PGA Championship Courses Time Forgot
1956 PGA Championship at Blue Hill CC Program – Jack Burke Winner. Credit: TheGolfAuction.com
Some golf courses become immortal.
Oak Hill. Southern Hills. Baltusrol. Valhalla. Medinah. Kiawah.
Their names remain attached to defining moments, iconic champions and endless television reruns. But tucked quietly into PGA Championship history are other venues, once considered worthy stages for one of professional golf’s biggest championships, that have slowly drifted from the modern conversation.
That does not make them any less important.
In many ways, these forgotten PGA Championship venues tell us more about the evolution of American golf than the famous clubs ever could.
Blue Hill Country Club: A Major Championship in New England’s Shadows
Blue Hill Country Club in Canton, Massachusetts, hosted the 1956 PGA Championship, won by Jack Burke Jr. over Ted Kroll during the match-play era’s demanding bracket format.
Today, Blue Hill rarely enters discussions about major championship golf. Yet at the time, it represented something important: the PGA Championship’s willingness to bring professional golf into strong regional markets that did not necessarily possess the national prestige of Augusta National or Winged Foot.
Blue Hill became one of the final snapshots of the old match-play PGA Championship before the event shifted to stroke play in 1958.
Norwood Hills and Hogan’s Midwest Stage
Long before modern golf media concentrated heavily on coastal markets and destination resorts, the Midwest sat near the center of American golf culture.
Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis hosted the 1948 PGA Championship, won by Ben Hogan. That alone gives the venue serious historical weight.
The 1948 championship came during one of Hogan’s greatest stretches and further solidified the PGA Championship as a proving ground for elite professionals in the post-war years.
But beyond Hogan, Norwood Hills represented the type of club that once formed the backbone of championship golf in America: member-driven, regionally proud and deeply connected to the local professional golf community.
Keller Golf Course and Public Golf’s Major Moment
Perhaps no forgotten PGA venue better symbolizes golf’s changing landscape than Keller Golf Course in Maplewood, Minnesota.
Unlike many major championship hosts, Keller was public.
That fact alone feels almost unbelievable through a modern lens.
Keller hosted the PGA Championship twice, in 1932 and 1954. Olin Dutra won there in 1932, and Chick Harbert captured the 1954 title.
Those championships proved that high-level professional golf once felt more accessible and community-centered than many fans realize today.
Today, municipal golf discussions often revolve around affordability, participation and preservation. Keller reminds us public golf once stood directly on major championship ground.
Manito and One of the PGA’s Great Upsets
Manito Golf and Country Club in Spokane, Washington hosted the 1944 PGA Championship, a wartime edition that produced one of the championship’s most memorable surprises.
Bob Hamilton defeated Byron Nelson in the final, denying Nelson another major title and giving Manito a permanent, if often overlooked, place in PGA Championship history.
The setting matters. Spokane was not an obvious modern-major destination, but the PGA Championship of that era moved differently. It visited clubs and regions that reflected the spread of professional golf across the country, not just the places with the largest modern footprints.
Manito’s week in 1944 remains a reminder that history does not always happen where later generations expect it to.
Moraine and Byron Nelson’s Match-Play Peak
Moraine Country Club in Dayton, Ohio hosted the 1945 PGA Championship, won by Byron Nelson during one of the greatest seasons any golfer has ever produced.
Nelson’s 1945 campaign is remembered for his astonishing winning streak, and his PGA Championship victory at Moraine was part of that legendary run.
For Moraine, the championship offered a brief but lasting place in major history. For the PGA Championship, it was another example of how the event once used strong regional clubs as major championship stages.
The PGA Championship Once Traveled Differently
The modern major championship rota increasingly revolves around infrastructure, hospitality revenue, corporate footprint and television logistics. That evolution was inevitable.
But in the earlier decades of the PGA Championship, the event often reflected something more regional and democratic about American golf.
The championship traveled.
It visited industrial cities, public venues, regional clubs and community-centered golf strongholds. It showcased parts of the country where golf culture flourished outside the game’s most elite corridors.
That broader geographic identity helped the PGA Championship develop a unique personality compared to the game’s other majors. It often felt closer to the club professional, closer to the everyday golfer and closer to the communities that built American golf from the ground up.
The Ghosts Still Walk There
One of the beautiful truths about golf history is that greatness does not disappear simply because television cameras stop arriving.
The fairways remain.
A golfer at Keller can still walk ground once conquered by Dutra and Harbert. Players at Norwood Hills still pass through corridors touched by Hogan. Manito still carries the echo of Hamilton’s upset over Nelson, while Moraine remains linked to one of Nelson’s finest seasons.
The PGA Championship’s forgotten venues are not forgotten because they lacked significance.
They are forgotten because golf moves quickly, championships move on and new cathedrals constantly emerge.
But history has a way of waiting patiently for those willing to look backward.
And in the case of these old PGA Championship sites, there is still plenty worth remembering.