The Wanamaker Trophy is the biggest and heaviest prize in golf, but in 1925 it nearly vanished after Walter Hagen won the PGA Championship and then lost the cup during the celebration. Hagen later said he gave the trophy to a taxi driver to take back to his hotel after his victory at Olympia Fields Country Club near Chicago, and the original never reached its destination.
That missing trophy mattered because Hagen was defending a title he would keep winning. The PGA of America’s championship cup dates to 1916, the year the organization was founded, and the original Wanamaker Trophy stands 28 inches tall, measures 10.5 inches in diameter and weighs 27 pounds. Hagen, one of golf’s all-time greats with 11 major wins, returned in 1926 without the original and still defended his title. A duplicate trophy was made that year, and he went on to win again in 1927.
Hagen’s run gives the trophy its lasting lore. He captured five PGA Championship titles in all, including four straight from 1924 through 1927, before losing to Leo Diegel in 1928 and then coming clean about the missing silver. The original Wanamaker Trophy reappeared six years after it first disappeared, ahead of the 1931 PGA Championship, and some early 1930s reports said it had been found in the Detroit golf factory that made Hagen’s equipment.
The story still resonates because the champion does not keep the original cup. A duplicate is presented each year, and the winner takes home a replica that is about 10 percent smaller than the original while the larger trophy remains with the PGA of America. The original 1916 trophy is now displayed at the organization’s new home in Texas, a reminder that the sport’s most recognizable prize once disappeared in the middle of one of its most famous winning streaks.
