PGA Championship: A look back at 100 years of tournament history
By Bill Felber
1953: Hogan misses the PGA
The 1953 PGA Championship is remembered more for who did not play than for who won.
The championship match was scheduled to finish in the late afternoon of July 7 at Birmingham Country Club in Michigan. That was about 10 hours before the scheduled start of the British Open Championship at Carnoustie, Scotland. The virtually overlapping schedules made it physically impossible in those pre-commercial jet days for any of the game’s stars to compete in both.
Among the players who opted for the British event was Ben Hogan, that year’s Masters and U.S. Open titlist. It was an abrupt departure for Hogan, a previous PGA champion, who had never before entered the world’s oldest major golf tournament.
In Hogan’s absence, Sam Snead looked as the prohibitive favorite. But Snead went out to Dave Douglass 1-up in 19 holes in the second round of the 64-player field, throwing the PGA wide open.
The quarter-final winners were four players with only one major title among them, Clause Harmon’s 1948 Masters victory: The other three survivors were Walter Burkemo, Jack Isaacs and Felice Torza.
Burkemo, a Detroit -area pro who had survived combat wounds at the Battle of the Bulge and finished second at the 1951 PGA, was by all measures the most interesting of the four. In the semis, he rallied from 3 down to edge Harmon on the final hole and Torza took out Isaacs, also 1-up.
A throng estimated at 10,000 stormed the course to cheer on their local player’s bid for the title. Burkemo led by one hole after morning play, led by two holes at the afternoon turn, then faltered briefly on the back nine before closing out the match on the 35th hole.