The 1996 PGA Championship was the 78th

PGA Championship The PGA Championship (often referred to as the US PGA Championship or USPGA outside the United States) is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It is one of the four men's major championships ...

, held August 8–11 at

Valhalla Golf Club Valhalla Golf Club, located in Louisville, Kentucky, is a private golf club designed by Jack Nicklaus, opened in 1986. In 1992, Valhalla was selected to host the PGA Championship in the year 1996 PGA Championship, 1996, one of golf's four Men's ...

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. Mark Brooks won his only major championship with a birdie at the first hole of a sudden-death playoff with Kentucky native

Kenny Perry James Kenneth Perry (born August 10, 1960) is an American professional golfer who currently plays on the PGA Tour Champions. He won 14 PGA Tour events and has won nine PGA Tour Champions events including four senior major championships: the 201 ...

. Defending champion

Steve Elkington Stephen John Elkington (born 8 December 1962) is an Australian professional golfer on the PGA Tour Champions. Formerly on the PGA Tour, he spent more than fifty weeks in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Ranking from 1995 to 1998. Elkington ...

was a stroke out of the playoff, in a tie for third. It was the second consecutive and final sudden-death playoff at the PGA Championship, which changed to a three-hole aggregate format, first used in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

at Valhalla. It was the second major played in Kentucky and the first in 44 years; the PGA Championship, a

match play Match play is a scoring system for golf in which a player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 h ...

event through

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year ...

, was played in Louisville in

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Big Spring Country Club Big Spring Country Club is a country club located in Louisville Metro. Prior to the 2003 city-county merger, the club's location was in an unincorporated part of Jefferson County, Kentucky, bordered by Louisville (old city) and St. Matthews. The c ...

. The championship returned to Valhalla just four years later in 2000, and again in 2014 after hosting the Ryder Cup in 2008. Course designer and five-time champion Jack Nicklaus missed the cut by a single stroke at age 56. He also missed the cut by one stroke in 2000 at age 60, his final appearance in the PGA Championship.

Course layout

Source:

Round summaries

First round

''Thursday, August 8, 1996''
''Friday, August 9, 1996''

shot a first round 66 (−6) to take the lead, finishing in the dark. Weather delayed play for nearly four hours and sixty players completed their first rounds on Friday morning.

Second round

''Friday, August 9, 1996''

Phil Mickelson Philip Alfred Mickelson (born June 16, 1970), nicknamed Lefty, is an American professional golfer who plays for LIV Golf. He has won 45 events on the PGA Tour, including six major championships: three Masters titles (2004, 2006, 2010), two ...

, age 26, played 24 holes on Friday and carded consecutive rounds of 67 to take a three stroke lead at 134 (−10).

Third round

''Saturday, August 10, 1996'' Kentucky native

Russ Cochran Russell Earl Cochran (born October 31, 1958) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour Champions, having previously been a member on the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour. He is one of the few natural left-handed players to wi ...

shot a course record 65 (−7) to take the 54-hole lead, two strokes ahead of Mark Brooks and

Vijay Singh Vijay Singh ( hif, विजय सिंह ; born 22 February 1963), nicknamed "The Big Fijian", is a Fijian professional golfer. He has won 34 events on the PGA Tour, including three major championships: one Masters title (2000) and two ...

. Brooks eagled the par-4 15th, holing out from the fairway. Seeking his first major title, Mickelson fell three strokes back after a 74 (+2). Source:

Final round

''Sunday, August 11, 1996'' Native sons of Kentucky had different results on Sunday as Cochran shot 77 (+5) in the final pairing and faded while Perry had a 68 (−4) and waited as the clubhouse leader at 277 (−11). Playing with Cochran, Brooks birdied the par-5 final hole to force a playoff. Perry bogeyed the same hole after a hooked tee shot and was in the television booth with CBS-TV, not hitting balls. The second shot of defending champion

found a greenside bunker; he had a birdie putt to join the playoff, but could not convert. Tolles had a long eagle putt to tie but missed, while Singh also needed a birdie to join the playoff but made bogey to finish 2 behind. Source:

Scorecard

''Final round'' Source:

Playoff

The sudden-death playoff began on the 18th hole; the par-5 was the course's second-easiest hole on Sunday. Brooks reached the green in two and birdied while Perry's tee shot again found the rough on the left and his fourth was a chip that did not reach the green, ending the playoff. It was Brooks' second birdie at the hole in twenty minutes, in regulation he hit his third shot from the greenside sand to within four feet (1.3 m). Source:

References

External links

Full results
– 1996 PGA Championship {{coord, 38.242, -85.472, type:event, display=title PGA Championship Golf in Kentucky Sports competitions in Louisville, Kentucky