PGA Professional Championship PGA Professional Championship The PGA Professional Championship is a golf tournament for golf club professionals and teachers who are members of the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It has been held by the PGA of America since 1968, when touring professionals split off to found the PGA Tour. The PGA Professional Championship was known as the PGA Club Professional Championship until 2006 and as the PGA Professional National Championship from 2007 through 2015. Since 1997, the tournament has usually been played in late June, six to seven weeks before the PGA Championship in mid-August. Previously, the club pro tournament had
Timeline of golf history (1945–99) for the first time. The Tam O'Shanter World Championship offers the first $100,000 purse for a golf tournament. Bob Toski wins the $50,000 first prize. Toski's three other tournament victories on the PGA Tour this year earn him a total of $8,000. "All-Star Golf," a filmed series of matches, debuts on network television. Babe Zaharias returns to the LPGA Tour following cancer surgery and wins the U.S. Women's Open. The first PGA Merchandise Show is held in a parking lot in Dunedin, Florida, outside the PGA National Golf Club. Salesmen work the show out of the trunks of their cars.