Gary Player Revisited at Aronimink After 1962 PGA Win
gary player’s 1962 PGA Championship win at Aronimink is back in focus now that the tournament has returned to the Newtown Square, PA, course this week. He was 26 when he won there, beating Bob Goalby by one shot and claiming the event’s largest winner’s check at the time.
Player at Aronimink
Player finished at 2-under 278 after rounds of 72, 67, 69 and 70. That was enough to make him the first foreign-born PGA Tour player to win the PGA Championship in the stroke-play era, a line that still separates his victory from the many majors that followed at the same event.
The win also completed the third leg of his career Grand Slam. He had already taken the 1959 British Open and the 1961 Masters, then finished the set with the 1965 U.S. Open.
Around the Championship
Aronimink has not been dormant in the years since. The club hosted the Senior PGA Championship in 2003 and the Women's PGA Championship in 2020, when Kim Sei-young won.
This week’s course plays at 7,394 yards and par 70, and that places Player’s 1962 scorecard back beside a modern major setup. The tournament’s return also revived the long view of international winners in the event: Nick Price, Vijay Singh and Rory McIlroy are the only other international players with multiple PGA Championship wins in the stroke-play era.
McIlroy’s place in that company became more pointed after winning The Masters in 2025, while Jason Day’s 2015 PGA Championship made him one of the later names on the list of winners after Player. Padraig Harrington and Y.E. Yang also joined the championship roll after the South African’s era, which is why Aronimink’s return feels tied to both memory and the present leaderboard.
Gary Player’s Record
Player’s 1962 victory still carries a clear edge: one shot over Goalby, 2-under for the week, and a $13,000 check that was the largest in tournament history then. The current field is playing a different course length and a different prize scale, but the standard he set at Aronimink remains the last direct link between the venue and one of golf’s defining championship résumés.
