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      Five P.G.A. Championships to Remember

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      Here are five that stand out over the long history of the tournament.The P.G.A. Championship, which gets underway Thursday at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C., might not be as popular or prestigious as the game’s other three majors, but there have been plenty of magical moments and striking duels.That includes from its inception in 1916 through 1957, when it featured a match play format — one competitor pitted against another — as well as since 1958 when the tournament switched to medal play, the winner being the one with the fewest total strokes.Among the high-profile champions: Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen, who each captured the title a record five times, and Tiger Woods who has four victories.Here, in chronological order, are five P.G.A. Championships that stand out:1923: Pelham Country Club, Pelham Manor, N.Y.The battle in the 36-hole final was between two of the greatest players in the game: Hagen and Gene Sarazen. They would go on to win a combined 18 major championships. And the fight delivered from start to finish.Sarazen, the defending champion, appeared in control down the stretch, up by two holes with just three to go. He bogeyed 16 and 17, however, and the match was suddenly all square. Both players made pars on the final hole of regulation to set up a sudden-death playoff.Which was when things really got interesting. After each birdied the first extra hole, Sarazen hooked his tee shot on the second. Fortunate that it didn’t go out of bounds, he hit his next shot to within two feet of the hole and knocked in the putt for the victory.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The P.G.A. Championship: Pressure and Expectations

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      The leading players have had mixed success at this tournament and at this year’s course, Quail Hollow.In the world of expectations leading up to a major championship, Justin Thomas may have just won himself a free pass with his recent victory at the RBC Heritage at Harbor Town on Hilton Head Island, S.C. He’s a two-time major champion, but had been struggling.His first major came in 2017 — a two-shot victory in the P.G.A. Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C., where the event returns this week. The second major was also a P.G.A. Championship, in 2022 at Southern Hills.The pressure on Thomas came because he went three years without a win before his victory at Harbor Town last month. That stretch was characterized by more downs than ups, including being a controversial captain’s pick for the Ryder Cup in 2023. He was seen as having edged out the more-deserving Keegan Bradley, who had won the Travelers Championship that year and was playing well. But then came the Ryder Cup itself, where Thomas won only his singles match, losing two others and winning a halve in the third.Thomas, the world No. 5, is sure to be asked about what it’s like to be returning to Quail Hollow. But the weight of expectations will most probably rest on others. The focus will likely to come center on two players, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler.Scheffler notched his first win of the season at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in Texas this month.In the past, he hasn’t played Quail Hollow that well, at least compared with his high standards. When the club hosted the Presidents Cup in 2022 — the biennial match between the United States and the International squad — Scheffler lost three matches and contributed only half a point.Scheffler, who joined the PGA Tour in 2020, has skipped the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow over the years. He didn’t play it last year because his wife was about to give birth.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      J.C. Snead, Golfing Nephew of His Uncle Sam, Dies at 84

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      He knew he could never match the success of the great Sam Snead, but he won eight tournaments on the PGA Tour and four more on the senior circuit.J.C. Snead, who knew he could never match the golfing success of his celebrated uncle Sam Snead but who nevertheless won a combined 12 tournaments on the PGA Tour and senior tour, died on April 25 at his home in Hot Springs, Va. He was 84.Suzie (Bryant) Snead, his caregiver and former wife, said the cause was prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.When Snead joined the PGA Tour in 1968 at age 27, he understood that he would always play in the shadow of his Uncle Sam, nicknamed Slammin’ Sammy Snead, whose 82 victories on the PGA Tour were a record until Tiger Woods tied him in 2019.“There was no way I was going to live up to his reputation,” J.C. Snead told The New York Times in 1988. “With the late start I had, I didn’t have a prayer to be what Sam was. I wasn’t trying to be.”J.C. Snead won for the first time at the Tucson Open in February 1971. He followed that victory with another two weeks later at the Doral-Eastern Open, in Miami. During the final round at Doral, as Snead was preparing his approach shot to the 18th hole, someone in the gallery shouted, “Miss it!”Snead in June 1971. Earlier that year he had won for the first time, at the Tucson Open.PGA Tour Archive, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jim Dent, Long-Driving Golfer, Dies at 85

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      Honing his skills on segregated courses, he became one of the few Black golfers in the pro ranks, following the lead of Charlie Sifford, Pete Brown and Lee Elder.Jim Dent, who was one of the few Black golfers on the PGA Tour — in his day or now — and who became known for his prodigious drives off the tee, died on Friday at his home in Augusta, Ga. He was 85.His grandson Andre Lacey II said the cause was complications of a recent stroke.Mr. Dent was part of a small group of significant Black golfers who preceded Tiger Woods (who identifies as partly Black) into professional golf. Charlie Sifford was the first to play on what became known as the PGA Tour after its former parent, the PGA of America, dropped its “Caucasians only” policy in 1961.In 1964, Pete Brown was the first Black golfer to win an event on the tour. Eleven years later, Lee Elder was the first to play in the Masters tournament. And Calvin Peete, another Black member of the tour, won his first tournament in 1979 and 11 more between 1982 and 1986.Dent accumulated $564,809 in earnings, but he never won a tournament on the tour, and he did not qualify to play in the Masters. His best finish came in 1972, when he tied for second place, nine strokes behind Jack Nicklaus, at the Walt Disney World Open Invitational in Florida. But Dent went on to win a dozen tournaments on the tour’s new senior circuit (now called PGA Tour Champions), which he joined in 1989 at age 50. He won two tournaments in 1989 and four more the next year. His last victory came in 1998. In all, he earned more than $9 million on the Champions tour.Laury Livsey, the PGA Tour’s historian, said that Dent did not regard himself as a racial pioneer; rather, he credited Sifford, Brown and Elder with that distinction.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jay Sigel, Amateur Golfer Who Played Like a Pro, Dies at 81

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      Many considered him to be the greatest American amateur since Bobby Jones. So why didn’t he try for the PGA Tour? An old hand injury had something to do with it.Jay Sigel went to Wake Forest University in 1962 on a golf scholarship named for Arnold Palmer. He won an Atlantic Coast Conference individual title and became a second-team all-American. He would later tell friends and reporters that he went to college to play golf, not to study, and that he thought more about turning professional than about graduating.But his plans were deferred after a serious accident. Sigel — who died at 81 on April 19 in Boca Raton, Fla. — did not turn pro for nearly three decades, until he became eligible for the Senior PGA Tour at age 50.In the intervening years, he became widely viewed as perhaps the greatest amateur golfer of the post-World War II era in the United States.At Wake Forest, Sigel inadvertently put his left hand through a pane of glass in the summer of 1963 while trying to keep a door from closing. The accident severed a tendon, and the wound, near his wrist, required more than 70 stitches. He remained hospitalized for nine days.It took months to regain something resembling the completeness of his skills. His left little finger remained hooked, and he did not regain full feeling in the hand, which often grew cold, his wife, Betty Sigel, said. (She confirmed the death, in a hospital. She said the cause was complications of pancreatic cancer.)But the injury altered the arc of Sigel’s career and his life in a way that he came to see as fortunate and providential.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Masters: The Legacy of the Black Caddies at Augusta National

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      They would often form special bonds with the golfers that lasted decades. Carl Jackson caddied for Ben Crenshaw dozens of times, including for his two wins at Augusta.Thirty years ago this week, on the 18th green of the Augusta National Golf Club, a caddie comforted his weeping player, hugging him tight and supporting him. It was their second Masters victory together — 11 years after the first one. The player’s tears were of joy, but also of relief after a week where emotion off the course had been running through the tournament.Ben Crenshaw, the 19-time PGA Tour champion, and Carl Jackson, among the most famous Augusta National caddies, were that pair. Jackson had been on Crenshaw’s bag at the Masters since 1976, and the pair had been in contention several times since their first victory in 1984.But that week was different. The tournament started just days after Crenshaw’s mentor and teacher, Harvey Penick, had died, adding an emotional weight to what Crenshaw called his favorite tournament.The image of a tall Black caddie supporting a bent-over white golfer showed more than victory and relief. It captured the bond between two men who had become friends.“Ben was hovered over,” Jackson said in an interview last month. “I said to him, ‘It’s going to be OK. You just won the Masters.’ He had a lot to carry on his mind during the tournament that week, thinking about Harvey Penick.”Crenshaw said that the two were in sync at the 1995 Masters.“We’ve been in the heat many, many times,” he said in an interview last month, referring to that feeling of being close to victory. “It’s just so much fun. It’s what you strive for. To have pulled off winning the Masters twice, and with Carl, is one of my warmest memories.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Masters: Bernhard Langer Returns to Say Goodbye

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      A pickleball injury sidelined him last year, but he is returning to a course he loves.Bernhard Langer, barring a miracle, won’t win the Masters Tournament this year, which gets underway on Thursday.Langer, 67, who was born in Germany and now lives in the United States, hasn’t made the cut at Augusta National Golf Club since 2020.But he’ll receive his share of attention as he plays for the last time on the course that has meant so much to him. Langer, who made his first appearance in 1982, won the tournament in 1985 and 1993. He planned to say farewell last year but couldn’t participate after tearing his Achilles’ tendon playing pickleball.Langer, who has won a record 47 tournaments on PGA Tour Champions, spoke recently about his affection for the Masters. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.Are you playing any pickleball these days?No. I haven’t played since my injury, and I was told not to but maybe when I’m retired I’ll try it again. I don’t know yet. I’ll see how my leg feels.What would be a successful week for your last time at Augusta?From a professional standpoint, if I could make the cut, that would be unbelievable, but it’s very unlikely. I’ve gotten shorter [with his drives off the tee], and the injury didn’t help. This golf course, it’s meant to be hit with short to medium irons into the greens, and I’m coming in with 3-irons and 3-woods [clubs that hit the ball much farther]. It’s extremely difficult to hit these small targets, and I can’t do that with long clubs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Masters Helped Turn Ely Callaway Into a Golf Club Maker

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      He invented the Big Bertha driver, which changed the game of golf. Bobby Jones, a creator of the tournament, was a Callaway cousin.Ely Callaway, founder of the namesake golf club company, did something few golf enthusiasts could imagine doing. He declined an invitation from Bobby Jones to join the Augusta National Golf Club in 1957.Jones, a revered amateur golfer who won the Grand Slam in 1930 and was a co-founder of Augusta National with Clifford Roberts, was Callaway’s distant cousin and hero. Over the family’s mantel, long before the Masters achieved the major status it has today, hung a lithograph of Jones winning the Amateur Championship, also known as the British Amateur, and completing the Grand Slam. Across it was a personal handwritten inscription from Jones to Callaway and his first wife, Jeanne.Bobby Jones teeing off at St. Andrews in Scotland in 1928. Jones was Callaway’s distant cousin and hero.Getty ImagesNicholas Callaway said his father had practical reasons to turn down Jones.“Ely’s rationale later in life when he became the Callaway of Callaway Golf was that since Augusta was only open for a portion of the year, most of the year he would spend fielding calls from friends angling to get an invitation to play,” he said. His father’s posthumous memoir, “The Unconquerable Game: My Life in Golf & Business,” is being released this month.It worked out fine for him. “In the 1990s, he attended the Masters for many years and would get invited to play often in the days following the tournament,” his son said.The decision had to have been difficult. Something that comes across in Callaway’s memoir was the impact Jones had on him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More