there has been a Gunn (Yang). And they have more than kept up with the Joneses (four). The latter group includes Robert T. Jones, Jr., who created Augusta National and the Masters. You stock hounds will appreciate the fact that Willie Dow played in Jones’ first Augusta National Invitation Tournament. Three Hills complement three Dales, of course.

The Masters always has had its share of nobility, rank and title. To that end, you’d be happy to know that we’ve seen one Bishop (Stanley) and three Knights. Four if you count The Black Knight, Gary Player. Dick Knight appeared once, in 1960, and faced the two-round guillotine. The others are knighted subjects of the United Kingdom: the aforementioned Sir Henry Cotton and Sir Nick Faldo, one of three men to win the Masters in consecutive years, joining Nicklaus and Woods. Of course, there has to be two Armours to go with them, both named Tommy, two Spears (Richard and Herschel) but just one Shields (Bill).

In addition, there has been a Kaiser (Bill) and a Keiser (Herman), who won the 1946 Masters, a Barron (Herman again) and, yes, thank you, a Fuhrer (Frank B.), as well as one Duke (Ken) and one King (Rufus). But when it comes to the Masters, without a doubt there is only one man called The King, and he had his own Army.

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Did you know: Gene Sarazen designed the modern sand wedge with an assist from billionaire Howard Hughes

Golf Digest Middle East — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 04:03:46 +0000

Bettmann
Gene Sarazen escapes a sand trap during an exhibition match at Shorehaven Country Club.

The coronavirus pandemic has hit a giant pause button on fans being able to watch golf on TV, and in some cases, even kept people off courses. But while we hunker down and hope for a speedy return to normalcy, we can also use this time as an opportunity to learn more about the game we love. Here’s our latest installment of “Did you know?”

By Mike Johnson
Long before the Alien or C3i sand wedges were hawked on infomercials, promising an automatic out from the bunker, Gene Sarazen was on the case, seeking a better method of escape from such hazards.

Now to be clear, Sarazen didn’t truly invent the sand wedge. However, he essentially designed the forerunner for what we today call the sand wedge. Other such clubs were in play prior to The Squire taking things into his own hands, but some had concave faces (which at times hit the ball twice—once in front and once in back) and other designs that the USGA and R&A deemed illegal in 1931.

How Sarazen came to design his club is a well-worn tale that bears repeating. While being taught by Howard Hughes how to fly a plane, Sarazen took note of how a plane’s tail adjusted downward during takeoff, spawning an idea. Sarazen reached out to his equipment company, Wilson, and had them send him half-a-dozen niblicks (the equivalent of a 9-iron) to his home in New Port Richey, Fla. Using solder (don’t laugh, Rickie Fowler does something similar), Sarazen experimented with different amounts of mass on the sole of the clubs until he found one he felt would easily extricate the ball from sand.

Rickie Fowler’s Cobra sand wedge had solder on the back flange.

Sarazen took the club, which had a punch-mark face instead of conventional grooves, to the 1932 Open Championship, taking care to keep it under wraps for fear it would be deemed illegal before play began. Oh, that sneaky Squire.

Asked about that chicanery by Peter Kessler on an episode of Golf Talk Live on Golf Channel, Sarazen fessed up. “Oh sure, because the British would have barred it,” he said. “Because in 1932 the first nine holes I was in two or three traps and I came out and down in one and I heard the gallery saying, ‘Oh, have you seen that weapon that Sarazen has in his bag?’ So everybody started talking about it, but it was too late to barr it.”

After Sarazen used the club during his win at Princes, play from the sand was never the same again.

In June 2011, the Sarazen bunker was unveiled at Princes Himalayas course. On hand for the opening was another long-time Wilson staff player, three-time major champion Padraig Harrington, who paid homage to Sarazen by executing a number of bunker shots using Sarazen’s wedge among others.

Sarazen’s design spawned a number of wedge designs from Wilson over the years, including numerous iterations of the R-20 and R-90. As for Sarazen’s wedge, it now resides at the USGA Museum in Far Hills, N.J. And unlike those infomercial wedges, it’s not for sale.

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PGA Championship 2018: Brooks Koepka wins the 100th PGA Championship at Bellerive for his third major title

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 23:48:44 +0000

Ross Kinnaird
ST LOUIS, MO – AUGUST 12: Brooks Koepka of the United States reacts after making a putt for birdie on the 16th green during the final round of the 2018 PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club on August 12, 2018 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

By Christopher Powers
As Bellerive shook with every Tiger Woods birdie on Sunday at the PGA Championship, Brooks Koepka never wavered, muscling his way around the golf course as only he can en route to a final-round four-under 66. That was enough for a two-shot victory, giving him his third career major title, all in his last six major championships starts.

It wasn’t smooth sailing at first, even after Koepka birdied the opening hole following another mammoth, 326-yard tee shot that set up a flip wedge and an eight-foot putt. Three holes later, he made bogey at the fourth, three-putting from 63 feet. He followed with another bogey at the fifth, opening the door for the rest of the field, including Woods, who went on to card his lowest final round in a major in his career, a six-under 64 that eventually earned him a solo second finish.

But Koepka immediately got back on track, making par at the par-3 sixth and then three straight birdies to close out his back nine and regain the lead. At the turn, Adam Scott, who played alongside Koepka in the final pairing, began his charge, applying pressure to the leader and eventually tying him at 14 under at the 13th hole with his third birdie on the back nine. With multiple chances to add to his lead, Scott’s putter went cold, and he made four straight pars before a bogey on the last hole for a closing 67.

Once again, Koepka went on another run, overpowering the final four holes with birdies at 15 and 16, the latter coming after hitting a pure, cut 4-iron on the par 3 that rolled to six feet, effectively ending the chances of Scott or Woods catching him. Pars at 17 and 18 were all he needed for his second major of the year after his win at the U.S. Open in June.

The win puts Koepka in some elite company. He joins Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Jordan Spieth as the only players to win three majors before the age of 29. He also became just the fifth player to win the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship in the same season, joining Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Woods.

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PGA Championship 2017: Jordan Spieth chases golf immortality

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 12:43:36 +0000

He’s a PGA away from the career Grand Slam at age 24. What are his chances at Quail Hollow and where would his Slam rank in golf history?

By Jaime Diaz
At the 99th PGA Championship, Jordan Spieth for the first time will be playing for one of the transcendent prizes in golf: the career Grand Slam. Of course, the 24-year-old is quick to deny he’s thinking that way. Spieth insists his focus will be on simply winning the PGA, which, since his victory last month at the Open Championship, is now the only one of the four professional majors he hasn’t won. “I mean this,” he intoned last week at Firestone in explaining his mindset. “It’s just a major.”

Then again, Spieth, who because of his back-nine heroics at Royal Birkdale is occupying the same kind of attention in the golf public consciousness as he did when he won the first two majors in 2015, is floating on a cloud of confidence and well being. “Free rolling,” as his caddie, Michael Greller puts it. It’s the approximate state that three of the five greats who achieved the career Grand Slam were in the year they captured the final leg, given that Ben Hogan in 1953 and Tiger Woods in 2000 each won three major championships, while in 1966 Jack Nicklaus won two.

So while Spieth may insist that because he expects to play in “30” future PGAs, if he doesn’t win at Quail Hollow, “it’s not going to be a big-time bummer whatsoever because I know I have plenty of opportunities,” there’s a chance he may never have a freer roll. And for the record, the last three winners of the Grand Slam—Gary Player, Nicklaus and Woods—all completed the feat in their 20s. For that matter, golf’s first Grand Slammer, Gene Sarazen, won his first two majors at age 20, sooner even than Spieth. In the journey to the career Grand Slam, the time to take advantage of a head start is always now.

If all this sounds a bit over-caffeinated, it’s because career Grand Slams in golf are special. They are more rare than in tennis, where eight men (the latest Novak Djokavic) have done it. But more importantly, it can be sad to see great players fall one major short. Counting Spieth, 12 players have achieved three legs without getting the fourth. And those for whom valiant attempts at the final have been thwarted by bad luck or multiplying tension or both—especially Sam Snead with the U.S. Open, and Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson with the PGA—have ended up on a slightly lower tier of the pantheon. It looks like that has happened to Phil Mickelson in his quest for a U.S. Open, and that there is an increasing possibility of this happening to Rory McIlroy at Augusta National.

Not that the career Grand Slam is a perfect measure of greatness. Walter Hagen, who won 11 major championships, didn’t have a real shot at what evolved into the Grand Slam because the Masters wasn’t even played until he was well past his prime. And what of Bobby Jones’ “original” Grand Slam in 1930, winning the U.S. Open and Amateur and their British counterparts in one year, which has never been replicated by any golfer over an entire career? That feat, or the still unattained the calendar professional Grand Slam, or even the Tiger Slam of 2000-’01, would all have to be more exalted than the career Grand Slam.

In the journey to the career Grand Slam, the time to take advantage of a head start is always now.

Still, other than those one-offs, there’s a good argument that there’s no marker in golf better at historically differentiating the best from the rest than the career Grand Slam. It requires some special things. There’s the tennis analogy of the complete game in four different conditions – especially the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. (The PGA might be the favorite set up of the tour pros because it’s still U.S. Open light).

Then there’s overcoming the pressure of finally capturing the last leg, which builds the more years that go by. Even Spieth was attuned to this challenge, conceding that he would have to be careful not to make the PGA an obsession. “The con,” he said of being just one major away from the career Grand Slam, “and what makes it more difficult than just saying it’s another major, is that it’s one a year now instead of four a year that that focuses on, if that’s what the focus is.”

Clearly, getting the final leg is a validator. It means meeting the moment, demonstrating the rare ability to bring out your best golf when it means the most, when the pressure is highest, when the battle is hardest. It takes greatness.

That said, not all career Grand Slams were created equal. Here’s how I would rank them, counting down from least to most significant:

5. Gene Sarazen

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Though he will always be a giant figure with seven major championships, Sarazen is golf’s greatest beneficiary of retroactive history. Not only did he win the 1935 Masters by getting into a playoff on the wings of holing a 4-wood from 235 yards on the 15th hole on Sunday, but the Masters was far from being considered a major championship, probably not reaching that status until Ben Hogan and Snead played off in 1954. There was no pressure on Sarazen because he didn’t even know he was making history.

4. Gary Player

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Indisputably the game’s greatest international golfer, with nine majors included among his 159 victories worldwide, Player was ruthlessly efficient in clicking off the four majors in six-year period that ended with his victory at the 1965 U.S. Open at Bellerive, in the only time he would win that championship. It’s quite possible that no one ever wanted the achievement more. “I was aware of the Grand Slam in 1953 because Hogan was my hero in golf,” Player said by phone last week, “and I knew when he won at Carnoustie he had the four.”

The prize was in his head when he won his first major at the 1959 Open Championship, and soon he became determined to beat rivals Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus to the mark. Though he hadn’t won a major since the 1962 PGA, he was primed at Bellerive. “I was squatting with 325 pounds, the fittest I ever was in my life,” Player said. He was going to a church in St. Louis every day and praying for courage. He wore the same black shirt every day, washing in the sink of his hotel room each night. When he got to the course, he devoted a few minutes to standing before the scoreboard, which had past winners’ names, and envisioned his own. “I saw Gary Player, winner, 1965, and Gary Player winner of the Grand Slam, ” he said. “I don’t know if any golfer ever, ever, was as focused as I was that week on winning.”

And if Player had lost the playoff to Kel Nagel, does he think he might have suffered the same frustrating fate in the U.S. Open as Snead? “Oh, no. I would have won it, absolutely no doubt,” he said. Of such minds are career Grand Slam winners made.

3. Jack Nicklaus

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The man who would go on to win the equivalent of three career Grand Slams achieved his first one as a forgone conclusion, he was clearly so good. But even Nicklaus confesses an early setback in 1963 at Lytham, where he bogeyed the final two holes to lose by one, created a crisis of confidence in his ability to win the Open Championship. With three legs of the Slam completed, he finished second at St. Andrews in 1964, and still wondered if his high ball flight would always hold him back on the windy linksland.

He seemed to find the key at Muirfield in 1966, but with a three-stroke lead with seven to play, he three-putted from seven feet, missing a 15-inch putt. “I experienced one of the most severe mental jolts I’ve ever suffered on a golf course,” Nicklaus confessed in his autobiography. “Jittery is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings.” He bogeyed two of the next three holes, but then, as Spieth did at Birkdale, found a way at the 11th hour to go from negative to positive and eeked out a one-stroke win.

Realizing he had won the Slam, Nicklaus was overcome at the trophy presentation. He wrote: “Being about to receive something that even I, never much of a self-doubter, had genuinely doubted would ever be mine, was extremely emotional.” From that point, the Open Championship became the major where Nicklaus most consistently contended.

2. Ben Hogan

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True, the professional Grand Slam hadn’t yet become a thing when Hogan won his fourth leg at Carnoustie in 1953 at age 40. In fact, Hogan, who hadn’t won the first of his nine majors until he was 34, wasn’t thinking career Grand Slam when he made his first trip to the Open Championship. He had gone because friends had urged him to “for the good of the game,” and for “the challenge.” Once there, he became engaged with a monastic purpose that entranced the Scots, keeping legs battered by his car accident functioning through long, soaking baths, mastering the nuances of the small British ball and stoically executing with near perfection. His victory remains perhaps golf’s supreme example of a one-shot, do-or-die, all-or-nothing, surgical strike that culminated in a glorious mission accomplished. It earned Hogan a ticker-tape parade when he returned to the U.S., and turned out to be his final major-championship victory.

1. Tiger Woods

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Until further notice, his is the most brilliantly dominating career Grand Slam. Its Himalayan peaks remain prominent on golf’s landscape: the 1997 Masters (by 12 strokes), the 2000 U.S. Open (by 15 strokes) and the 2000 Open Championship (by eight strokes). But it was the 1999 PGA at Medinah where Woods’ seemingly inevitable ascendance could have been stalled, and the tricky, seven-foot, left-to-right par putt he made on the 71st hole to maintain a one-stroke lead over Sergio Garcia may go down as the most important putt of Woods’ career. Any pain Woods suffered in his few close loses in majors for the first 12 years of his career was negligible, but losing at Medinah probably would have left a mark. With appropriate theater, Woods closed out his first Grand Slam with a triumphant march up the 18th at St. Andrews.

If Spieth can claim a fourth leg at Quail Hollow, where would his Grand Slam rank? Third best, behind Woods and Hogan.

Spieth, as the sixth holder, would be the youngest, by eight months. He’s been more stalwart than opportunist, having led or been tied for the lead in 15 of the 70 major championship rounds he has played. But other than his first major win, a wire-to wire job at the 2015 Masters, Spieth’s victories have been tight ones in which, for all his magic with the short game and putter, his tee-to-green play has lacked the majesty of Woods or Nicklaus or Hogan. He’s also lost the lead late at two Masters, leaving more scar tissue at an early age than Woods, Nicklaus or Player experienced.

Then again, Spieth’s combination of passionate competitiveness and personal charm is reminiscent of Jones, and engenders a similar degree of public devotion. If he could close out the Slam in Charlotte, his resultant popularity would lift golf and his persona into Jones/Palmer/Woods territory.

It would also install him firmly on the game’s throne at an early age. Nicklaus and especially Woods showed such a position can be a self-perpetuating mental edge. As good as being No. 1 in the world is, it’s better—through an early career Grand Slam—to have proved you’re the best when it matters most.

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How Jordan Spieth’s Grand Slam pursuit stacks up to the 5 who have done it—and the 5 who came closest

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 12:39:41 +0000

By Alex Myers
The modern career Grand Slam in men’s golf is something that has only been achieved by five golfers: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. If you didn’t know this by now, you certainly will have it memorized within 30 minutes of watching this year’s PGA Championship. That’s because most all of the attention will be on Jordan Spieth as he attempts to become the youngest player to join this elite group. How does Spieth’s pursuit of history compare with those who came before him? Here’s a look back at the five who did it — and the five others who came close, but never (“haven’t” in the case of one) quite got there.

THE “BIG” FIVE

Gene Sarazen
Major titles: 7 — PGA Championship (3), U.S. Open (2), Masters (1), British Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 2
The Squire’s “shot heard ‘round the world” at the 1935 Masters – an albatross on the 15th hole during the final round – also made him the first player to complete the modern Grand Slam. He nearly did it as quickly as possible considering the inaugural Masters was played just the year before. Not that he realized what he had done. The concept of a modern Grand Slam has been traced to Arnold Palmer trying to win the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship the same year after he began 1960 with wins at the Masters and U.S. Open. So really, all the players on these lists who came before Palmer didn’t have the added pressure of knowing they were trying to complete the modern career Grand Slam.

Ben Hogan
Major titles: 9 – U.S. Open (4), Masters (2), PGA Championship (2), British Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 1
Hogan won at Carnoustie in 1953, which was his only trip to the British Open. The victory was part of a historic campaign in which he also won the Masters and U.S. Open. Hogan might have just won the entire Grand Slam in one year, but that year’s British Open overlapped with the PGA Championship. Tiger Woods is the only other male golfer to win three modern majors in the same season.

Gary Player
Major titles: 9 – Masters (3), British Open (3), PGA Championship (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 3
Player completed the slam at 29 by winning an 18-hole playoff over Kel Nagle at Bellerive Country Club. The South African, who remains the only international golfer to pull off the feat, would win five more majors, but this was his final U.S. Open title.

Jack Nicklaus
Major titles: 18 – Masters (6), PGA Championship (5), U.S. Open (4), British Open (3)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 3
Just one year after Gary Player became the third golfer to complete the slam, Nicklaus made it a foursome at the 1966 British Open at Muirfield. Nicklaus would complete the slam two more times in his illustrious career.

Tiger Woods
Major titles: 14 – Masters (4), PGA Championship (4), U.S. Open (3), British Open (3)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 1
Woods completed the career slam during his legendary 2000 campaign with an eight-shot victory at St. Andrews. He would also win that year’s PGA Championship and the 2001 Masters to make him the only player to hold all four major trophies at the same time. Although Tiger didn’t technically pull off the calendar slam, the feat was dubbed the “Tiger Slam.”

RELATED: Assessing Jordan Spieth’s Grand Slam chances

Keystone

THE “CLOSE” FIVE

(Note: We’re not counting Walter Hagen, who racked up 11 majors — 5 PGAs, 4 British Opens and 2 U.S. Opens — but never won the Masters, because he was well past his prime when the Masters was founded in 1934. And of course, Masters co-founder Bobby Jones, who won what were considered the four biggest golf tournaments at the time — the original Grand Slam of the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Amateur and British Open — in 1930, doesn’t make either of these lists at no fault of his own. When Jones retired, he had 13 major titles on his resume, but now he’s only credited with seven. Again, we’re talking about the modern Grand Slam.)

Tom Watson
Major titles: 8 – British Open (5), Masters (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 24
Closest call(s): T-2 at 1978 PGA Championship
Four years before his lone U.S. Open win is when Watson actually had his best shot at winning the PGA, so he wasn’t in position to complete the slam yet. However, that doesn’t make what happened any less painful as Watson blew a five-shot lead after 54 holes and lost in a playoff to John Mahaffey. Of his 24 attempts at the PGA after winning his third major, his best finish was a solo fifth in 1993.

RANKING: Which current players perform the best in the four majors?

Arnold Palmer
Major titles: 7 – Masters (4), British Open (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 34
Closest call(s): T-2 at 1964, 1968, and 1970 PGA Championships
The King never quite ruled all four major championships, coming up just short of claiming the Wanamaker Trophy on three occasions. He came the closest at the 1968 PGA at San Antonio’s Pecan Valley Golf Club when he slashed a 3-wood from the rough to about eight feet on the final hole, but missed the putt. Julius Boros, 48, won by a shot to become the oldest major champ ever — a record that still stands.

Sam Snead
Major titles: 7 – Masters (3), PGA Championship (3), British Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 23
Closest call(s): Four runner-ups at U.S. Open
Snead’s most heartbreaking losses at the U.S. Open came before he had secured titles in the other three majors. In 1937, he triple bogeyed the final hole when par would have won, and 10 years later, he missed a two-footer to lose to Lew Worsham in a playoff. But Snead also nearly completed the slam in his first chance, finishing T-2 at the 1949 U.S. Open after he had won that year’s Masters.

Lee Trevino
Major titles: 6 – U.S. Open (2), British Open (2), PGA Championship (2)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 16
Closest call(s): None
Trevino made it clear he was never a big fan of either Augusta National’s co-founder, Cliff Roberts, or the course itself. And it showed. In 20 career starts at the Masters, Trevino never finished better than T-10, and he even skipped the event four times during his prime.

Byron Nelson
Major titles: 6 – Masters (2), PGA Championship (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 1
Closest call(s): None
Nelson never won the British Open because he basically never played in it. After finishing fifth in his debut in 1937, Nelson only competed in the event one more time — his only time after winning the other three majors — in 1955, when he finished T-32. This wasn’t that unusual at the time. As mentioned, Hogan only played in one British Open, and Arnold Palmer is largely credited for making the event popular with American players.

Phil Mickelson
Major titles: 5 – Masters (3), British Open (1), PGA Championship (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam:
Closest call(s): Has a record SIX runner-ups at the U.S. Open
Mickelson’s numerous close calls at the national championship have been well documented, but the one that hurts the most came at Winged Foot in 2006. With a one-shot lead on the 72nd hole, Mickelson made a double bogey, handing the title to Geoff Ogilvy. Mickelson’s Grand Slam hopes remain alive, but at 47, he’s running out of chances. That’s what made his decision to skip the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills for his daughter’s high school graduation such a big story.

And now there are two golfers in their primes, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, who are just one major away from completing the career Grand Slam. So far, McIlroy, 28, is 0-for-3 at the Masters since winning the third leg at the 2014 British Open, but he’s finished in the top 10 in each try, and he has the benefit of trying to complete the task on the same course each year — a place where he was the 54-hole leader in 2011 when he was just 21.

Spieth, who just turned 24, will face a rotating target of tracks at the PGA starting with the 2017 edition at Quail Hollow, but he’ll have even longer to finish this feat than McIlroy. Not that either should need much time if they’re going to do it. The five guys who have completed the career Grand Slam needed an average of just two attempts to get it done. Regardless, throw in an aging Mickelson and we’ve now got three of the four majors where the career Grand Slam will be a big topic of conversation. And it could be a fun thing to talk about for years to come — well, fun to talk about for everyone other than the three trying to achieve it.

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Would Jordan Spieth completing the Grand Slam be more impressive than when Tiger Woods did it?

Golf Digest Middle East — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 07:00:49 +0000

By Sam Weinman
Jordan Spieth’s win at Royal Birkdale not only provided the Open Championship one of its most compelling finishes, it also injected new life into the season’s final major, the PGA Championship at Charlotte, N.C.’s Quail Hollow Club.

Now Spieth has a chance to capture the career Grand Slam, something only five men — Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Tiger Woods — have done before. When a 24-year-old Woods won the last leg of his Slam, the 2000 Open Championship at St. Andrews, he became the youngest player to do so. Spieth’s win would actually come even earlier, having turned 24 just last week, but it still doesn’t settle the question of which feat would be more impressive. On one hand, Spieth would be earlier in his career, and in the age of excessive social media attention and arguably more competition at the top of the sport, he’s faced pressures Woods didn’t contend with at the turn of the millenium. On the other hand, Woods won the two Opens in 2000 by a combined 23(!) strokes, so you know, that’s pretty good, too.

Regardless, all of this is great fodder for discussion in the latest Golf Digest Podcast, in which colleagues Ryan Herrington, Alex Myers and Joel Beall joined me to talk about Spieth’s chances of getting it done this week. We also discussed the recent travails of Rory McIlroy, two times a winner at Quail Hollow but coming off a surprising caddie switch; and even whether the PGA would be better off by a proposed move to May.

https://soundcloud.com/user-96678684/episode-99-pga-preview-can-jordan-spieth-the-career-grand-slam-and-more

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