The PGA Championship

Lore & Background

The PGA Championship's roots stretch back to 1916, when it was conceived as a match-play contest for members of the PGA of America. For decades it carried that intimate, head-to-head character, and the early champions were often club pros and touring professionals who might never crack a Masters or U.S. Open leaderboard. The switch to stroke play in 1958 transformed the event into the full-field major we recognize today, but the tournament kept certain quirks that set it apart: a slightly more compact course setup, a tradition of finishing on Saturday, and a cultural identity as 'the pros' major,' a phrase that still resonates in the locker rooms and on the broadcast booths.

The 1990s and 2000s belong to a few names. Tiger Woods's 1999 and 2000 victories, where he closed out both weeks with commanding lead, are among the most dominant runs in major history. Jack Nicklaus, who collected four PGA titles across a span of two decades, treated the tournament as a personal benchmark, and his 1980 win at Oakmont—where he shot 63 in the final round—is still cited as one of the great clutch performances. Phil Mickelson, Greg Norman, and Tom Watson all etched their names into the record books, and the tournament has a long tradition of producing dramatic final-round swings, partly because the compressed Saturday finish leaves no cushion for a slow start.

The PGA Championship also has a unique relationship with the broader professional community. Because the PGA of America fields members who are not necessarily on the PGA Tour—club pros, teaching professionals, and international members—the tournament has always carried a slightly wider, more democratic feel than its three major siblings. That inclusivity, combined with the Saturday finish and the tighter course setups, gives it a character that fans and players describe as a little more 'gritty' and a little less ceremonial than Augusta or St Andrews.

In Their Own Story

The Saturday morning air at the back nine is thick with cut-grass smell and the low hum of a crowd that has been building since Thursday. A caddie unzips his bag, pulls out the 7-iron, and taps the sole against the practice mat three times—his own little ritual, one he's done at every PGA Championship for eleven years. The gallery behind the 18th green is a wall of sunburned faces, cooler boxes, and the particular silence that falls when a player steps up to a 12-foot putt. Somewhere down the fairway, a kid in a too-big cap is holding a sign that reads 'GO TIGER' from a year he can't remember. The flagstick is pulled. The ball rolls. The Saturday finish means there is no tomorrow, no second chance, no Sunday to recover. Just this putt, this green, this one shot that could be a legend or a footnote. The crowd holds its breath. The ball stops two inches from the cup. The caddie exhales. The kid in the cap starts screaming before the ball even drops.

Reader's Guide

You smell it before you see it: that dense, almost sweet perfume of freshly cut bentgrass and the faint metallic tang of mowers that have been running since before dawn. The fairways at a PGA Championship venue are narrower than what you'd see at a U.S. Open, and the rough is thick enough to punish a stray drive but not so punishing that the ball vanishes forever. You feel the difference in your shoulders as you watch a player swing—there's less room for error, less margin, and the crowd knows it.

The Saturday-finish tradition is the tournament's heartbeat. By the time the final round begins, the galleries are packed shoulder to shoulder, and the energy is different from a Sunday. There's a urgency, a 'this is the last chance' electricity that makes even a bogey feel like a small tragedy. Caddies have their own rituals: tapping a club against the bag before a key putt, a quiet word of encouragement that never quite makes it to the broadcast mics, the way they'll nod to each other across the fairway in a silent language built over a season of walking together.

Fans who've attended multiple editions know the inside rhythm: the Thursday afternoon walk when the course still feels wide and forgiving, the Friday evening when the first cuts are in and the leaderboard starts to make sense, the Saturday morning when the air is cold and the back nine feels like a different planet. Bring a rain shell, a thermos, and the patience to stand in a gallery for forty minutes while a player searches for a ball. That's the deal. That's how you earn your place in the crowd.

Did You Know?

• The PGA Championship was originally a match-play event before switching to stroke play format in 1958, a change that transformed it into the full-field major recognized today.
• The tournament is traditionally finished on Saturday rather than Sunday, a quirk among the four majors that compresses the final round into a single high-pressure day.
• The PGA of America, which organizes the championship, is a separate organization from the PGA Tour; the 'PGA' in the tournament name refers to the professionals' trade association, not the tour that fields most of the pl
• Tiger Woods won the PGA Championship in consecutive years in 1999 and 2000, closing both weeks with commanding leads that are still referenced as among the most dominant runs in major championship history.