The fascinating history of the Wanamaker Trophy
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The winner of the PGA Championship will be presented with the giant Wanamaker Trophy. But what are its origins?
It’s almost three-feet tall, weighs nearly 30 pounds, and – according to 2013 PGA champion Jason Dufner – holds 43 beers. But do you know the fascinating backstory to the Wanamaker Trophy?
It all started in the early 20th century with Rodman Wanamaker, a wealthy businessman and heir to the Wanamaker’s department store fortune. who played a pivotal role in the development of professional golf in the United States.
Recognizing that American golfers lacked the organizational support and competitive opportunities available to their counterparts in Europe, Wanamaker invited 35 prominent figures in golf, including leading amateur and professional players, to a meeting on January 17, 1916, at the Taplow Club in New York City.
By the time they had left later that evening, the Professional Golfers’ Association of America was born.
As part of his support for the fledgling organization, Wanamaker offered to sponsor a national tournament for professional golfers. He donated a lavish trophy for the event – crafted of sterling silver and standing more than two-and-a-half-feet tall – intended to symbolize excellence in professional golf.
Later that year, the inaugural PGA Championship was held later that year at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, New York. Jim Barnes, a professional golfer from the small fishing village of St Ives in Cornwall, England, won the first tournament and became the first to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy.
Then a match-play tournament, of course, Barnes would go on to defend his title three years later after the 1917 and ’18 PGA Championships were cancelled due to the Great War.
In the years since, the Wanamaker Trophy has, like the Claret Jug and Green Jacket, become symbolic with major championship golf. Engraved with the names of every winner, it serves as an historical record of the PGA’s champion each year.
To date, six players have had their name etched onto that giant cup on at least three occasions. Walter Hagen and Jack Nicklaus have won it five times each, Tiger Woods has four, while Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead and Brooks Koepka have three. Justin Thomas, Phil Mickelson and golf’s newest Grand Slam champion, Rory McIlroy, will be looking to join that club at Quail Hollow.
Hagen also holds the record for most consecutive PGA Championship wins with four from 1924 to 1927. No one has ever done three in a row – with Barnes (1916, ’19), Sarazen (1922, ’23), Leo Diegel (1928, ’29), Denny Shute (1936, ’37), Woods (1999, 2000 and 2006, ’07), and Koepka (2018, ’19) the only other players to successfully defend the Wanamaker Trophy.
Each PGA champion gets to keep the trophy for a year, while a smaller replica is awarded to them to keep.
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