Inaugurated in 1937 at Augusta National Golf Club, the Senior PGA Championship was organized by none other than Bobby Jones. In the first competition, Jock Hutchison came away with the winner’s share of the $2,000 purse (about $30,000 in today’s money).

The PGA Senior Championship moved from Georgia to Florida in 1940, hoping for better weather. Sarasota hosted two years, and Ft. Myers another before World War II interrupted play. Following the war, the Championship was moved to Dunedin, Florida. The PGA eventually would move its offices there.

From 1945 to 2000, PGA National in Dunedin and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida was the event’s semi-permanent home. Since 2001, however, the event has been on the road: Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, NJ (2001); Firestone Country Club, Akron, Ohio (2002); Aronimink Golf Club, Philadelphia (2003); Valhalla, Louisville, KY (2004); Laurel Valley GC, Ligonier, Pa (2005); Oak Tree GC, Edmond, OK (2006); The Ocean Course, Kiawah Island (2007); Oak Hill CC, Rochester, NY (2008); Canterbury GC, Beachwood, OH (2009) and Colorado GC, Parker, Colo. (2010). The tournament returns to Valhalla in 2011.

To qualify, players must be at least 50 years old. Other Eligibility requirements follow:

• Any past winner of the Senior PGA Championship
• Any past winner of a regular major championship
• Any past member of the United States Ryder Cup team
• The top 15 finishers in the previous year’s Senior PGA Championship
• The top 50 on the Champions Tour money list (previous year and current year)
• Any winner of a Champions Tour event since the last Senior PGA Championship
• The top 35 finishers from the Callaway Golf Senior PGA Professional National Championship
• Any winner of the previous five U.S. Senior Opens
• The winner of the last Senior British Open
• The top eight players from the previous year’s European Seniors Tour Order of Merit
• The top four players from the previous year’s Japanese Seniors Tour Order of Merit
• A one-time exemption for those who have just turned 50 and have won a PGA Tour, Japan Golf Tour, or European Tour event in the last 5 years
• The top 30 on the career money list, both Champions Tour and combined Champions Tour and PGA Tour
• A one-time exemption for former PGA Professional National Champions turning 50
• Invitations for those not meeting criteria above also are made

A list of winners follows:

As I’ve read dozens—perhaps a hundred—articles on Dustin Johnson’s the consensus seems to be settling in that the fault lies with player and caddy. Johnson admittedly didn’t pay much attention to the local rules sheet and if in doubt should have asked. I don’t disagree.

But I think the problem for Johnson was that he had no doubt. It never occurred to him that the bare area was a bunker.

I’ve attended two major championships—the Senior Championship at TPC Dearborn and the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills—as well as the Buick Open and the LPGA’s Jamie Farr. In all of those, the crowds had by the end of the weekend stomped out large bare spots along the sidelines that in sandy soil would have looked for all the world like the spot Johnson encountered.

Going strictly by the USGA’s definition of a bunker, I can see where there might be some confusion:

“A ‘bunker’ is a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed and replaced with sand or the like.

With the crowds standing around, many obvious signs of bunker status likely were obscured. Further, crowds don’t stand in hazards. Still, there was that lip right in front of him ...

A couple of other thoughts:

First, there are just too many bunkers on that course. It’s absurd that even the designer doesn’t have a handle on the number. I’ve seen several estimates, and several attempts by golf writers to enumerate them. None agree. So there’s no way to actually know whether that was a “prepared area of ground” or a random hole. The designer can’t look at a blueprint and say “indeed, I put a bunker there.”

Second, I wonder about the absence of the “blue dots.” According to the sheet that Johnson didn’t read, “where necessary, blue dots define the margin of the bunker.” I suppose they didn’t think it necessary here.

In the future, the PGA—and it will return to Whistling Straits for another PGA and the Ryder Cup in the next ten years—should define as a bunker anything within the ropes and as a waste area anything outside the ropes.

And finally, given the uncertainty about the nature of the bare spot, I think what the PGA should have proceeded under rule 1-4: If any point in dispute is not covered by the Rules, the decision should be made in accordance with equity.

There was doubt about the nature of the terrain. No one could prove that it actually was a “prepared areal,” and so Johnson should have been given the benefit of the doubt.

It’s to Johnson’s credit, however, that he didn’t argue any of these points. I actually think he’s learned a lot in missing out on two majors this year. If he’s half a man, he’ll be back in contention later, lessons learned.

Just a final musing ... it occurred to me as I was writing the title of this post that it won’t be long before the bulk of the population no longer knows the origins of the -gate suffix.

A few thoughts on the PGA Championship, in no particular order.

First, congratulations to Martin Kaymer on the win. He’s been talked about for a couple of years as a possible superstar and hopefully this will be just the start for him.

It’s a real shame what happened to Dustin Johnson. I blame the course and the PGA of America. There are just TOO many bunkers on that course. And recognizing that the crowds were going to destroy a good many of them, the PGA should have declared bunkers outside the ropes as waste areas. I agree with David Feherty that I would have never thought such a tramped down area would be a bunker. It looked like a lot of the area outside the rope you see at any major golf event. There was a lot of those sort of smashed, ground to the dirt just outside the ropes at Oakland Hills when I watched the PGA Championship there.

Still, in hindsight, it’s clear that Dustin should at least have asked someone.

Aside from the squalid ending of regulation, the 2010 PGA Championship was a terrific show. In the last couple of hours, there was a pile of guys wearing white belts in contention—a youth movement that the PGA Tour hasn’t seen in quite a while: victorious Martin Kaymer, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Rory McIlroy, Camilo Villegas,  and more.

What is it with those white belts anyway? They’re hideous.

Aside from Steve Elkington, the old guard was back in the pack. In spite of a terrific Sunday, Mickelson finished T12; Stricker,  Els, Cink T18; Furyk, 24; Tiger, 28 and on and on.

Looking back on 2009, I think its obvious that Tiger’s fall began at the PGA when Y.E. Yang stared him down and took a major from under the big cat’s nose. We may look back on the 2010 PGA Championship as the one where the currently under-30 crowd finally took their place.

I’m also not sure what to make of this string of first time Major Winners:

2010 U.S. PGA - Martin Kaymer
2010 British Open - Louis Oosthuizen
2010 U.S. Open - Graeme McDowell
2009 U.S. PGA - Yang Yong-eun
2009 British Open - Stewart Cink
2009 U.S. Open - Lucas Glover
2009 U.S. Masters - Trevor Immelman

It is of course too soon to tell if any of these first-timers will ever repeat. But my gut tells me we’re going to get another year’s worth of first timers and perhaps another year after that. I don’t recall any of the guys on the list being in contention in a major prior to winning. And there really wasn’t any foreshadowing as to the eventual outcome. They’re fine players all—but Martin Kaymer perhaps aside—no one saw those coming.

I wonder if the controversy has hurt Whistling Strait’s chances of getting future championships. They’re already scheduled for another PGA, and the Ryder Cup. But after that?

The PGA of America released the following on the Dustin Johnson penalty for grounding his club in a hazard—bunker:

92nd PGA Championship

Dustin Johnson was assessed a two-stroke penalty today upon the completion of the final round of the 92nd PGA Championship, for grounding his club in a bunker on the 18th hole at Whistling Straits.

The penalty dropped Johnson to a finishing score of 9-under-par 279 and he was not eligible to compete in a three-hole aggregate playoff to determine the 2010 Champion.

The following is the wording that was made available to all competitors by The PGA of America Rules Committee, as a Local Rule for the 92nd PGA Championship:

Bunkers: All areas of the course that were designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked. This will mean that many bunkers positioned outside of the ropes, as well as some areas of bunkers inside the ropes, close to the rope line, will likely include numerous footprints, heel prints and tire tracks during the play of the Championship. Such irregularities of surface are a part of the game and no free relief will be available from these conditions.

Welcome to those of you who are finding this site for the first time while searching for information on Dustin Johnson grounding a club in a bunker. I hope you come back often to visit the best written (and oldest) golf blog in existence. You can also sign up for the newsletter and win free golf stuff. The original post follows:

One of those little attended rules of golf is that you’re not allowed to ground your clubs in a hazard. You can take practice swings inside a hazard, as long as you don’t touch the ground. Swishing the top of the grass is permitted, but this seems to me to be an unnecessary risk. Take those swings outside the hazard.

The penalty for grounding your club in a hazard is two strokes.

Rule 13-4 of the Rules of Golf:

Ball in Hazard; Prohibited Actions
Except as provided in the Rules, before making a stroke at a ball that is in a hazard (whether a bunker or a water hazard) or that, having been lifted from a hazard, may be dropped or placed in the hazard, the player must not:

a. Test the condition of the hazard or any similar hazard;

b. Touch the ground in the hazard or water in the water hazard with his hand or a club; or

c. Touch or move a loose impediment lying in or touching the hazard.

Update: The latest professional victim of the rule was Dustin Johnson, who grounded his club in a not-very-well-marked bunker in the 2010 PGA Championship. That kept him out of the playoff, and possibly from a Major Victory.

Mark Wilson, PGA Official said that the

“

number one item on the local rule sheet as well as on posted notices in the locker room regarding the bunkers was to say that all of the areas that were designed and built as bunkers would be played as bunkers whether or not they were inside or outside the ropes. And the notice in the first item on the rules sheet went on to say that this may mean in the conduct of this championship some areas outside the ropes might have many footprints, heel prints or tire tracks and that nevertheless those are irregularities in the surface from which no relief would be permitted. Although some fo these areas outside the ropes may appear to have changed in terms of what a Tour player might normally expect, that in this unique case, with this great golf course with its many bunkers, they do have many different characteristics and that Dustin just didn’t recognize that fact.”

From the supplementary rules of play the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits:

1. Bunkers: All areas of the course that were designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked. This will mean that many bunkers positioned outside of the ropes, as well as some areas of bunkers inside the ropes, close to the rope line, will likely include numerous footprints, heel prints and tire tracks during the play of the Championship. Such irregularities of surface are a part of the game and no free relief will be available form these conditions.

Note 1: The sand area in front, left and behind No. 5 green in the later water hazard is NOT a bunker (do not move stones).

Note 2: Where necessary, blue dots define the margin of a bunker.

Read the Official PGA of America Statement on the incident.

Before that, a prominent one was Michelle Wie, who let her club touch the ground after hitting her submerged ball from a water hazard. Two strokes.

There’s some video and a discussion here.

Also, note that this isn’t as much about Wie as it is professional golfers who, collectively, seem to have trouble with the rules.

I absolutely LOVE this logo.

Here’s your chance to make your PGA Championship predictions. Lets start with the usual questions:

1) Who does logic tell you is most likely to win?
2) Who does your gut tell you will win?
3) Who would you most like to see win?
4) Who would you least like to see win?

Here are my answers:

1) I think it could be Jim Furyk. He hits fairways, and has a solid iron game—both of which are requirements to play at Whistling Straits. He also was on fire at the Bridgestone before a ball hit the flagstick and bounced into a water hazard.

2) Hunter Mahan. He’s talented and he’s ready to win a big one.

3) Louis Oosthuizen. I don’t want him to be just another in a series of one-and-done major winners. Two in a single year would generate some serious excitement. In second place: Phil. Again, two in one year would be good for the sport.

4) You know the answer to that one