A Quick Look at the PGA Championship

A Quick Look at the PGA Championship

This week the PGA Tour will head to St. Louis, Missouri for the PGA Championship. This year the event will be hosted by Bellerive Country Club. The 2017 winner was Justin Thomas, who will be returning to defend his title!

PGA Championship History

The PGA Championship is the last of golf’s four Majors but starting in 2019 the PGA Championship will become the second major played during the season, shifting from August to May. The purse for the event has been $10 million since the 97th edition in 2015.

Winning the event carries many career securities. Winners are automatically invited to play in The Players Championship and the 3 other Majors, The Masters, U.S. Open and The Open Championship for the next five years. They also become eligible to compete in the PGA Championship for life while receiving PGA Tour membership for 5 years and European Tour membership for 7 years. Accordingly, this is the only one of the four majors that is almost exclusively for professional players.

The first PGA Championship was held in 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, New York. The first winner was, Jim Barnes. Originally the event was played as match play until 1958 when it switched to stroke play. The event has primarily been played in the Eastern region of the United States. The state of New York has hosted 12 times, Ohio 11 and Pennsylvania 9. The last time that it was played in the Pacific time zone was 1998 at Sahalee in the Seattle, Washington area. The 2020 event will be venturing back to the West coast to San Francisco..

Bellerive Country Club History

Bellerive Country Club opened in 1897 as The Field Club, Northwest of St. Louis, Missouri. In 1910 the club moved to Normandy, Missouri and was renamed Bellerive Country Club. In 1957 the club was put up for sale with an asking price of $1.3 million. The club eventually lowered the price to $600,000 and in 1963 the club became part of the campus for University of Missouri-St. Louis.

The club was moved to its current location in 1959 to the suburb of Town and Country outside of St. Louis. Robert Trent Jones designed the course and it was opened on Memorial Day in 1960. The course underwent a $9.5 million renovation in 2005 and 2006. The redesign was completed by Rees Jones, the “Open Doctor”.  The course has hosted…

• 1965 U.S. Open (Gary Player)
• 1992 PGA Championship (Nick Price)
• 2004 U.S. Senior Open (Peter Jacobsen)
• 2008 BMW Championship (Camilo Villegas)
• 2013 Senior PGA Championship (Koki Idoki)
• 2018 PGA Championship

TV Schedule

• Thursday, August 9th (Round 1)
  • 2:00 – 8:00 p.m EST
    • TNT
• Friday, August 10th (Round 2)
  • 2:00 – 8:00 p.m EST
    • TNT
• Saturday, August 11th (Round 3)
  • 11:00 a.m – 2:00 p.m EST
    • TNT
  • 2:00 – 7:00 p.m EST
    • CBS
• Sunday, August 12th (Round 4)
  • 11:00 a.m – 2:00 p.m EST
    • TNT
  • 2:00 – 7:00 p.m EST
    • CBS

Rock Bottom’s Top Round 1 Pairings

• 8:17 a.m. — Jim Furyk, Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele (#10)
• 8:28 a.m. — Davis Love III, Martin Kaymer, Rich Beem (#10)
• 8:56 a.m. — Padraig Harrington, Jimmy Walker, Vijay Singh (#1)
• 9:01 a.m. — Phil Mickelson, Jason Day, Keegan Bradley (#10)
• 9:23 a.m. — Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods (#10)
• 9:34 a.m. — Matthew Fitzpatrick, Webb Simpson, Jhonattan Vegas (#10)
• 1:53 p.m. — Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, Adam Scott (#1)
• 2:15 p.m. — Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka, Francesco Molinari (#1)
• 2:26 p.m. — Gary Woodland, Sergio Garcia, Kevin Kisner (#1)

Photo Gallery

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