Brooks Koepka stumbled home with five bogeys in the last eight holes but still won the 2019 PGA Championship on this date on the Black Course at Bethpage State Park, by two shots over Dustin Johnson. And in one of the fastest earnings paces for its time, on this date in 1968, Billy Casper won the Colonial Invitation tournament in Fort Worth, which gave him $100,000 in earnings for the year in less than five full months.

On this date in 1964, Arnold Palmer won the Oklahoma City Open after shooting a fourth-round 67. His 277 score for the week earned him $5,800. The victory came five weeks after he won the final major of his career, the Masters Tournament, April 9-12, with a four-round line of 69-68-69-70—276, worth a top prize of $20,000. This weekend the PGA Championship is being played at Quail Hollow but the women’s LPGA was played in May during its history as well. On this date in 1997, Chris Johnson won over Leta Lindley at DuPont C.C. on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff.

On this date in 1962, Arnold Palmer shot a 67 to beat Gary Player’s 71 in an exhibition at the C.C. of Ashevillle. In 1976, Palmer was on a team that set an aviation speed record for a business jet to fly around the world in 57 hours 25 minutes 42 seconds. On this date in 1951, it’s traditionally noted that the USGA and R&A of St. Andrews concurred on abolishing the stymie from the game, which occurred when one golfer’s ball blocked the path of another player’s ball on the putting green, forcing the golfer furthest away to play around the closer ball. Also, Se Ri Pak, at just 20 years old, was a wire-to-wire winner on this date of the 1998 LPGA Championship at DuPont Country club. She finished three shots in front of Donna Andrews and Lisa Hackney.

On this date in 2019, the first round of the 101st PGA was played on the Black Course at Bethpage State Park on Long Island with Brooks Koepka shooting a 7-under-par 63 to lead by one shot. The 63 tied the championship record. On this date in 1982, Kathy Whitworth won the Lady Michelob LPGA event in Roswell, Ga., at nine under par, by four shots. It was her 83rd victory, putting her in the all-time lead. And on this date in 1957 Arnold Palmer was honored in Youngstown, Pa., at a dinner attended by 400 locals, and he made a double-eagle on this date in 1962.

The World Golf Hall of Fame golfer and broadcaster Ken Venturi was born on this date in 1931 in San Francisco. We also make note of the 1964 U.S. Open champion’s death date since it was on a May 17, in 2013, two days after turning 83. Venturi was the miracle man who survived brutal heat in 1964 to win the U.S. Open, and who then went on to have a long career as a TV golf analyst.

On this date in 1964, Arnold Palmer shot a 72 in the Oklahoma City Open in the first round, then he shot 69-69-67 for a four-round total of 277 and first place. His take-home pay: $5,800. And a pair of major champions died on this date nine years apart. In 2009, 1959 PGA champion Bob Rosburg, also well known for his TV work, died at age 82. In 2018, Doug Ford died at age 95, at the time the oldest former major champion still living. He won the 1955 PGA and 1957 Masters. As the latter winner, he had the honor of putting the green jacket on Arnold Palmer for his first of four Masters titles. Allow this personal note: today would have been the 97th birthday of my father, Donald C. Schrock, who passed away in 2003.

Gene Sarazen, who had seen all the great golfers from Harry Vardon to Tiger Woods, died on this date in 1999 at age 97 in Naples, Florida. Sarazen was the first golfer to win the career Grand Slam. Also, on this date in 1973, during the great Judy Rankin’s prime years, she won the Lady Carling Open in Baltimore, by four shots over Sandra Haynie. It was the second of two victories in a row for Judy, who had won the Raleigh Classic the previous week.

On this date in 1944, Arnold Palmer made the third hole-in-one of his young career during the WPIAL Sectional. Also, a pair of one-time major champions was born on this date in the same year, 1970, and they won their major in the same year, 2003. Jim Furyk, a U.S. Open winner, was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and has 17 PGA Tour victories. He was also the first tour golfer to shoot a 58, at the 2016 Travelers Championship. Lefthanded Masters Tournament winner Mike Weir has eight tour victories and was born in Sarnia, Ontario.

On this date in 1959, Arnold Palmer shot a fourth-round 69 to cap a 273 four-round score at the Oklahoma City Open that earned first place. It was his second victory of the year and worth $3,500. On May 11, 2014, Martin Kaymer of Germany won the Players Championship on the TPC Stadium Course, winning wire to wire by one shot over Jim Furyk.

Ninety-six years ago on this date, Walter Hagen won the Open Championship at Muirfield, Scotland. His final 72-hole score was 292, 12 over par, but he won by six shots over runner-up Johnny Farrell. Leo Diegel was another shot back in an American sweep of the top three positions. Hagen won for the fourth time.

On this date in 1870, Harry Vardon, the only six-time winner of The Open Championship and a member of golf history’s Great Triumvirate with James Braid and J.H. Taylor, was born on Jersey of the Channel Islands. He has a type of grip named after him—the overlap is known as the Vardon grip—and the Vardon Trophy on tour is named after him for the lowest stroke average for a year. He also won the 1900 U.S. Open.

The transformative figure of Arnold Palmer won the Southern Conference individual championship on this date in 1948. On the negative side, on May 8, 1955, Arnie shot the worst four-round score of his prime years with a total of 312 at the Colonial. Another transformative figure, Francis Ouimet, was born on this date in 1893 in Brookline, Massachusetts. It was there that the lifetime amateur won the 1913 U.S. Open in a playoff over two British greats, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, at The Country Club and established America as a place where champion golfers could come from.

A fast-play program called Operation Go-Golf is revealed to be a success at nine muny courses in Los Angeles in 1968, with 4,240 persons being tested for average playing time, which is tabulated at 3 hours 8 minutes. Seve Ballesteros, the five-time major champion of Spanish golf, died on this date in 2011, losing his battle with brain cancer at age 54.

One year into LPGA Tour history in 1951, Patty Berg won the Pebble Beach Weathervane tournament at Pebble Beach Country Club on this date. She shot 152 in the two-day event to take home the $750 first-place prize, four shots ahead of Babe Zaharias. On this date in 1936, the United States and Great Britain teams tied at 4.5 points each in the third Curtis Cup Match, held on the King’s Course at Gleneagles, Scotland. The American team featured Berg and Glenna Collett Vare.

On this date in 1962, Arnold Palmer shot a 69 in the third round of the Tournament of Champions at Desert Inn C.C. in Las Vegas to go with 69 and 70 in the first two rounds. He would follow it up with a 68 on May 6 and take first place and the $11,000 first prize. About a month earlier Palmer had won a playoff to win his third Masters. And it’s rare that a golfer’s claim to fame is his putting stroke, but that is the case with Leo Diegel, who died on this date in 1951. His putting style was known as “Diegeling” in which his elbows pointed outward from each other and the arms swung back and forth like a pendulum. He was effective enough that he won consecutive PGAs in 1928-1929 and was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Rory McIlroy, Bob Tway and Betsy Rawls were all born on this date. McIlroy, the recent Masters Tournament winner and career Grand Slam achiever, was born in 1989. Tway, who won the 1986 PGA, was born 30 years earlier in 1959. And Rawls was born in 1928 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The World Golf Hall of Fame member, who won four U.S. Women’s Opens, died October 21, 2023.

On this date in 1964, Pete Brown won the Waco Turner Open in Burneyville, Oklahoma, one of the first African-American victories of a PGA Tour event. Also on this date in 1903, the great entertainer and golf promoter Bing Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington. Mainly noted for his singing and acting, in golf circles Crosby was a fine player who made the celebrity pro-am famous, on the Monterey Peninsula , and his ambassadorship as a golf promoter earned him a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

On this date in 1960, Arnold Palmer appeared as Time Magazine’s five-page cover story subject. On May 2, 1965, Palmer won the Tournament of Champions. On this date in 1982, Beth Daniel won the Birmingham Classic on the LPGA Tour at 13 under par, four ahead of Patty Sheehan. And on this date in 1965, Marilynn Smith made a 22-foot eagle putt on No. 17 to finish off winning the 13th Annual Betsy Rawls Peach Blossom Open at Spartanburg (S.C.) Country Club for a one-stroke victory over Rawls. Smith had three straight one-under-par 71s in winning the $1,275 top prize. In third place at 216 was Mickey Wright.

Arnold Palmer shot some low scores on May 1. In 1958 it was a first-round 65 in the Colonial Nat’l Inv., and he would finish T-12. In 1970 it was a first-round 66 at the Byron Nelson Cl. In 1972, it was a final-round 68 at the Nelson to finish 6th. And in 1977, Palmer shot a final-round 67 at the Houston Open, finishing T-17. On this date in 1955, golf (and sport) legend Babe Didrikson-Zaharias won the Peach Blossom LPGA Tournament in Spartanburg, S.C., by two shots over Marilynn Smith. It was the Babe’s final LPGA victory before her death in 1956.

During the height of Arnold Palmer at his greatest playing power, he shot a 68 on this date in 1961 to win the Texas Open. Arnie had begun play in the tournament on April 27 and shot 67. He scored 63 in Round 2 before a letdown in Round 3 with 72. His prize for winning was $4,300. Also, one of the great championships of the LPGA from yesteryear ended its playing also on this date in 1961 when Mickey Wright won the Titleholders Championship at Augusta Country Club by one shot over fellow legends Patty Berg and Louise Suggs.