Don January, PGA champ and 1st winner on senior tour, dies
Don January sits in a rocking chair to display his winnings of $26,000 earned for his 16th Senior PGA victory, in the Middlesex Golf Classic in Concord, Mass., on Sept. 23, 1984. The PGA Tour said January, who won the 1967 PGA Championship, died Sunday, May 7, 2023, at age 93. Credit: AP/Sean Kardon
DALLAS — Don January, who won the 1967 PGA Championship in a playoff and became the first winner on what is now the PGA Tour Champions, died Sunday, the PGA Tour announced. He was 93.
The tour did not list the cause of death.
January won 10 times on the PGA Tour over 20 years, none bigger than the 1967 PGA Championship at Columbine Country Club in Colorado. He shot 69 to beat Don Massengale by two shots in an 18-hole playoff.
Four years after his final win, the Senior PGA Tour for players 50 and older began with four tournaments. January won the first one, the Atlantic City Senior Invitational, and made $20,000. That tournament was never held again.
January won 22 times on the Senior PGA Tour, including the 1982 Senior PGA Championship the first year it went to PGA National in Florida.
Born Nov. 20, 1929, in Plainview, Texas, January played college golf at North Texas State when the Mean Green won the NCAA title four straight years.
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