It’s hard to repeat at any important golf event. That’s why it happens so infrequently. Scottie Scheffler’s repeat victory last year at THE PLAYERS was historic. He was the very first person in the tournament’s 51-year history to win back-to-back. How does that compare to the other biggest tournaments each season?
For the sake of argument, let’s look at how many times the Masters, the PGA, the U.S. Open and the British Open have had repeat winners.
The United States has three of the four or four of the five majors, depending on what you count. Here in Ponte Vedra, many of us count THE PLAYERS as a major. Whether you do or not is a subject for another time. Right now, we have to compare a back-to-back victory at THE PLAYERS to something, and the other majors are the only things comparable because it is the championship of the PGA Tour.
The Historic Viewpoint: The Oldest Biggie
There are plenty of repeating champs at the British Open, but that makes sense because it’s been held since 1861. It actually started out with a back-to-back champ in Old Tom Morris, followed by his son, Young Tom Morris who won four in a row, 1868-1872, and there was no tournament in 1871, so credit his victories however you like.
Others to double up on British Opens include Jamie Anderson, Bob Ferguson and Peter Thomson, who actually won three in a row. (Thomson has five in all.) There was the Great Triumvirate of Brits, Harry Vardon, J.H. Taylor and James Braid, who won the tournament 16 of 21 times between 1894 and 1914. They all had back-to-back victories in there somewhere. They were kind of like three Tiger Woods all at once, winning nearly everything around the turn of the 20th century.
U.S. players have double-dipped at the British Open, starting with Bobby Jones in 1926 and 1927, followed by Walter Hagen in 1928 and 1929. But in 1960, a legend was about to appear on the scene. He became the Elvis Presley of golf: Arnold Palmer.
That year, Palmer had already slipped into a green jacket at the Masters and hoisted the trophy at the U.S. Open. On his plane ride to St. Andrews for the British Open, he asked the late sportswriter Bob Drum, who was on the flight, what it would be if he continued winning and captured both the British Open and the PGA.
Drum replied it would be the equivalent of Bobby Jones’ Grand Slam. And that’s when Palmer told Drum he was going to win the Grand Slam. And yes, that conversation is where today’s idea of the modern Grand Slam began. (No matter what anybody else tells you, that’s when it happened because Bob Drum told me, backed up by Dan Jenkins. There are some people you just have to believe.)
Well, as much as we all would have liked for Palmer to win the Grand Slam in 1960, even The King couldn’t make the game of golf bend to his desires. He was defeated by Australian Kel Nagle that year. But he became the first golfer to be frustrated by not winning the modern Grand Slam. It would dog Jack Nicklaus his whole career.
Despite the 1960 loss, Palmer returned, and in 1961 and 1962, he became the next American back-to-back winner. At that point, nobody could hold the U.S. players back. Lee Trevino caught fire in 1971 and ’72. Tom Watson in 1982 and 1983. Tiger Woods in 2005 and 2006.
Finally, the Europeans got back into the consecutive win column when Padraig Harrington won the British Open in 2007 and 2008.
For a tournament that is so old, it does not really have a huge number of back-to-back champions, 16 in all, but it has more than any other important event. The reason is likely due to the fact that at the beginning, there were not a lot of golfers competing and there were not a lot of really, really good golfers. It got tougher over time. And the weather can be a beast.
The Oldest U.S. Biggie: U.S. Open
U.S. Open has been played the next longest, debuting in 1895. The first back-to-back winner was in 1903 with Willie Anderson. He actually won the tournament three times in a row and four times in all.
After Anderson, the U.S. Open refused to have a repeat winner until 1911 and 1912 when so called phenom John McDermott snagged the title. It is probably no surprise to you, if you are a golf historian, that next up was the great Bobby Jones who won in 1929 and 1930.
Seven after Jones double, his feat was matched by someone who doesn’t receive many accolades in golf: Ralph Guldahl. He racked up his repeat victory at Oakland Hills and Cherry Hills in 1937 and 1938.
That was it until 1950-1951 when Ben Hogan, after his hideous car-gets-hit-by-bus accident, went back-to-back at Merion and Oakland Hills. No one suggests that as a plan for how to win.
It was then nearly 40 years until Curtis Strange mounted a charge at The Country Club and Oak Hill in 1988 and 1989. And finally, there’s Brooks Koepka, who won our country’s open championship in 2017 and 2018 at Erin Hills and Shinnecock Hills.
So, in 130 years, we’ve only had seven back-to-back U.S. Open champs. And a lot of them have had Hill or Hills in the name of the courses.
The First Match Play Biggie: PGA Championship
The PGA is the second oldest important U.S. tournament, and it was begun in 1916. A man named Rodman Wannamaker, who apparently had department stores at the time, donated the trophy. And it’s huge.
The PGA Championship is kind of a two-headed beast when it comes to counting back-to-back victories. That’s because, from 1916 until 1957, it was conducted as a match play event. Since 1958, it’s been four rounds of stroke play.
In the match play era, there were five who were back-to-back winners: Jim Barnes in 1916 and 1919 (because there was no tournament during WW I); Gene Sarazen in 1922 and 1923; Walter Hagen in 1924, 1925, 1926 and 1927 (yes, he was apparently that good); Leo Diegel in 1928 and 1929; and Denny Shute in 1936 and 1937.
Since the PGA went to stroke play, there have only been two back-to-back winners. Brooks Koepka in 2018 and 2019 and Tiger Woods, twice, in 1999 and 2000 and again in 2006 and 2007. Does that mean Tiger Woods was twice as good as Brooks Koepka? Sounds like a good topic for a bar argument.
If you are wondering how many won in each format, it was seven total in 109 years. There were five in match play over a period of 42 years and two in stroke play over 67 years. Seems like the stroke play is the harder format!
Now, in case you are wondering what happened to Jack Nicklaus in all this, the answer is nothing. He won five PGA Championships. In fact, he has one of the most — perhaps the most — incredible records in terms of numbers: six Masters, five PGAs, four U.S. Opens, three British Opens, three PLAYERS and — ta-da! — two U.S. Amateurs. Tiger Woods also has a strong record with five Masters, four PGAs, three U.S. Opens, three British Opens and three U.S. Amateurs.
The Greenest Biggie: The Masters
Now we come to the tournament that — outside of THE PLAYERS — has had the fewest number of back-to-back champions, and it’s surprising because if ever there was a horses-for-courses location, this is it. Jack Nicklaus has won it six times. Tiger Woods has won it five times. Arnold Palmer won it four times. Naturally, we are talking about the Masters. It was started in 1934, just under 20 years after the debut of the PGA Championship.
Although 18 players won the tournament more than once, only three have repeated as champions: Jack Nicklaus in 1965-1966, Nick Faldo in 1989-1990 and Tiger Woods in 2001-2002.
Really, that’s kind of hard to believe when you think about the number of times the same players have played in the tournament. Usually, familiarity with a course breeds increased success. But I guess people couldn’t play through Palmer, Nicklaus, Faldo and Woods to get to a repeat.
The Meanest Biggie: THE PLAYERS
Nearly every important golfer in the last 50 years has won THE PLAYERS. There are some that haven’t. But only one person has repeated as PLAYERS champion in the 51 years that it has been held: Scottie Scheffler.
The reason, as past champions have said, is because the course hates everybody. OK, they didn’t say that. I said that. Pete Dye designed it to not give anybody an advantage but to give everybody on their game an advantage. While that sounds slightly nuts, remember Rickie Fowler said the person who wins is “whoever has the most control.”
No golfer has to be Superman to win THE PLAYERS, but he might want to keep a cape in his bag, just in case a Superman shot is required. The reason is the design of the golf course. Pete Dye always gives every player a chance on every shot. However, the player has to hit to the area that Pete wants him to go, or figure out some other way to avoid the trouble lurking.
We could go through the golf course, hole-by-hole and note where Pete wants guys to hit the ball. But some of them can’t, some of them won’t and some of them refuse to. What they are doing is lessening their chances of winning.
Pete’s designs are similar to those of Jack Nicklaus, and that’s not surprising since the two of them worked on several courses together in the beginning of their design careers. Many of them have a severe look. They are designed first and foremost to scare the golfer on every shot. The player who can’t see beyond that is not going to do well. But Pete always gives every golfer a place to go. An example is the 1st hole of TPC Sawgrass. When you stand on the tee, it looks like the landing area is a little sliver of grass left, woods left and a yawning bunker to the right. When you get to the landing area, you realize that the fairway is almost huge, and it was just a trick of the eye to scare you. Seventeen more holes like that follow it. Until golfers learn that there’s a place out there on every shot, in every fairway, on every green (well, maybe not the 8th), they aren’t going to win, much less repeat.
Now, that’s a lot to take in, so go make yourself a Sawgrass Splash and enjoy THE PLAYERS!
SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Open_Championship_champions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Open_(golf)_champions
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PGA_Championship_champions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGA_Championship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Players_Championship#Winners
https://www.nbcsports.com/golf/news/scottie-schefflers-remarkable-2024-season-event-results-and-money-earned
