Pga Championship
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IT’S BEEN A GREAT WALK 100 YEARS OF THE AUSTRALIAN PGA CHAMPIONSHIP THE RICH HERITAGE OF THE PGA 2 EARLY ERA 1905-1945 4 MATCH PLAY ERA 1946-1964 10 INTERNATIONAL ERA 1965-1995 18 MODERN ERA 1996 & BEYOND 30 A CENTURY OF CHAMPIONS 42 Dan Soutar, winner of four of the first six PGA titles and the PGA’s first president, shows his artistry from the sand. THE RICH HERITAGE OF THE AUSTRALIAN PGA Just to play for the PGA In many ways the history of Championship players had to the PGA of Australia reflects qualify from their scores in the the amazing growth of the game Australian Open which normally here and the high standing that was played the week before. Australian professional golfers enjoy around the world. The Australian PGA has the singular distinction of having There were very few professional been played on each of the eight golfers in Australia when the courses in Australia which have first PGA Championship was been accorded the honour of played in 1905 and yet today BORN IN POOR, YET PROUD, CIRCUMSTANCES, THE having the Royal prefix attached Australia is the most dominant AUSTRALIAN PGA CHAMPIONSHIP, WHICH CELEBRATES ITS to their club’s name – Royal golf nation in the world on a CENTENARY IN 2005 IN DAZZLING STYLE, HAS FABULOUSLY Melbourne, Royal Sydney, Royal per capita basis. Indeed only ENRICHED THE GAME OF GOLF IN THIS COUNTRY. Queensland, Royal Adelaide, the US, with 47 players in the Royal Hobart, Royal Perth, Royal top 100 world rankings, was The Australian PGA Fremantle and Royal Canberra. ahead of Australia which had Championship, which, after 11 top 100 players late in 2005. being disregarded in its early Another indication of the true years by the hierarchy of golf as national flavour with which merely a low prize money match the PGA Championship has play aftermath to the Australian enriched the game is that it is Open, has become our most the only title which has been prestigious professional title. played in not only every state’s capital city, including Canberra, The PGA Championship is but also on a string of leading unique in that during its first regional layouts. 60 years it was played as a match play event at least 40 From Australia’s top course, times. With 11 years play lost to the world renowned Royal the two world wars and gaps in Melbourne, to short sub-70 the early records, the Australian par suburban layouts, the PGA PGA was only rarely played champions have achieved their under stroke play conditions moments of glory in every golf before 1964. corner of the country. 3 EARLY ERA 1905- 1945 MATCH PLAY ERA 1946-1964 INTERNATIONAL ERA 1965-1995 MODERN ERA 1996 & BEYOND EARLY ERA 1905-1945 THE PGA’S SCOTTISH ROOTS SCOTLAND, THE HOME OF GOLF, Carnegie Clark, who won the IS ALSO WHERE THE ROOTS Australian PGA Championship in OF THE AUSTRALIAN PGA 1908 and 1909, was also one of CHAMPIONSHIP ORIGINATED. the PGA of Australia’s founding SCOTTISH-BORN PLAYERS, DAN fathers. The association’s first SOUTAR AND CARNEGIE CLARK, meeting was held on Monday DOMINATED THE EARLY YEARS September 19, 1911, in Clark’s OF THE PGA TITLE WINNING THE pro-shop at Royal Sydney Golf FIRST SIX CHAMPIONSHIPS. Club. He was the first player Scottish pair and lifelong friends, Carnegie Clark (left) and Dan Soutar were Australia’s first professional golfers. to win the Open as an amateur The pair were lifelong friends, and as a professional. He was both hailing from the esteemed the first pro to manufacture golf nursery of Carnoustie. In clubs on a large scale in 1902 Soutar followed Clark by Australia and Carnegie Clark migrating to Australia at age Golf still operates at St Peters 20 after serving a five-year in Sydney. apprenticeship as a carpenter. The Scottish connection didn’t Three months after his arrival end with Soutar and Clark – he won the 1903 Australian other Scottish-born winners Amateur Championship of the PGA Championship are: and two years later turned Rufus Stewart (1929), Fergus professional. He promptly McMahon (1932), Sam Torrance won the 1905 Australian Open (1980) and Andrew Coltart and followed up to win the first (1994 and 1997). Australian PGA Championship. In all, 11 PGA titles have been He was never to win the Open won by Scots, second only to again – finishing second seven the number won by Australians. times – but won the next two Australian PGAs and again in 1910. He became the first President of the PGA of Australia in 1911. 5 When the Blue Mountains Parrot beat pipe-smoking Howard THE CLASH OF CHARLIE According to the PGA’s Howard, the long-term pro at CAMPBELL AND TOM HOWARD Pro Golf: Out of the Rough, Concord Golf Club, in Sydney’s First Aussie IN THE AUSTRALIAN PGA Campbell, the pro at Leura Golf western suburbs, was similarly CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL IN 1922 Club in the Blue Mountains, a golfer out of the ordinary in AT ROYAL SYDNEY ATTRACTED was known as the “Blue that he mostly played his shots winner HUNDREDS OF SPECTATORS Mountains Parrot” and would smoking a tobacco pipe WHO WERE TREATED TO A chatter away while he played, clenched in his teeth. He also THRILLING DISPLAY BY TWO pausing only to hit a shot, often had a unique style in looking at OF AUSTRALIAN GOLF’S MOST mid-sentence. the hole and not the ball when a Bondi boy UNIQUE CHARACTERS. he putted. He was also was known as “miss’em quick Campbell” As Howard put it so succinctly: WITH THE OFFICIAL FORMATION OF THE due to his speedy play which “If you were going to throw a PGA OF AUSTRALIA AT ROYAL SYDNEY IN 1911, once saw him and a pro-purse rock at a bird sitting on a fence, THE STATURE OF THE GOLF PROFESSIONAL ROSE partner race around The you would not look at the rock, DRAMATICALLY, AS DID THE PUBLIC’S PERCEPTION Australian Golf Course in about but at the bird.” OF THE AUSTRALIAN PGA CHAMPIONSHIP, WHEN an hour and a half – and both CHARLIE CAMPBELL BECAME THE FIRST shot 75. It obviously worked because AUSTRALIAN-BORN WINNER THAT YEAR. after his narrow loss to Campbell, fresh from winning Campbell in 1922 Howard the 1922 Australian Open with collected the PGA title twice Born in nearby Bondi in 1890, a record low score of 307 for in 1924 and 1925, first beating Campbell was only 21 when he an Open championship played Arthur Le Fevre 3 and 2 at shot a 36-hole total of 154 to at Royal Sydney, ran into a Royal Melbourne and then beat a string of players on 157 tough and talented opponent in defending his title against including the dominant Scottish- Howard before winning 1 up. Fred Popplewell 3 and 1 at born greats Carnegie Clark and The Australian. Dan Soutar. Not only was Campbell home- grown, it was the first time that someone other than Soutar (who had won in 1905, 1906, 1907 and 1910) or Clark (1908 and 1909) had won the title in its seven-year history. The tough and talented Tom Howard. EARLY ERA 1905-1945 TRICK SHOT JOE JOE KIRKWOOD, THE GOLFER WHOSE NAME IS IMMORTALISED ON THE TROPHY AWARDED EACH YEAR TO THE WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN PGA CHAMPIONSHIP, WAS AUSTRALIA’S FIRST INTERNATIONAL GOLF SUPERSTAR AND FAMOUS AS THE WORLD’S GREATEST TRICK SHOT PLAYER. Sydney-born Kirkwood It often appeared that the two unofficially won the 1920 PGA balls would collide in flight. Championship – a result never He said the trick that was his confirmed. This was the same most difficult was when he year, carrying just seven clubs, portrayed a duffer, first missing that he became the first golfer to the ball, then topping it barely off score less than 300 to win the the tee, topping it progressively Australian Open at The Australian further and finally hitting a Golf Club in Sydney. perfect shot down the middle. Kirkwood was a freakish golfer. Kirkwood’s most spectacular He could play right or left-handed and skilful shot was to hit a golf and in 1918 at the age of 21, ball from a tee held in the mouth and already a professional, he by a women lying between his held the course records for feet. He had no shortage of Royal Sydney, 69; Royal Melbourne, volunteers to be the tee model, 70; Metropolitan, 66; and his as his stage shows were thronged home club Riversdale, 65. by thousands and very popular with the sophisticated theatre The Riversdale members actually crowds. He also hit shots off paid the way for their 23-year- watch faces, once scoring a hole old pro to play in the 1920 in one. Another amazing trick Australian and New Zealand was to balance three balls on top Open Championships, the first of each other and to only hit the staged following World War I, middle one. and he rewarded them by winning both titles. In between making a fortune from his exhibitions, Kirkwood Kirkwood left Australia soon after could still play world-class golf, to become the first Australian finishing ninth in a US Open golfer to make his mark on the and fourth, three times, in world. He teamed up with the British Opens. world’s top professional, Walter Hagen, in a series of stage shows Kirkwood, who died in 1970, and exhibitions and became is said to have played more than world famous for his amazing 6,000 courses in his career and Joe Kirkwood hits a ball from a tee held in a woman’s mouth – just another part of his amazing trick-shot routine.