Southern Hills: A Major Player in Golf History

Southern Hills Country Club (Tulsa, Okla.), designed by Perry Maxwell with more recent course work done by Gil Hanse, is a brawny golf course with a major championship pedigree.

It is the host of this week’s PGA Championship, and when it plays host again to the PGA Championship in 2030, it will mark five visits for the championship to the rolling Oklahoma layout which debuted in 1936. Southern Hills boasts an incredible list of champions in its roster of events, many of them finishing their careers in the Hall of Fame. It started when Babe Didrikson Zaharias won the 1946 U.S. Women’s Amateur, 11 and 9.

Here is a look at Southern Hills’ major championship history:

1958 U.S. Open

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Tommy Bolt was known as “Terrible Tommy,” but he was a sweetheart of a man, and captured the first U.S. Open that was staged at Southern Hills, shooting 71-71-69-72–283. Bolt walked down the hill at the first hole in the opening round, made birdie, and, as the story goes, turned back to the clubhouse and asked who was going to finish second that week. Every other player in the field owned at least one round of 75 or higher. An 18-year-old Jack Nicklaus tied for 23rd, and a former Southern Hills caddie, Jerry Pittman, tied for 17th.

1970 PGA Championship

Dave Stockton won the first of his two PGA titles when he held off Bob Murphy and Arnold Palmer to prevail in the 52nd PGA Championship. Stockton would also win the PGA in 1976, at Congressional. Stockton holed out a wedge shot for eagle at the par-4 seventh on the final day to build a six-shot lead and won by two. For Palmer, the PGA Championship would be the one major that he never won. Southern Hills marked Palmer’s third runner-up finish at the PGA.

1977 U.S. Open

Hubert Green won a U.S. Open memorable for the fact that not only was Green trying to deal with the pressure of winning a major, he also was competing after a threat was made on his life. He was informed about the death threat on the 15th hole, and asked if he needed time to consider his options.

Green answered, “I don’t need any time. Let’s go.” Green shot 2-under 278 to defeat Lou Graham, who’d won the U.S. Open two years earlier, by one and Tom Weiskopf by three. Sam Snead played his final U.S. Open that year.

1982 PGA Championship

Winner Raymond Floyd would set the tone early, opening the championship by shooting 63, which would tie for lowest round in major championship history. (Branden Grace since has shot 62 at the Open Championship.) Floyd established 36- and 54-hole records and would beat Lanny Wadkins by three strokes.

Credit: Clyde Chrisman

Floyd was just shy of turning 40, and had won the PGA 13 years earlier. His winners’ check for $65,000 would be the last time a PGA winner earned less than six figures for victory.

1994 PGA Championship

South Africa’s Nick Price, known as an incredible ball-striker, considers his week at Southern Hills in 1994 to be one of the top overall performances of his competitive career, when everything was clicking just right.

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He already had won the Open Championship that summer at Turnberry, and his 11-under score at Southern Hills was, at the time, record-setting. Price beat Corey Pavin by six shots – Pavin was declared winner of the ‘B’ Flight – and won for the third time in a span of nine major starts. Also in ’94, Arnold Palmer made his final appearance in the championship, having played in 37 consecutive PGAs.

2001 U.S. Open

Retief Goosen, of South Africa, overcame a shocking Sunday finish to rebound in a Monday playoff to defeat Mark Brooks for the first of his two U.S. Open titles. Goosen shot 70 in the 18-hole Monday playoff, beating Brooks, the 1996 PGA champion, by two shots. Three players atop the leaderboad on Sunday – Goosen, Brooks and Stewart Cink – all three-putted the 72nd hole.

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Goosen had a 2-footer to win and missed; Cink missed a 2-footer that would have placed him in the playoff at 276. Brooks had three-putted earlier, running a birdie attempt 8 feet past the hole. Tiger Woods’ run at a fifth-consecutive major championship victory fell short, as he shot 283 and tied for 12th.

2007 PGA Championship

Credit: PGA

Tiger Woods was his dominant self, shooting 63 in the second round – his attempt for 62 was an excruciating lipout – and holding off Woody Austin by two strokes in the searing heat of August in Tulsa. Woods’ 63 on Friday tied the course record held by Raymond Floyd, and when he won on Sunday, Woods owned four PGA titles, winning back-to-back in 1999-2000 and 2006-2007. His victory at Southern Hills was the 13th major championship of Woods’ career, and he has added two since then.