The New Zealand PGA Championship is a

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

tournament on the

PGA Tour of Australasia The PGA Tour of Australasia, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia, is a professional golf tour for men, owned and operated by the PGA of Australia. Official events on the tour count for World Golf Ra ...

. It is currently known for sponsorship reasons as the SEC NZ PGA Championship.

History

The tournament been played since 1909, with some gap periods. It was originally 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 and switched to stroke play in 1965. Major championship winners who have claimed the New Zealand PGA title include

Sir Bob Charles Sir Robert James Charles (born 14 March 1936) is a New Zealand professional golfer. His achievements over five decades rank him among the most successful left-handed golfers of all time, being the first lefty to win a major championship, winni ...

Peter Thomson Peter Thomson may refer to: * Peter Thomson (golfer) (1929–2018), Australian golfer * Peter Thomson (diplomat) (born 1948), Fiji's Permanent Representative to the United Nations * Peter Thomson (footballer) (born 1977), English footballer * Peter ...

, Kel Nagle, and

Tony Jacklin Anthony Jacklin CBE (born 7 July 1944) is a retired English golfer. He was the most successful British player of his generation, winning two major championships, the 1969 Open Championship and the 1970 U.S. Open. He was also Ryder Cup captai ...

. The event is also notable for

Masashi Ozaki is a Japanese professional golfer. Ozaki is often known as Jumbo Ozaki (ジャンボ尾崎 ''Janbo Ozaki'') on account of his height and length off the tee. He featured in the top ten of the Official World Golf Rankings for almost 200 weeks be ...

's lone international win. Sponsorship problems caused the tournament to be terminated after the 1987 event. In 2002, a PGA Tour of Australasia and U.S.-based Nationwide Tour co-sanctioned event, called the Holden Clearwater Classic was started at the Clearwater Resort in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

, New Zealand. It was played again in 2003 and in 2004 the event resumed the name New Zealand PGA Championship. Co-sanctioning with the Nationwide Tour ended after 2009. The event was not held in 2020 and was run in 2021 as a non-tour event.

Winners

The finals from 1909 to 1920 were played over 18 holes, except 1911. Source:

References

External links

Coverage on the PGA Tour of Australasia's official site
{{Former Nationwide Tour Events PGA Tour of Australasia events Former Korn Ferry Tour events Golf tournaments in New Zealand Recurring sporting events established in 1920 1920 establishments in New Zealand