PGA Championship 2026: The story behind of the 'other' champions dinner
Since 1965, the PGA of America has gathered its past champions, like the Masters before it. The evening has changed a lot over time, but the intent has always remained to celebrate their accomplishments.
It’s not like there hasn’t been a plethora of examples in which certain aspects of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament have inspired duplication over nearly a century. Some have been more successful than others. More than 60 years ago, the PGA of America might have been one of the first golf entities to borrow an idea from the Masters.
In this case, PGA President Warren Cantrell took a page out of a relatively young but increasingly popular Masters tradition to celebrate its winners of the PGA Championship. In 1952, Ben Hogan had hosted the first Masters Club dinner, more commonly known today as the Masters Champions Dinner, and it quickly became the most coveted supper soirée in the game. In the fall of 1964, Cantrell approached reigning PGA champion Bobby Nichols about plans to start a similar dinner at the ’65 championship at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pa.
“He [Cantrell] wanted to establish an annual champions dinner like the Masters, and he asked me to host. I was honored of course,” Nichols said via email. At the time, there were 30 past winners of the championship that began in 1916.
Nichols was delighted to find out that he wouldn’t be expected to pick up the dinner tab, unlike the Masters, where the newest winner of the green jacket settles the check at the end of the evening. Nineteen men attended (see photograph), including legends Byron Nelson, Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen—each whom already was a recipient of a Masters dinner invitation, as well. A photo from the first PGA champions dinner held in 1965.
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