Florida Permanent Home of the PGA Championship

Florida To Become the Permanent Home of the PGA Championship

Or so the headline read…

In the 1960s PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida nearly became the permanent home for the PGA Championship. In 1964, just 4 years prior to the very public divorce between the PGA of America and its professional tour players the news hit the UPI.

The talk of a permanent home to the PGA Championship foreshadowed the events that would follow.  The idea was that of President of the PGA, Lou Strong, who thought that a permanent home to the PGA Championship at Palm Beach Gardens made a lot of sense considering the PGA of America was headquartered there until 2023 (when they moved their operations to the Frisco, Texas). The main concern…how can I be delicate with the state that I live in…Florida is a hot burning hellscape during the months traditionally known for hosting the majors.

In the end, the idea was scrapped, however the PGA Championship has been contested in the state of Florida on two occasions. The first time in 1971 when they played it in the month of February and the second time in 1987 when the PGA Championship made the mistake of holding its major in the month of August.

Lou Strong’s grand plan of a permanent home for the PGA Championship never happened, but wouldn’t you know it, the PGA Tour decided it was a good idea for their own big tournament - the Players Championship. Seven years after the passing of Lou Strong, the Players Championship found its permanent home (in Florida) at TPC Sawgrass’ Stadium Course.

Some ideas never die- they just get recycled.

The Mad Scientist, Walter Travis

Walter Travis is one of my favorite golfers of all-time. It’s often said that Bobby Jones is the Patron Saint of the Amateur Golfer, but in my mind that designation has to go to the golfer who bore the nickname, “The Old Man.”

There are plenty of reasons to adore Walter Travis- he started playing golf at the age of 35 and yet managed to win three U.S. Amateurs & one British Amateur. Travis along with CB Macdonald helped shift golf course design into the modern era. He went on to become the Editor of the American Golfer Magazine. But more than anything, Travis never accepted the status quo & seemed to take pride in breaking it.

Walter Travis was an early adopter - he was in many ways a rebel and to go along with being one of the greatest putters who ever lived - Walter Travis desperately wanted to hit the golf ball as far as he humanly could!

Step #1 Walter Travis became one of the earliest adopters of the Haskell Ball, which was invented in 1899 by Colburn Haskell and represented the first version of the modern golf ball. It was a golf ball initially designed with a gutta percha exterior and a rubberband core that offered golfers the greatest jump in technology in the history of the game of golf. While adoption did not come overnight, the new technologically advanced golf ball increased driving distances 30-50 yards. Walter Travis, who was never a long hitter, adopted the new golf ball early and took advantage of his jump in his driving distance when far too many stuck to the traditional much shorter gutta percha ball.

Step #2 it was only a matter of time before golfers, both amateur and professional jumped on board the Haskell bandwagon. Travis’ advantage gained over the field effectively became an advantage lost and once again Travis found himself relegated to the list of short hitters. Did Travis submit to the inevitable? No - he started to experiment. From these experiments and a dabbling of applied physics Walter Travis all but invented the long driver shaft.

In 1905 Walter Travis unveiled his latest weapon to conquer distance - a driver that was 50” long!!! That sounds long for today’s standard of 46 inches, but in 1905 it was outrageously long!!! To put that length into perspective the driver length Harry Vardon, JH Taylor and Willie Anderson, who’s combined major championship resumes would include 5 US Open victories and 11 Open Championships, was a mere 41.5” in length! Travis’ driver was 8.5” longer than their more traditional drivers.

Not to be outdone with a 50 inch driver, one newspaper reported that one of his driver experiments included a driver that was 6 feet in length (72”)!!!

Walter Travis used applied physics to fight the game of golf. Unfortunately for Mr. Travis, time is undefeated and once past the age of 42, he would never win another major championship. In modern times and an age of our own rollback, I think you can assume that Walter Travis would be fighting on the behalf of the short hitter.

The Story of the Wanamaker Trophy

The PGA of America, the PGA Tour and the PGA Championship wouldn’t exist in their current form, if not for the wealthy heir to a department store. His name was Lewis Rodman Wanamaker, and in an age when the amateur golfer was glamorized and glorified, Wanamaker saw the value in what was then considered the lowly professional golfer. In 1916 Rodman pulled together a group of professional golfers who had no real organization and helped form the PGA of America. He also determined that these golf professionals needed a championship dedicated to the determining who was the best professional golfer- out of this idea the PGA Championship was born.

Every great tournament needs a great trophy so Wanamaker commissioned Dieges & Clust to design a massive trophy, which would stand over two feet in height, made of solid silver and would weigh in at just over 27 pounds.

Like many trophies of this age the Wanamaker Trophy has a fair amount of symbolism within it. For years I thought the top of the trophy was adorned with a pineapple, but in fact that pineapple is actually a cluster of grapes. This cluster of grapes represents the fruits of victory.

The other symbols include leaves. The leaves represent peace, victory and the growth the winner must achieve to be the best. The utilization of leaves or olive leaves go back to the beginning of the first Olympic Games.

Sometimes a trophy is more than a piece of silver. The story of the PGA Championship Trophy is one that highlights the transformation of the everyday golf professional to the celebrity status of the “professional golfer.” Lewis Rodman Wanamaker saw the value of professional golfers in an era when those same pros were banned from the inside of the clubhouse. His gamble gave us the PGA of America, the PGA Tour and the third oldest golf major - The PGA Championship!

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Yours in Golf History,

Connor T. Lewis