The ‘Lost’ Wanamaker Trophy: PGA Championship’s Most Controversial Story Ever Explored

Walter Hagen was on a dominant run between 1921 and 1928. The former club professional won the PGA Championship five times in seven years. In 1922, he was not in the field, and the next year, he almost edged past Gene Sarazen. Hagen won two back-to-back titles over the next two years. But the veteran is also infamous for an embarrassing gaffe with the famed Wanamaker trophy. 

In 1926, no one questioned Hagen when he said he hadn’t brought the trophy. The reason? He was sure he would win. Hagen was also a showman who claimed he signed up for the 1927 event to give others a target. But in the very next year, Hagen’s dominant run was ended by Leo Diegel. And that’s when he had to spill his guts. It turned out he had a good reason to keep participating and winning. 

How did Walter Hagen lose the Wanamaker Trophy?

Forced to surrender the trophy, Hagen admitted he had lost it, and that too three years ago. The five-time PGA Championship winner jumped out of a cab while returning to the hotel. The story follows two threads from there. Per Hagen, he offered $5 to the cabbie and asked him to drop him off at the hotel. But that never arrived. 

While others believe he simply forgot, Hagen wasn’t penalized in any way. The PGA replaced it with another trophy made by R. Wallace and Sons of Wallingford. However, six years later, the PGA announced the trophy had been found. A janitor found the Wanamaker Trophy tucked inside a box in the basement of L.A. Young & Company, Hagen’s clubmakers. 

No one knows how it traveled from Chicago to Detroit. But Paul Wold, a historian at the Rochester Country Club, where Hagen was a club professional, has a theory. Wold told the New York Times, “The taxi driver probably dropped it at the hotel, and the hotel sent it to his company headquarters.”

Hagen didn’t win the tournament after 1927, and even if he did, the PGA stopped handing out the original trophy to players. Currently, the PGA keeps the trophy, offering players a 90% replica of the original with their names etched on it. But even with precaution, it has had its fair share of troubles lately. 

The PGA President was ‘saved’ by Rory McIlroy. 

Ten years ago, at Valhalla, champion Rory McIlroy saved the PGA president from an embarrassing gaffe. The lid almost fell off when Ted Bishop, the PGA president, was going to hand it to champion Rory McIlroy. The Ulsterman promptly caught it, as Bishop quipped, “You saved me.” Six years later, though, no one was there to catch the lid when it fell off. 

Collin Morikawa was jumping with joy after winning his first major. Then 23-year-old Morikawa lifted the Wanamaker trophy, which weighs 27 pounds, on his shoulders. Right on cue, the lid fell on his shoulder and hit the ground. Morikawa gasped, and then a sheepish smile followed. The six-time PGA Tour winner should have rested easy knowing that the Wanamaker Trophy has gone worse than that.