On Thursday, Xander Schauffele will look to defend his title as the PGA Championship begins at the Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina. Schauffele won his first PGA Championship last year at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville.
If Schauffele manages to win the 2025 PGA Championship, he will join an exclusive group of seven golfers who have won the PGA title in back-to-back years over the 109 year history of the championship. Here's a look at the seven at the seven golfers that have achieved this rare feat.
Jim Barnes won the inaugural PGA Championship in 1916. Though he did not win the championship in consecutive years, he did win back-to-back titles as the PGA Championship was not held in 1917 or 1918 due to World War I.
Walter Hagen is the only golfer to win more than two consecutive PGA Championships, winning four in a row from 1924 to '27. Hagen won a total of five PGA Championships, an achievement only matched by Jack Nicklaus, though Nicklaus never won his championships in back-to-back years.
Tiger Woods and Brooks Kopeka are the only golfers that have won back-to-back titles since the match era, with Woods winning consecutive championships on two separate occasions in 1999 and 2000 and then in '06 and '07. To win his first back-to-back titles, Woods defeated Bob May in a playoff at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville at the 2000 PGA Championship. Kopeka is the most recent player to win consecutive titles, doing so in 2018 and '19, and later won a third championship in 2023.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Every Player to Win Back-to-Back PGA Championships.