PGA Championship honors board: Every winner since 1916!

The Wanamaker Trophy is awarded to all PGA Championship winners.

Here’s the full list of PGA Championship winners…

The first PGA Championship was held in October 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in New York where Jim Barnes, who grew up in a small fishing village in Cornwall in the southwest of England, claimed victory and received $500 and a diamond-studded gold medal donated by Rodman Wanamaker.

These days they play for an awful lot more, but ultimately they all crowned PGA champion.

Originally a match play event with a stroke play qualifier, it wasn’t unheard of for the finalists to have played more than 200 holes in a week. But, pressured by TV networks who wanted to show a large group of well-known players on the final day, the PGA of America decided to switch the tournament to stroke play from 1958 onwards.

During its history, the event has been played at various times of the year, but it settled in August for several decades and was the season’s final men’s major – or “Glory’s Last Shot”, as it was known. But, in 2017, it moved to May, slotting in between the Masters and US Open.

Most winningest players in PGA Championship history

Unsurprisingly, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods are the most successful players in the tournament’s stroke play era. Although Brooks Koepka, who has won the trophy three times, will fancy his chances of closing them down.

5: Walter Hagen, Jack Nicklaus
4: Tiger Woods
3: Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Brooks Koepka
2: Jim Barnes, Leo Diegel, Denny Shute, Paul Runyan, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Dave Stockton, Raymond Floyd, Lee Trevino, Larry Nelson, Nick Price, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas

The full list of PGA Championship winners

Parentheses after name indicate the number of victories they’ve achieved in the tournament.

(The PGA Championship was not played in 1917, 1918 or 1943 due to war.)