Busy PGA Museum of golf speaker series to feature 1958 PGA Champion Dow Finsterwald

Dow Finsterwald, the 1958 PGA Champion and 1977 U.S. Ryder Cup Captain, and legendary sports historian Dr. Harvey Frommer, are the respective featured speakers, March 16 and 17, at the PGA Museum of Golf Speaker Series at PGA Village in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

Finsterwald will appear Wednesday, March 16, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the museum rotunda, located at I-95, Exit 121 (St. Lucie West Blvd.). Frommer will appear Thursday, March 17, at 1 p.m. Both events are open to the public with complimentary admission.

Frommer, a professor emeritus at New York University, is the author of more than 40 books, including Remembering Yankee Stadium and Games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad. Frommer will discuss and sign his recently-released book, Remembering Fenway Park.

A native of Athens, Ohio, Dow Finsterwald won the 1958 PGA Championship at Llanerch Country Club in Havertown, Pa. In doing so, Finsterwald became the first to win the PGA Championship in a stroke-play format. In 1957, the final year of the PGA Championship being contested at match play, Finsterwald finished as the runner–up to Lionel Hebert at Miami Valley Golf Club in Dayton, Ohio.

Finsterwald won 11 times on the PGA Tour in a competitive career that lasted just more than a decade. He also was the runner–up in the 1962 Masters Tournament.

Finsterwald played on four United States Ryder Cup Teams – 1957, ’59, ’61 and ’63 – and was the Captain of the 1977 U.S. Team that defeated Great Britain & Ireland at Royal Lytham and St. Annes, in England. That was the last Ryder Cup before players from all of Europe were invited to compete in the biennial competition.

A consistent player with a strong short game, Finsterwald won the Vardon Trophy in 1957 for having the tour’s lowest stroke average, and one year later, he earned the PGA Player of the Award.