90th PGA Championship Preview & Golf Tips

90th PGA Championship

• Oakland Hills
• Bloomfield Township, Michigan
• August 4th – August 10th, 2008

Defending Champion: Tiger Woods

The PGA championship is the tournament that determines the National Champion for the Professional Golfers Association. This is one of the largest sports organizations in the world and therefore is the last of the 4 majors played around the world.

This is a great event and always caps off a great year for major championship golf. There is some wonderful history with this championship.

History

Rodman Wanamaker donated the Wanamaker trophy, which is easily the largest of the 4 major championship trophies, for the inaugural event in 1916. He also donated the prize money of $2,580. The 90th PGA Championship will have a total purse of $7 million.

The event was contested as a match play event until 1958. Jim Barnes of England was the event’s first winner in 1916, but World War I would interrupt his successful title defense until 1919.

Walter Hagen, a founding member of this event, would post 5 victories through the 1920’s. Gene Sarazen would also claim 3 titles in the early years of the event. Other winners in the match play era would be Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, and Byron Nelson. All the legends would lay claim to a PGA Championship victory.

It was 50 years ago that the PGA decided to change the format from match play to stroke play. In the 1958 event Don Finsterwal would win that first stroke play event. In 1963 Jack Nicklaus would begin his dominance of the event. He would win the Wanamaker trophy 5 times in his career, tying the record held by Walter Hagen.

In the modern, aka the Tiger Woods era, there have been several great champions, and several surprise winners. Tiger Woods won in 1999 and again in 2000. He became only the second player in history to win back-to-back championships. Other great champions have been Vijay Singh, Phil Mickleson, and David Toms. The surprise winners have been Shaun Micheel, Rich Beem, and David Toms setting tournament scoring record at -15.

Players to Watch

• Padraig Harrington – 2 time defending Open Champion
• Phil Mickleson – needs this one for a good year
• Vijay Singh – last week’s WGC event winner, 2 time PGA winner
• Sergio Garcia – when will he win his 1st major?
• Anthony Kim – 2 wins, big long course, could suit him
• Kenny Perry – has anybody played better over the last 2 months?

Oakland Hills

This course is a beast. It will play as a par 70 at over 7300 yards. It is long and tough, and depending on the course setup, it may play more like a US Open than ever before. It should be very exciting to watch.

How big a beast? There will be 5 par 4’s over 490 yards! There is one that is carded as 501, and another at 498. There is 4 par 3’s. Two of them are over 225 yards, with the longest being 257 yards!!

There may be some scoring available on the par 5’s, although one of them will play almost 600 yards.

The players this week will have to precision bombs to make their way around this course. When Hogan won here, he shot a 67 in the final round, and was quoted as saying that he was glad to bring this monster to it’s knees.

I think all the players in the field would love to have a 67 in Final Round, and I am sure the guy that does will feel the same way as Hogan.

I hope you enjoy the 90th PGA Championship at Oakland Hills Golf Course. Please remember to check back here after the second round for the Tips from the Leaders.

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