Walter Hagen at the USPGA Championship

How the flamboyant Hagen won a record number of USPGA Championships

Walter Hagen
Walter Hagen in 1920. Credit: Getty Images
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Roderick Easdale's avatar
By
published

No-one has won more USPGA Championships than the flamboyant Hagen, although his record was later equalled by Jack Nicklaus

The record number of wins in the USPGA is held by two men - Walter Hagen and Jack Nicklaus, with five each.

Hagen’s first USPGA title came in 1921, in the fourth running of the USPGA.  It was Hagen’s second appearance in the event, having been a semi-finalist in the inaugural event in 1916.

This sense of priorities may seem an odd decision for someone who wrote in his autobiography that “My game was my business and as a business it demanded constant playing in the championship bracket, for a current title was my selling commodity”. But at that period the USPGA was not considered as a ‘Major‘ championship.

He had lost the trophy literally and figuratively. He had. it seems, lost it back in 1925 when, it is said that he paid a cabbie $5 to return the Wannamaker Trophy to his hotel while he stopped off at a nightclub to celebrate

Roderick Easdale
Roderick Easdale

Contributing Writer Roderick is the author of the critically acclaimed comic golf novel, Summer At Tangents. Golf courses and travel are Roderick’s particular interests. He writes travel articles and general features for the magazine, travel supplement and website. He also compiles the magazine's crossword. He is a member of Trevose Golf & Country Club and has played golf in around two dozen countries. Cricket is his other main sporting love. He is also the author of five non-fiction books, four of which are still in print: The Novel Life of PG Wodehouse; The Don: Beyond Boundaries; Wally Hammond: Gentleman & Player and England’s Greatest Post-War All Rounder.