Major Championship Retrospectives: Seven U.S. Opens and Two PGA Championships

A championship record in two landscapes

Baltusrol hosted the U.S. Open in 1903, 1915, 1936, 1954, 1967, 1980, and 1993. The club’s two PGA Championships followed in 2005 and 2016. Those dates are more than a sequence of tournaments: they divide the record between the club’s early course and the Lower Course, designed by A.W. Tillinghast and opened in 1922.

The first two Opens belong to Baltusrol’s earlier golfing landscape. The six later Opens and both PGA Championships were played on the Lower Course. That distinction matters when comparing scores. A winning total is a record of a player’s performance, but also of a particular course, its par, its setup, and the standards of the era. The 307 that won in 1903 cannot be read as a direct measure against the 266 that won the 2016 PGA.

Across the nine championships, a few patterns recur. A champion often emerges not by avoiding every mistake, but by managing the moments when a course offers little margin: a difficult stretch late in a round, a demanding final hole, or a closing day when the lead is exposed to pressure. Baltusrol’s history includes dominant performances, close finishes, and victories that gained significance from the challenges of the course and the moment.

1903: Willie Anderson and the first Baltusrol Open

Willie Anderson won the 1903 U.S. Open at Baltusrol with a total of 307. Born in Scotland, Anderson became one of the defining professionals of early American golf. His victory here was the first of four U.S. Open titles, a record he shares with Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, and Jack Nicklaus. Anderson’s wins came in 1901, 1903, 1904, and 1905; Baltusrol was the site of the second.

The championship was contested on the club’s original course, not on the Lower Course that later became the setting for Baltusrol’s best-known Open moments. That difference is essential for anyone reading early results alongside modern leaderboards. Baltusrol’s current championship identity was shaped by Tillinghast’s later work, but the club’s national history began before that landscape took form.

Anderson’s 1903 result also offers a useful reminder about the early professional game. A total that looks high by modern standards reflects a different course, equipment, playing conditions, and competitive environment. The number is historically meaningful precisely because it belongs to its own context: an early U.S. Open, on an earlier Baltusrol course, won by a player whose name would become inseparable from the championship’s formative years.

1915: Jerome Travers wins at home

Twelve years after Anderson’s triumph, the U.S. Open returned to Baltusrol. Jerome Travers, an amateur and a member of the club, won the 1915 championship with a total of 297. His victory gave the event a distinctly local dimension: the champion was not simply playing a familiar venue but representing a club with which he was closely associated.

Travers was already an accomplished golfer. He had won the U.S. Amateur four times, in 1907, 1908, 1912, and 1913. The 1915 Open added a professional championship to a record built in amateur competition. His success illustrates how porous the early game’s boundaries could seem in retrospect: an amateur could contend for, and win, the national Open even as professional golf was developing its own leading figures and institutions.

As with 1903, this championship belongs to Baltusrol’s pre-Tillinghast course history. The result is therefore best understood as part of the club’s early chapter, rather than as a performance on the Lower Course. Travers’s win remains a notable point of connection between the club, amateur golf, and the early U.S. Open.

1936: Tony Manero and a new championship course

When the U.S. Open came back to Baltusrol in 1936, it was played on the Lower Course, the work of A.W. Tillinghast. Tony Manero won with a total of 282. The shift from the early course to Tillinghast’s design marks a major change in the story: Baltusrol was now presenting national contenders with a different routing and a new set of strategic questions.

Tillinghast’s importance lies not simply in a collection of memorable holes, but in the way he shaped the course as a complete test. His work at Baltusrol is often discussed through the relationship between tee shot and approach: where a player positions the ball can determine what angle remains into the green, and a safe-looking line may leave a more exacting second shot. The championship outcome is inseparable from that architecture, even when a tournament recap records only scores and finishing places.

Manero’s 1936 victory gave the redesigned course its first U.S. Open champion. A comparison with the 1903 and 1915 results should begin with the change of venue within the club itself. The Lower Course would host every subsequent U.S. Open at Baltusrol and both of its PGA Championships, becoming the physical thread that links championships separated by eight decades.

1954: Ed Furgol’s narrow margin

Ed Furgol won the 1954 U.S. Open by a single stroke over Gene Littler. The margin gives the result its immediate drama, but the wider significance lies in the contrast with the imposing reputation of the U.S. Open. Furgol’s victory showed that a championship at a demanding venue could be decided by small differences rather than a runaway score: one stroke over four rounds was enough to separate the winner from his closest challenger.

Furgol’s personal history is also part of the championship’s record. As a young man, he had suffered a serious injury to his left elbow, leaving lasting limitations in its movement. He went on to establish himself on the professional circuit and reached the highest point of his career at Baltusrol. The fact is relevant not as a sentimental gloss, but because it places the result in the context of an athlete who competed with a physical constraint that could not simply be trained away.

Furgol and Littler’s one-stroke separation provides a useful counterpoint to the more commanding performances that would follow. It also invites a careful reading of championship scoring: the total alone does not tell us whether a title was comfortable. The closing margin, and the presence of a named challenger immediately behind the winner, reveal how closely the championship was contested.

1967: Nicklaus establishes a Baltusrol pattern

Jack Nicklaus won the 1967 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, beginning a pair of Open victories at the club. Nicklaus was already one of golf’s central figures, and the championship strengthened his record in the event. His victory also began a specific connection between the player and the Lower Course: when he won again in 1980, Baltusrol became the setting for two of his U.S. Open titles.

Nicklaus’s major-championship play was marked by distance, control, and an ability to make decisions under sustained pressure. At Baltusrol, those qualities met Tillinghast’s demand for strategic positioning. A powerful drive is not automatically an advantage if it leaves an awkward approach; a conservative choice can also carry a cost if it lengthens the next shot or brings a hazard into play. The course rewards not power alone, but judgment about where power should be used.

The 1967 championship is also a milestone in the arc of the Lower Course’s U.S. Open history. By then, the course had already hosted Manero’s 1936 win and Furgol’s 1954 title. Nicklaus’s victory placed Baltusrol in the story of a player whose major record would span generations, while setting up the remarkable fact of his return to the winner’s position in 1980.

1980: A record-setting second Open for Nicklaus

Nicklaus returned to Baltusrol in 1980 and won the U.S. Open with a 72-hole total of 272, then a championship record. At 40, he became the oldest U.S. Open champion of the modern era at that time. His victory was his second U.S. Open at Baltusrol and his fourth U.S. Open title overall.

The score gives the performance its statistical landmark; the age and setting give it a different kind of weight. The championship tested a player who had already accumulated years of major experience, against a field that included younger contenders. Nicklaus’s result made Baltusrol an especially clear point of reference for his U.S. Open career: two wins at the same venue, thirteen years apart, on the same course.

For course historians, the 1967–1980 pairing is unusually revealing. The two championships do not represent identical tests simply because they share a venue. Course setup and conditions change from one event to another, and championship standards evolve. Yet the repeated result is striking: Nicklaus could solve the Lower Course in two distinct phases of his career. His 1980 total, moreover, became a benchmark against which subsequent Baltusrol championship scoring would be measured.

1993: Lee Janzen’s composed finish

Lee Janzen won the 1993 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, finishing one stroke ahead of Payne Stewart. Their names are closely linked in the championship’s final accounting, but the contest became most memorable through the pressure of the closing holes. Stewart made a late charge, and Janzen had to protect his position against a rival capable of changing the shape of the leaderboard in a matter of swings.

Janzen’s victory was his first U.S. Open title; he would win the championship again in 1998. The 1993 result therefore stands both as a Baltusrol story and as the opening chapter of his record as a two-time champion. Its one-stroke margin resembles Furgol’s 1954 victory in one important respect: in each case, the distance between the champion and the closest challenger was narrow enough to make the closing stretch central to the interpretation of the event.

That comparison should not obscure their differences. Furgol’s championship belongs to an earlier period of the Lower Course’s history; Janzen’s came after decades of change in equipment, athletic preparation, and tournament coverage. The scoring and the shape of contention reflect those changes. Both champions, however, emerged from a contest in which the final margin gives a more accurate sense of the pressure than the winner’s name alone.

2005: Phil Mickelson wins Baltusrol’s first PGA

Baltusrol’s first PGA Championship came in 2005. Phil Mickelson won with a total of 276, finishing one stroke ahead of Steve Elkington and Thomas Bjørn. The victory added a different major to the club’s record: after seven U.S. Opens, the Lower Course now hosted the season’s final men’s major championship.

Mickelson entered the championship with a reputation for attacking play and exceptional short-game skill. The result, however, was not a simple story of boldness rewarded. A four-round championship requires a player to balance opportunity against risk, and a course that asks for precise positioning can make restraint as consequential as aggression. The one-shot outcome underlines how small the final separation was among the leaders.

The 2005 championship also offers a useful bridge from the U.S. Open retrospectives to the PGA Championships. Different governing bodies and championship traditions bring their own histories, but the same Lower Course remained the stage. Mickelson’s win began Baltusrol’s PGA record; Walker’s victory eleven years later would provide a contrasting example of a champion who built a larger margin over four rounds.

2016: Jimmy Walker closes the sequence

Jimmy Walker won the 2016 PGA Championship at Baltusrol with a total of 266, fourteen under par. Jason Day finished one stroke behind at 267. The score of 266 stands as the lowest winning total in the club’s nine U.S. Open and PGA Championship results, a striking statistic on a course that had hosted championships from 1936 onward.

Walker’s win came in a final-round contest with Day, then the reigning PGA champion. Day applied pressure as the round progressed, but Walker maintained the advantage. The result makes a useful contrast with Mickelson’s 2005 title: both PGA Championships were decided by one stroke, yet the winning totals were separated by ten strokes. That difference is a reminder that a close finish and a low-scoring championship are separate features. One describes the contest between the leading players; the other describes the scoring environment across the field.

Walker’s 266 also puts the changes in championship golf into sharp relief. It should not be taken as a simple verdict that the Lower Course had become easier than it was in 1936, 1954, or the two Nicklaus Opens. Course preparation, weather, equipment, player conditioning, and competitive depth all affect scoring. The number is most valuable when read as part of that history: a modern PGA Championship total, produced on the same Lower Course that had become central to Baltusrol’s major identity.

Reading the scores across eras

The nine championship results form a compact study in how golf changes while a venue remains recognizable. Anderson’s 307 in 1903 and Walker’s 266 in 2016 are separated by 113 years and by major shifts in the game. Those totals cannot be compared without accounting for course design and setup, par, equipment, agronomy, and the standards of professional competition. A lower number does not automatically mean a less demanding championship; it may describe a different balance of distance, precision, and conditions.

The most meaningful comparisons begin with the event’s structure. Anderson and Travers won on Baltusrol’s earlier course. Beginning in 1936, the Lower Course hosted the remaining six Opens and both PGAs. That creates a continuous architectural setting for eight of the nine championships, while still leaving room for each event’s distinct setup and circumstances.

Margins can be compared more directly, though they also require context. Furgol’s 1954 victory, Janzen’s 1993 win, and both PGA Championships ended with a one-stroke difference between first and second. Those finishes share a tight margin, not necessarily a similar pattern of play. A leaderboard is the final record of a tournament, not a full account of every decision that shaped it.

Nicklaus’s two Open victories are the most unusual repeated achievement in Baltusrol’s championship record. His 1967 and 1980 titles make the club a particularly rich place to study the long arc of a champion’s career. The thirteen-year gap gives the pairing historical depth: it is not simply a player repeating a winning week, but a return to the same course at a different stage of life and competition.

A field guide to the nine championships

For quick reference, the championships and champions are:

• 1903 U.S. Open: Willie Anderson, 307; played on Baltusrol’s original course.
• 1915 U.S. Open: Jerome Travers, 297; the amateur and Baltusrol member won at his club.
• 1936 U.S. Open: Tony Manero, 282; the first Baltusrol Open on the Lower Course.
• 1954 U.S. Open: Ed Furgol; a one-stroke victory over Gene Littler.
• 1967 U.S. Open: Jack Nicklaus; the first of his two U.S. Open wins at Baltusrol.
• 1980 U.S. Open: Jack Nicklaus, 272; a then-record total and his second Baltusrol Open.
• 1993 U.S. Open: Lee Janzen; a one-stroke victory over Payne Stewart.
• 2005 PGA Championship: Phil Mickelson, 276; one stroke ahead of Steve Elkington and Thomas Bjørn.
• 2016 PGA Championship: Jimmy Walker, 266; one stroke ahead of Jason Day.

For researchers, the list is a starting index rather than a substitute for contemporary scorecards, reports, and official championship records. Names and totals establish the framework; archival sources can help reconstruct the daily conditions, course setup, and sequence of pivotal holes. The distinction between Baltusrol’s original course and Tillinghast’s Lower Course should remain visible in any account of the early Opens.

The club as a continuing stage

Baltusrol’s major history is not merely a collection of famous winners. It is a record in which the site itself changes, then becomes a constant. The first two U.S. Opens belong to the club’s earlier course. Tillinghast’s Lower Course became the home of every subsequent major championship at Baltusrol covered here, from Manero’s 1936 victory through Walker’s 2016 PGA title.

That continuity allows a reader to ask questions that individual tournament summaries may leave unanswered. How did championship scoring evolve? What does Nicklaus’s return to victory in 1980 reveal about performance over time? Why do Furgol’s and Janzen’s narrow wins feel different despite their similar margins? How did the PGA Championships add a new chapter to a site long identified with the U.S. Open?

The answers lie in the relationship between people, course, and circumstance. Anderson and Travers connect Baltusrol to the early national game. Manero, Furgol, Nicklaus, and Janzen show how the Lower Course became a recurring test of major-championship golf. Mickelson and Walker extend that record into the twenty-first century. Together, the nine championships make Baltusrol more than a venue in a results table: they make it a place where the changing character of the game can be read in the landscape and in the numbers left behind.