The Bizarre English Curse At The PGA Championship That Stretches Back Over 100 Years

It's one of those strange statistics in the game that is hard to get your head around - no English player has won the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes claimed victory at the first two tournaments in 1916 and 1919.

In total, that's 104 tournaments without an English winner.

Australia's Jim Ferrier was the first player from the southern hemisphere to win the event when, in 1947, he broke the long run of American champions from 1920-1946 (1920 champion Jock Hutchinson was born in Scotland but was an American citizen).

Ferrier is one of five Australians to have tasted glory at the PGA Championship, the others being David Graham (1979), Wayne Grady (1990), Steve Elkington (1995), and Jason Day (2015).

In 1962, South Africa's Gary Player won the first of his two PGA Championship titles, the other coming 10 years later, but only a few non American players have won it since.

Nick Price of Zimbabwe won the title in 1992 and 1994, while Vijay Singh of Fiji also won it twice - in 1998 and 2004.

In more recent times, Y.E. Yang of South Korea famously held off Tiger Woods to lift the Wanamaker Trophy at Hazeltine in 2009.

There has been some European success at the PGA Championship. Germany's Martin Kaymer (2010), Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy (2012 and 2014), and Padraig Harrington of Republic of Ireland (2008) have all triumphed in the event.

Nick Faldo, Lee Westwood, Luke Donald, and Justin Rose have all topped the world rankings while English players including Tony Jackin, Faldo, Rose, Danny Willett and Matt Fitzpatrick have won Majors in the modern era.

None of these players managed to win the PGA Championship, though, and 34 of England's 36 men's Major wins have come in the other three.

David Lynn (2012) and Paul Casey (2020) both finished second this side of the 21st century, as did J Douglas Edgar (1920), Barnes (1921 and 1924), and Faldo (1992).

Lynn might have finished a distant second to McIlroy at Kiawah Island, but he can count himself unlucky to have found just one player too good that week.

Casey came a lot closer in 2020, finishing two shots behind Collin Morikawa at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.

Faldo, meanwhile, a three-time winner of both The Masters and The Open, couldn't get the better of Price in 1992.

Who Might Break The Curse This Year?

The field for the 107th edition of the PGA Championship contains 12 English players.

Records, as they say, are there to be broken. Might one of these players finally break the PGA Championship curse?

• Luke Donald
• John Parry
• Tommy Fleetwood
• Matt Fitzpatrick
• Laurie Canter
• Harry Hall
• Marco Penge
• Tyrrell Hatton
• Aaron Rai
• Richard Bland
• Justin Rose
• Matt Wallace