The PGA Tour is back in Atlanta this week as Duluth, Georgia hosts the AT & T Classic. The tournament has a good mix of top stars, rising stars and a few locals that you might have heard of.
1934 was the first time this event was played it was called ‘The Atlanta Open’ and Ky Laffoon was the winner.
The tournament stopped for awhile, came back, stopped again and so forth until 1967 when it was played every year since except for two when the city hosted big-time tournaments in the same year (such as The Players Championship in 1974 and the US Open in 1976)
But here’s a list of golfers that you might have heard of that have won this tournament.
1945 - Byron Nelson won… in that magical year, Lord Byron won 18 tournaments including 11 straight
1973 - Jack Nicklaus won… two years earlier he lost in a playoff to the world famous Gardner Dickinson
1975 and 1977 - Hale Irwin won… he won 20 PGA Tour events including 3 majors
1981 - Tom Watson… the 8-time major winner also finished 2nd in Atlanta in 1978 to Jerry Heard
1984 and 1992 - Tom Kite… he won 19 PGA Tour events and had an appearance on ‘The Simpsons’
1994- John Daly… no word if he stopped by any of the Atlanta area Hooters after
1998 - Tiger Woods… this was his only time playing this tournament, but hey a win is a win
1999 - David Duval… 2nd place that year was another Georgia Tech golfer Stewart Cink
2000, 2005 and 2006 - Phil Mickelson… in the first one, he defeated Jack’s son Gary Nicklaus in a playoff and the last one, he won by 13 strokes
2002 - Retief Goosen… the following week, he finished 2nd in The Masters
2004 and 2007 - Zach Johnson… the man has won only 3 PGA Tour events, the other being the 2007 Masters
Dave McMahon
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