Who is wanamaker trophy

The PGA Championship media guide tells the story like this:. But, luckily, Hagen's contention the trophy was "irrevocably lost" turned out not to be true. The Wanamaker Trophy was found in in a cellar of the L. It was in an unmarked case and was discovered by a worker cleaning the cellar. Lucie, Fla. At the PGA Championship each year, a replica of the original trophy is presented to the winner, who gets to keep it for a year.

The champion returns that full-sized replica trophy the following year when he returns to try to defend the championship. But a smaller replica trophy is made each year and also given to the PGA champion. That smaller trophy is the one each PGA Championship winner gets to keep permanently. Wanamaker was a businessman and entrepreneur who became an international department store magnate and a patron of the arts.

He was born in and died in The Wanamaker Trophy, given annually to the winner of the PGA Championship, is the biggest trophy in major championship golf. Depending on who you ask, it may not be the most important, but it has size and stature to show it's a big deal. It was at that meeting of 35 at Wykagyl Country Club in New York that Wanamaker proposed the idea of an all-professional championship. Walter Hagen won five of seven PGAs from , including four in a row at the end of the period.

However, in , Wanamaker lost the trophy and didn't show up to that year's PGA with it in hand, as was custom for a player to do after holding the trophy for a year. New York City department store magnate Rodman Wanamaker, who was pivotal in coordinating a event that led to the PGA of America being created, offered to provide the new organisation with cash prizes and a trophy for the inaugural US PGA Championship.

The Englishman defeated Jock Hutchison one-up in the final. Diegel went on to win the championship, the first of his two major victories. Hagen confessed that he had given the trophy to a taxi driver to take a hotel where he was staying, but it never arrived.

It stayed lost for two years until, in , it was found by accident by a porter in Detroit cleaning the cellar of L. Lucie, Florida. Early in , Rodman Wanamaker, a sportsman and heir to a department store empire, summoned some friends including prominent golfers like Francis Ouimet and Walter Hagen to discuss the formation of a national organisation for professional golfers. At the time, professional golfers were still considered hired help, and Wanamaker wanted to change that.

His meeting resulted in the formation of The PGA of America, which would host a professional only tournament. It stands at 28 inches high, 10 and a half inches in diameter, 27 inches from handle to handle and weighs 27 pounds. Hagen took home the Wanamaker Trophy for four straight years, from , and its whereabouts seemed insignificant.

He was asked at the award ceremony why he didn't have the trophy, and replied that he hadn't brought it with him because he had no intention of surrendering it. But that's just what happened two years later in Leo Diegel beat Hagen in the quarter finals and went on to win the title, but when the time came for Hagen to hand over the Wanamaker Trophy after his long reign, he was forced to admit that he'd lost it.

The story around its disappearance is vague to say the least, but the gist is that Hagen went partying after winning his seventh major championship at the PGA Championship at Olympia Fields in Chicago.