Where was the first PGA Championship really played?
In the program of the 1945 PGA Championship, Jim Barnes remembered that he was the only PGA champion who had to win the event twice to claim the title: “Say, you know that P.G.A. championship record list is actually in error. I won that 1916 championship at Siwanoy all right, but that wasn’t the first professional golf championship in the United States. The spring of that year, the New York Newspapermen’s Golf Club put on a medal play tournament at Van Courtland Park, which they labeled the ‘Professional Golfers Championship.’ They put up a cup. I should know. I have it yet. I won it. My winning score was 276 and I think I made it with four rounds of 69 each. I know the late Clare Briggs drew a cartoon in which one fellow was kidding the other and advising him to go see Jim Barnes who might pass along a tip for making ’69s. Clare gave me the original cartoon. I have it yet.” Apparently, the Van Courtland tournament, played in June and widely advertised as The PGA Championship, inspired
