The Wanamaker Trophy’s Rich History
had a duplicate of the Wanamaker Trophy made. The original was retired and is now on display at the PGA Historical Center in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
• Champions’ names are still
added annually to the priceless
original, but it is the more
recent version that PGA
Champions pose with these
MONTANA PRITCHARD/THE PGA OF AMERICA
Early in 1916, Rodman Wanamaker, a sportsman of much renown and the heir to a New York City department store empire, summoned some friends, including prominent golfing types such as Francis Ouimet, A. W. Tillinghast and Walter Hagen to a luncheon meeting at the Taplow Club in Wanamaker’s New York store. Wanamaker thought it was high time to create a national organization to promote professional golfers.
This luncheon ultimately resulted in the formation of The PGA of America.
Wanamaker suggested a professional-only tournament, put up
$2,500 of his own money for the prize fund, and ordered a silver cup. The trophy is believed to have been crafted by the former Philadelphia firm of Dieges and Clust. One has to wonder whether Wanamaker envisioned that nearly a century later that same silver cup, which bears his name, would still be awarded to the winner of the PGA Championship.
As The PGA of America prepares to etch the
name of the 92nd PGA Champion on the
Wanamaker Trophy this week, here are a few
interesting facts:
• The Wanamaker Trophy weighs 27 pounds,
stands 28 inches high, is 10. 5 inches in
diameter and measures 27 inches from
handle to handle.
• In the 1928 PGA Championship, Leo Diegel
snapped the four-year winning streak of
Walter Hagen. Perhaps even more shocking
than the favored Hagen losing was the fact
that the Wanamaker Trophy was missing.
“The Haig,” the only man to raise the trophy
in the previous four years, claimed to know
nothing of its whereabouts, saying he left it
in a cab in Chicago. The trophy showed up
two years later in the warehouse of L.A.
Young & Company, the firm that
manufactured clubs bearing Hagen’s name.
To serve as a safeguard, The PGA of America
days. That’s the one
John Daly, as the story
goes, turned into a keg the
night of his come-from-nowhere
victory at Crooked Stick Golf Club
in 1991.
THE OFFICIAL PROGRAM OF THE 2010 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP