The PGA Championship: The Season's Final Major

What a beautifully done book! For those of us who care about golf and its major championships it is very nice to have this one for the final major of each season. This book provides a solid history of the tournament since it was first conducted in 1916. From its inception through 1957 it was a grueling match play event that at times required the victor to play more than 200 holes in five days! This book does a great job in telling us about the formation of the PGA and the championship tournament. We also learn about the Wanamaker Trophy, who Wanamaker was, and the importance of his early support to the tournament. The book tells us about the interesting characters that have won the championship over the decades, when it was not held because of war, the issue of race in the tournament, and the eventual inclusion of African-American and other minorities in the championship. The book rightly focuses more attention on those champions who were multiple winners. Therefore the book gives us wonderful portraits of Walter Hagen, who won five times and was one of the original members of the PGA, and Jack Nicklaus, who also won this tournament five times and provides the foreword for this book. There are many pages of fabulous pictures of the champions we know and love, but many more on past champions we should get to know. There are also pictures of the courses, programs, fans, and equipment. It is quite interesting to see how things have changed over the years and how surprising things can sometimes be. Who can forget John Daly driving all night and starting the 1991 PGA Championship without even a warm-up round and then going on to win the tournament. What you might not know is that one of the fans was killed during the event on the first day. John Daly gave the family $30,000 for an endowment for his daughters' education. The book is full of great stories, great information, and wonderful images. It concludes with a list of all the champions, their score, the runner-up, the course, its yardage, the dates and total purse (you will be shocked at how little the pros won even twenty-five years ago). Great gift for your golf-addicted friends.