The Wanamaker Trophy has been awarded 101 times, and while Brooks Koepka will have to wait a little longer to attempt to three-peat due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it won’t stop us from reliving some of the great moments in PGA Championship history in what should have been this week for the 102nd PGA at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.
For this exercise, we’ve centered on the top 5 PGA’s of the last 30 years, which meant leaving out some great duels such as David Toms over Phil Mickelson in 2001, the underdog story of Rich Beem over Tiger Woods, or how about unheralded Shaun Micheel stiffing it at the 72nd hole in 2003.
So much drama, so many memories, but not quite on the level as these five all-time favorites.
5. 2009 PGA Championship
Hazeltine Golf Club
Chaska, Minnesota
South Korea’s Y.E. Yang pulled off one of the biggest upsets in sports.
Woods held a two-stroke lead going into the final round of the PGA at Hazeltine. He was 14-for-14 in majors and 36-1 overall when leading after 54 holes. He was The Terminator. He was more of a sure thing than New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera.
Yang had one PGA Tour title to his credit while Woods entered having won back-to-back tournaments, and led wire-to-wire through the first three rounds. But Yang chipped in for eagle at 14 and delivered the knockout punch with a 3-hybrid over a tree from 206 yards at 18. Woods would have to wait nearly another decade to eventually win his 15th major as Yang captured his one and only major.
“Everyone calls him the Buster Douglas of the PGA Tour because we took down Mike Tyson,” said A.J. Montecinos, Yang’s caddie. “It gave everyone else confidence that it could be done.”
4. 1993 PGA Championship
Inverness Club
Toledo, Ohio
Paul Azinger shed his reputation as the best player without a major by making birdie on four of the last seven holes to catch 54-hole leader Greg Norman and defeat him in a playoff.
After multiple close calls at majors, Azinger showed his mettle: “It was a huge burden off of me. I felt I had somthing to prove. Today, I called myself: ‘Are you capable of doing it? Are you good enough?’ ”
Azinger was more than good enough and outlasted Norman in a battle of arguably the top two players at the time for what would be his lone major triumph.
3. 2018 PGA Championship
Bellerive Country Club
St. Louis, Missouri
Brooks Koepka capped off a remarkable season by outdueling the two golfers most responsible for inspiring him to play the game – Tiger Woods and Adam Scott – to win the 100th PGA Championship. Surreal is the word Koepka used to describe it.
On a day that defending PGA champion Justin Thomas caught him early on the front nine, Woods closed within one and Scott tied him with four holes to go, Koepka never buckled en route to shooting 4-under 66 for a two-stroke victory over Woods, who shot 64, his lowest score at a major.
Yet it wasn’t enough, and Woods may have put it best when describing how Koepka manhandled Bellerive: “It’s tough to beat when the guy hits it 340 down the middle.”
Koepka became the fifth player to win the U.S. Open and PGA Championship in the same year.
2. 1991 PGA Championship
Crooked Stick Golf Club
Carmel, Indiana
John Daly was a virtual unknown 25-year-old rookie – he’d only made 11 of 23 cuts as a professional – when he stole a place in our hearts by winning the first of his two major championships.
Daly’s storybook victory is almost too good to be true: he was the ninth alternate for the tournament so he didn’t even make the trip from his home in Memphis until driving through the night on Tuesday and getting in the field when major winner Nick Price withdrew due to the impending birth of his first child.
Having never seen the course before, Daly overpowered Crooked Stick with 300-yard drives triggered by what became his catchphrase: “Grip it and rip it.”
In one of the great underdog stories in golf, he cruised to a three-stroke victory over Bruce Lietzke to earn his first PGA Tour title.
1. 2000 PGA Championship
Valhalla Golf Club
Louisville, Kentucky
Having already won the U.S. Open by 15 strokes and the British Open by eight that year, Tiger Woods needed to go extra holes with Bob May to win his third straight major in what would become the third leg of his “Tiger Slam.” Woods led by one stroke entering the final round at Valhalla, but despite a 31 on the back nine and shooting 67 for the day, he couldn’t shake May.
Indeed, Woods had to can a birdie putt at 18 to force a three-hole aggregate playoff. Woods walked in his birdie putt at 16 – the first playoff hole – with a memorable finger point at the hole and got up and down from a bunker at 18 to become the first man since Denny Shute in 1937 to successfully defend his title at the PGA.
Given the high drama of Woods being taken to the limit and beyond and its historical significance – Woods also became the first man since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in a single season – the 2000 PGA goes down as the greatest PGA of the last 30 years and quite possibly of all-time.
“We never backed off from one another, birdie for birdie, shot for shot, we were going right after each other,” Woods said. “It has to go down as one of the best duels in the game in major championships.”
