On his way to finishing tied for eighth in the 1941 Times-Union, Gene Sarazen was asked what he thought about Oak Hill Country Club’s viability as a future host site for a U.S. Open or PGA Championship.
“There isn’t one weakness in the whole place and it is certainly better than the Fort Worth Country Club and the Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland,” Sarazen said of the host venues for the 1941 and 1940 U.S. Opens, respectively.
Sam Snead, who won the first of the two T-U tournaments (Ben Hogan won the other in 1942) agreed, saying the East Course was “one of the finest I ever saw, fit for either the Open or PGA.”
Those guys knew what they were talking about, and pretty soon, the U.S. Golf Association and the PGA of America started listening.
In the 82 years since those comments were made, Oak Hill has become one of the most iconic major tournament sites in the world and is the only facility in the United States that has hosted at least one U.S. Open (three), PGA Championship (2023 will be the fourth), Senior PGA (two), U.S. Senior Open, Ryder Cup and U.S. Amateur (2027 will be the third).
The greatest names in golf – from Rochester’s own Walter Hagen, to Snead, Sarazen, Hogan and Byron Nelson, to Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino, to Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy – have competed at the venerable East Course, and a new batch of stars will descend this month when the 105th PGA Championship begins.
More:Oak Hill will look different for pros playing in 2023 PGA championship
Here is a look back at the previous major events that have been held at Oak Hill:
1949 U.S. Amateur
The Walter Hagen Open in 1934, and the two T-U opens were just regular tournaments that were part of the largely undefined pro golf circuit, so the first recognized major tournament was the U.S. Amateur which, at that time, was considered every bit as important as the U.S. Open.
Charlie Coe of Oklahoma routed Texan Rufus King 11-and-10 in the 36-hole final as more than 15,000 spectators watched the action during the week.
Among the 210 contestants who started the tournament were Palmer, Dow Finsterwald, Julius Boros, Art Wall Jr., Willie Turnesa and Rochester’s own Sam Urzetta, who the following year would win the Amateur title in Minneapolis.
1956 U.S. Open
The USGA was back, this time with its most prestigious event. An aging Hogan was trying to become the first five-time winner of the Open, and he gave it a valiant effort.
He was one shot off Peter Thomson’s 36-hole lead heading into the 36-hole final day, and he needed pars on the final two holes to match Cary Middlecoff’s score of 281, which he had posted an hour before Hogan finished his round. Incredibly, Hogan missed a 30-inch putt at 17 and lost by one stroke.
1968 U.S. Open
For the second time, the Open was played at Oak Hill and little-known Trevino earned his first professional victory, holding off Nicklaus – who closed with a 67 – by four strokes.
Trevino became the first Open champion to play four rounds in the 60s, and said, “Ain’t this a hell of a way to make a living?”
Trevino said it wasn’t until the final three holes, when he had a five-shot lead, that he realized he could win the Open. “I’m certainly glad I didn’t think about winning that thing beforehand, I might have had a heart attack,” Trevino said.
1980 PGA Championship
Nicklaus, 40 years old at the time, came into Hagen’s backyard and tied Sir Walter’s record of five career PGA Championship victories by rolling to a record seven-shot triumph. This was Nicklaus’ 17th professional major and his second of 1980, following his win in the U.S. Open at Baltusrol two months earlier.
“Oak Hill is a marvelous golf course and people should not look back at this tournament and look at my score,” he said. “I just happened to get lucky.” Typical Jack, ever the modest and gentlemanly superstar.
1984 U.S. Senior Open
It was Miller time on the East Course as Miller Barber edged Palmer by two strokes. Barber was leading by one when Palmer made a disastrous double-bogey at the par-3 15th, one of the shots coming when he admitted to stubbing his putter and whiffing on a tap-in that Barber didn’t even see.
That error provided Barber with enough cushion to bring him the victory, and he said he’ll never forget the ovation he heard from the fans surrounding the 18th green.
“The cheer I got on the 18th, some people play a lifetime and never get something like that,” he said.
1989 U.S. Open
When the long and grueling week was complete, Curtis Strange sat down behind the microphone in the press tent and said, “Move over, Ben.”
Strange became the first man since Hogan in 1951 to win back-to-back U.S. Opens, and he did it with a gritty final round in which he made 15 straight pars before a crucial birdie at 16.
“It’s not so much what Ben Hogan did, but what others haven’t done,” Strange said. “Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson have not won back-to-back Opens. It’s hard to describe the feeling.”
No one matched that feat until Brooks Koepka won back-to-back Opens in 2017 and 2018.
1995 Ryder Cup
Of course, it was also hard to describe the feeling Strange felt when he lost the final three holes of his singles match with Nick Faldo which, in effect, enabled the European team to win the 31st Ryder Cup Matches.
There were plenty of other Americans who failed miserably in the singles on that unforgettable Sunday, but Strange’s lost point was devastating, and he knew it.
“I can’t believe we lost today, to be quite honest,” Strange said. “I honestly thought we were too good. It’s a frightening thought, what I’ll face tomorrow.”
1998 U.S. Amateur
Forty-nine years after first coming to Oak Hill, which incidentally was the last time it had been played in New York state, the U.S. Amateur was back, though the drought will end when the Amateur returns in 2027.
When you consider all he had been through in his short life, battling teenage alcoholism on his way to becoming the national amateur champion, 21-year-old Hank Kuehne certainly made for a compelling story, topped only by the quality of his play throughout the week.
In the 36-hole championship match, Kuehne defeated Tom McKnight, twice his age, 2-and-1, after McKnight had ousted teenager Sergio Garcia in the semifinals.
2003 PGA Championship
Among the magnificent roster of players who have won tournaments at Oak Hill, there is one that certainly stands out: Unheralded Shaun Micheel.
The PGA Championship was the first victory of his career, and it remains the only one as the journeyman struggled for a variety of on- and off-course reasons almost since the moment he hoisted the Wanamaker Trophy 20 years ago.
Micheel punctuated his unlikely triumph with a brilliant 7-iron approach shot from 174 yards at the 72nd hole that stopped 2 inches from the cup, securing the title. Some would say his win was a fluke, and maybe it was, but for one week, he was better than Woods, Mickelson and all the rest.
2008 Senior PGA Championship
The PGA of America brought its Senior Championship to Oak Hill for the first time, and Jay Haas gained sweet redemption with his immensely popular victory.
Haas had played a key role in America’s loss in the 1995 Ryder Cup, and he made it a point to talk about that disappointment and how he had been using it as motivation ever since.
Coming back to Oak Hill was a golden opportunity to officially erase the bad taste left from the Ryder Cup, and Haas did so, winning by two shots over Bernhard Langer, who was on Europe’s winning Ryder Cup side in 1995.
2013 PGA Championship
Some put Jason Dufner’s victory in the PGA Championship in the same category as Micheel’s 10 years earlier, but that wasn’t really the case. Dufner had already won twice on the PGA Tour, and in 2011 he’d lost a playoff to Keegan Bradley in the PGA Championship, so he had a more formidable résumé than Micheel.
Dufner broke the all-time Oak Hill 72-hole scoring record with a 10-under total of 270 in defeating Jim Furyk by two shots. Furyk at 8-under and Henrik Stenson at 7-under all bested the previous Oak Hill record of 6-under set by Nicklaus in 1980.
Dufner, who has won twice since, entered the final day trailing Furyk by a stroke, but he took the lead for good with a birdie at No. 8. When he made a birdie at 16, he stood at 12-under, the lowest sub-par mark in Oak Hill history. He finished off his 68 with bogeys on the last two holes but was able to hold on to the victory because Furyk did the same.
2019 Senior PGA Championship
Ken Tanigawa grew tired of grinding to make a living as a pro golfer in the 1990s so he quit to get into real estate development and applied for amateur status so he could continue to play tournaments.
After winning several through the years, and having just turned 50, he decided, almost on a lark, to enter the Champions Tour Qualifying School tournament in December 2017 because it was being held just down the road from his Phoenix home at TPC Scottsdale.
Tanigawa earned a spot on the senior tour for 2018, won an event at Pebble Beach - his first ever as a pro - and then came to Oak Hill in 2019 and captured the Senior PGA, overtaking long-time leader Paul Broadhurst on the 70th hole.
“To say it's a dream come true may be an understatement to a big level,” he said. “And to win at Oak Hill on such a storied venue just makes it that much more special, because you know all the great players have hit that tee shot off of 1, and then to just be able to play here and compete and to pull off a victory of this magnitude is unbelievable. It's unreal.”
Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which will come out every Friday during the offseason, please follow this link:https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast
