Scottie Scheffler will be wearing a pair of golf shoes with a two-word message printed on the bottom of them during the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club this week, and it’s a tip of the cap to one of the wildest stories in golf history.
For years now, Nike has released special-edition golf shoes for each of the four major championships, and this week is no different. The Swoosh brand released three different models for the PGA Championship, all in the same colorway, and all with the word “lost” on the bottom of one shoe and “found” on the other.
The two words are a tribute to Walter Hagen, who won five PGA Championships in his historic career, but it’s specifically his third victory in 1925 and what quickly followed that this week’s shoes pay homage to.
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After his victory in the then-match-play tournament at Olympia Fields, Hagen handed the Wanamaker Trophy to a cab driver and instructed him to take it to his hotel. The Wanamaker is among the largest trophies in sports, and toting it around for a night of celebration would turn into a challenge.
As it turns out, the trophy never made it to Hagen’s hotel. A major championship trophy was officially lost.
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Equal parts impressive and hilarious, Hagen went on to win the tournament in 1926 and 1927, meaning he was able to avoid having to tell anyone that he had no idea where the Wanamaker was.
According to the PGA, when Hagen arrived at the 1928 PGA, he told officials who asked where the Wanamaker was, “I will win it anyway, so I didn’t bring it.”
Hagen’s luck ran out that year when he lost to Leo Diegel in the quarterfinals at Baltimore Country Club, forcing him to admit that he had lost the trophy a full three years after it had gone missing.
Without a trophy to hand to Diegel, officials were forced to present him with the Maryland Cup Trophy sitting in the country club’s lobby.
All was not lost, at least not forever.
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In October 1930, Hagen just so happened to stumble upon the Wanamaker Trophy he and everyone else thought would never be seen again.
“In Detroit last week. Hagen, while going through some old trunks, unearthed a bulky package. Lo, and behold! It was the P.G.A. trophy which had been lost and was found again,” a headline in the New York Evening Journal on Oct. 6, 1930, read.
There you have it, the story of the “lost and found” shoes that Scheffler and other Nike-sponsored players are wearing around Aronimink this week.
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