The New Zealand PGA Championship is an annual

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

tournament held by the New Zealand PGA. It is generally an event on the

PGA Tour of Australasia The PGA Tour of Australasia, currently titled as the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia for sponsorship reasons, is a professional golf tour for men, owned and operated by the PGA of Australia. Official events on the tour count for World Golf ...

but in some years has been held as a non-tour event. In 2024, it was held on the

Charles Tour The Charles Tour, currently titled as the Jennian Homes Charles Tour for sponsorship reasons, is a New Zealand-based golf tour run by Golf New Zealand and the New Zealand PGA. It is named after Bob Charles (golfer), Bob Charles. The tour was foun ...

for the first time.

History

The tournament been played since 1909, with some gap periods. It was originally a

match play Match play is a scoring system for golf in which a player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 h ...

event and switched to

stroke play Stroke play is a scoring system in the sport of golf. In the regular form of stroke play, also known as medal play, the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 holes. In a regular stroke play competition, the winner is the ...

in 1965. Major championship winners who have claimed the New Zealand PGA title include Sir Bob Charles, Peter Thomson,

Kel Nagle Kelvin David George Nagle AM (21 December 1920 – 29 January 2015) was an Australian professional golfer best known for winning The Open Championship in 1960. He won at least one tournament each year from 1949 to 1975. Early life Nagle was ...

, and

Tony Jacklin Anthony Jacklin CBE (born 7 July 1944) is an English golfer. He was the most successful British player of his generation, winning two major championships, the 1969 Open Championship and the 1970 U.S. Open. He was also Ryder Cup captain from ...

. The event is also notable for

Masashi Ozaki is a Japanese professional golfer. Ozaki is often known as Jumbo Ozaki (ジャンボ尾崎 ''Janbo Ozaki'') on account of his height and length off the tee. He featured in the top ten of the Official World Golf Rankings for almost 200 weeks betw ...

's lone international win. Sponsorship problems caused the tournament to be terminated after the 1987 event. In 2002, a PGA Tour of Australasia and U.S.-based

Nationwide Tour The Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental tour for the U.S.-based PGA Tour, and features professional golfers who have either not yet reached the PGA Tour, or who have done so but then failed to win enough FedEx Cup points to stay at that level. ...

co-sanctioned event, called the Holden Clearwater Classic was started at the Clearwater Resort in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

, New Zealand. It was played again in 2003 and in 2004 the event resumed the name New Zealand PGA Championship. Co-sanctioning with the Nationwide Tour ended after 2009. The event was not held in 2020 and was run in 2021 as a non-tour event. The event was cancelled in 2022 and returned as a tour event in 2023. However it was again a non-tour event in 2024.

Winners

Sources:

Notes

References

External links

Coverage on the PGA Tour of Australasia's official site
{{Former Nationwide Tour Events PGA Tour of Australasia events Former Korn Ferry Tour events Golf tournaments in New Zealand Recurring sporting events established in 1920 1920 establishments in New Zealand

History

Winners

Notes

See also

References

External links