An English golfer was on a roll in the early stages of the US PGA Championship. ‘Long Jim’ Barnes, who emigrated to the United States from Cornwall, won this event – then in match play form – in 1916 and 1919. It was not played during the two intervening years.
Staggeringly, in more than a century that has passed since there has been no flag of St George adjacent to a US PGA winner. History will therefore not be on Matt Fitzpatrick’s side on day four at Southern Hills but it dictates how significant a success for the Yorkshireman would be.
