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GOLF HISTORY
Tournament Golf and Champions
The governing body of golf in the United States is the United States Golf Association (USGA), which was founded in 1894. The organization, whose headquarters are in Far Hills, New Jersey, rules on ball and club specifications and such regulations as hazards and scoring. It works with the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews in reviewing international rules.
The Professional Golfers' Association of America (PGA) was founded in 1916, 15 years after the first Professional Golfers' Association was established in Great Britain. It conducts the PGA and PGA Senior golf tournaments and Ryder Cup competition between members of the American and British PGAs.
Both amateurs and professionals compete in open golf tournaments. Among major golf tournaments that have the support of the PGA are the United States Open, United States Women's Open, PGA, Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), Masters, British Amateur, British Open , Canadian Open, and United States Amateur and United States Women's Amateur (also known as National Amateurs).
Beginning in 1981, the name of the pro circuit was officially changed to the Tournament Players Association (TPA) Tour.
Tournament golf became well established as a spectator sport in the United States during the 1920s.
Such colorful golf professionals as Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, and Tommy Armour added much to the game's public image and popularity. One of the most outstanding early golf amateurs was Robert T. Jones, Jr., of Atlanta, Ga., who between 1923 and 1930 won five United States Amateurs, four United States Opens, three British Opens, and a British Amateur four of these in 1930 for an unprecedented Grand Slam.
Tournament golf suffered during the depression, but after World War II the circuit flourished with such players as Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Jimmy Demaret, and Lloyd Mangrum.
Purses and gates increased steadily during the 1950s.
With the emergence of Arnold Palmer in the late 1950s and Jack Nicklaus in the early 1960s, tournament golf once again captured the imagination of sports fans everywhere. Nicklaus became the first golfer to win more than 200,000 dollars in a single season (1971) and also the first to earn more than 300,000 (1972).
Tom Watson was the first whose season's earnings topped 400,000 (1979) and 500,000 (1980).
Curtis Strange was the first million-dollar-a-year player (1988).
Tom Kite, the 1989 Player of the Year, set a single-season money-winning record with 1.4 million dollars.
By the late 1960s only one player had earned more than one million dollars in his career. Palmer was the first golfer whose career earnings passed the million-dollar mark (1968).
Nicklaus, the only golfer to be chosen five times as the PGA Player of the Year, was the first to earn more than 2 million (1973), 3 million (1977), 4 million (1983), and 5 million (1988) dollars.
Kite reached 6 million dollars in 1990.
Others whose career earnings had passed the 2-million mark by the mid-1980s were Lee Trevino, Watson, Tom Weiskopf, Hale Irwin, and Lanny Wadkins.
Outstanding among the early woman golfers was Joyce Wethered, who won the British Ladies' Amateur golf tournament four times between 1922 and 1929.
In 1981 Kathy Whitworth became the first woman golfer with career earnings of more than 1 million dollars. The 2-million mark was reached by Pat Bradley and then Carner in 1986 and by Amy Alcott in 1988. In 1990 Bradley topped 3 million. All of these women are Americans.
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