The PGA Championship’s Wanamaker Trophy reportedly went missing in 1925 and resurfaced in 1930. The tale has followed legendary golfer Walter Hagen for a century. However, concrete evidence shows that the reality is even more bizarre than what fans have heard so far. Ironically, Walter Hagen himself created many of these versions.

In a new report by Golf Digest, historian David Mackesey told Shane Ryan that these multiple versions result from how Hagen thrived on exaggeration and spectacle. This habit of his makes him an incredibly unreliable narrator. New evidence shows that Hagen actually didn’t lose the trophy in 1925 in a cab ride as has been traditionally reported. In fact, Hagen himself claimed he lost it in 1924. But that also turns out to be a lie.

As Mackesey found through his painstaking research, Hagen was pictured with the trophy in 1926. So why would Hagen say he lost in 1924? Good question. Mackesey believes Hagen liked to boast about fooling the PGA of America more than three times before eventually conceding that he had indeed lost it. What’s more interesting is that after Hagen lost the trophy, he left the town to evade the responsibility. Who was there to take the blame?

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Hagen’s manager, Bob Harlow. He told the PGA of America that they have managed to lose the trophy. Although it’s not clear what his version of the story was. Nevertheless, Harlow has been quoted by Time Magazine as saying, “It’s hard enough getting him [Walter Hagen] out of bed in the morning without picking up after him.” It should be noted that Hagen’s intention, as many speculated, was not to keep the trophy with him forever. Far from it, actually.

Hagen didn’t really care enough about the Wanamaker to keep track of it. He was a larger-than-life character who took more pleasure in playing golf. And partying. He, in fact, played a handful of exhibition matches only days after winning the 1926 PGA Championship. He was quite unbothered about losing the Wanamaker. As you might expect, how he found the trophy is also shrouded in mystery. Once again, Hagen is found to be an unreliable narrator in this case, as the story gets even more bizarre.

Initially, an article from the New York Evening Journal reported that Hagen said he found the trophy himself in his old trunks. Then, the following year, he said it was found in an unmarked box in the basement of the L.A. Young & Company factory in Detroit. This was the same company that manufactured Hagen’s brand of golf clubs. Apparently, the trophy had sat there for nearly five years.

Then, he bluffed the PGA of America, saying he was sure he would win the event. So, there was no point in bringing the trophy. And this did work until 1927. But in 1928, Leo Diegel won, and news of the missing trophy emerged. It was then found in October 1930. It’s anyone’s guess which version is closest to the real incident, and Walter Hagen was probably as clueless as you are a hundred years later. Nevertheless, the entire fiasco spawned two things.

Firstly, a replica trophy was created, and then a second trophy altogether, which the PGA of America had to retire decades later. But what gets lost in the story is how Leo Diegel reacted to it. Safe to say he wasn’t happy, and his exact quote has also resurfaced.

The Wanamaker Trophy replacement didn’t impress Diegel

Walter Hagen won the PGA Championship four times in a row from 1924 to 1927. It was Leo Diegel who broke his streak in 1928 and was expected to hold the Wanamaker Trophy, but sadly, he couldn’t. Diegel didn’t sugarcoat his frustration either.

“I beat Hagen, Sarazen, and Espinosa to win the darn title, but the PGA seems to think that I don’t need anything but newspaper clippings to prove that I’m champion,” he said, according to a report from later that month about the PGA Championship 1928.

In 1929, he achieved the feat again and this time received a trophy, but not the Wanamaker. A new trophy, called the Perpetual PGA Championship Trophy. It was commissioned in 1929. However, after Hagen found the original, the PGA of America brought the original Wanamaker Trophy into rotation from 1931.

Some years after that, a replica of the trophy was made. Now, it is this replica that is handed to the winner annually. Once the winner brings back the replica, they get a replica of the replica to hold on to permanently. Currently, the original Wanamaker Trophy is in the PGA of America headquarters.

The perpetual PGA Championship trophy was decommissioned. It was then sold at auction to David Mackasey. The replacement trophy eventually faded into history, but the mystery around the original Wanamaker Trophy only grew stronger. Nearly a century later, the bizarre saga still stands as one of golf’s strangest unsolved tales.