PGA Championship Will Be Played at Aronimink in 1993

The 75th PGA Championship will be played in August, 1993 at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, which last hosted the prestigious tournament in 1962.

PGA President James Ray Carpenter said the suburban Philadelphia golf course was selected for the tournament because of its location on the East Coast and its outstanding facilities.

“We wanted to come to the East because we like to move the PGA Championship around the country to give people the opportunity to see these great players,” Carpenter said. “And we were looking for a traditional golf course, one that was built in the early 1900s.

“We’ve done a lot of pioneering in the last few years, but we were looking now to go back to clubs in the Top 100, clubs that have been around for a long time and clubs that are large, roomy and have enough space to provide room for all our activities.”

The 7,045-yard, par-70 course, which is rated 49th in the Golf Digest list of the Top 100 golf courses, has been at its current location since 1928 and is the oldest course selected for the PGA Championship since 1986, when Inverness Country Club hosted the event.

“If a golf course is not outstanding, won’t test the player’s ability to use all his clubs and won’t produce the outstanding player of the week, we won’t pay attention to it,” Carpenter said. “It needs to be a great golf course.”

Tournament chairman Whitey Shore said a planned renovation of the course will be completed in about four years to prepare for the tournament, one of the four major events in men’s golf.

“Hosting one of golf’s four major championships will greatly add to the history and tradition of our club,” Shore said.

The exact dates of the tournament have not been set, but it is traditionally held in the first or second week of August.

Gary Player won the 1962 PGA Championship at Aronimink by firing a 2-under-par 278. Jeff Sluman won this year’s tournament at Oak Tree with a 2-under-par 272.

The 1993 PGA Championship is one of several major golf tournaments set for the Philadelphia area in the next few years. Merion County Club is slated to host the U.S. Amateur in 1989 and will be the site of the U.S. Women’s Open in 1992.

The last major men’s tournament held in the area was the 1981 U.S. Open, which was also played at Merion, although the LPGA and Senior Tours play regular events in Philadelphia each year.

Future sites of the PGA Championship are the Kemper Lakes Golf Club in Hawthorn Woods, Ill., in 1989, Shoal Creek Country Club in Birmingham, Ala., in 1990, Crooked Stick Golf Clb in Carmel, Ind., in 1991 and the Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Mo., in 1992.