2014 U.S. Senior Open
Oak Tree National was honored to host the 2014 U.S. Senior Open July 7-13th, 2014. Senior Open Champion Colin Montgomerie led at the end of the first and second days of the Senior Open, but entered Sunday's action four shots behind Gene Sauers and shot a 2-under 69 to force the playoff. On the 18th hole of regulation, Montgomerie parred, and Sauers had a chance to win the tournament with a birdie. His putt lipped out to force the playoff. "I guess I just may have misread that putt the first time around, didn't play enough break," Sauers said. Montgomerie, saying he was playing his best golf since the 90s, entered the third extra hole with a one-shot lead, then sank a putt on 18 to par the hole and claim the win. Entering the playoff at 5 under par, it was the first playoff at a U.S. Senior Open since 2002 and was held in temperatures that exceeded 100 degrees.
https://www.golfchannel.com/video/2014-us-senior-open-championship-colin-montgomerie
2012 Trans - Mississippi Championship
Oak Tree National was honored to host the 109th Trans-Mississippi Championship July 9th, 2012 in which UC Davis’ Tyler Raber won. Tyler outlasted a talented field of amateur players and a long day of golf at one of the midwest’s most challenging facilities. Raber held off University of Iowa’s Steven Ihm by a single shot with his final 1-over par 72. Earlier in the day, Raber had posted a 4-over par 75 in the third round and trailed Arkansas’ Austin Cook by one stroke heading into the final round. Ihm placed second after rounds of 72 and 73 the final day. Cook finished in third place overall after rounds of 71 and 76. Oklahoma City’s Jeff Coffman was the low mid-amateur with a 72-hole total of 295.
http://www.trans-miss.org/2012-TransMiss-Championship.html
2006 Senior PGA Championship
After three playoff holes, Jay Haas earned his first major win at the 67th Senior PGA Championship at Oak Tree Golf Club in 2006. Haas got up and down from a front-right greenside bunker, draining a testy 12-foot par putt on No. 18. that left Brad Bryant with a 4-footer to extend the playoff to a fourth hole. However, Bryant hit a weak putt that slipped past the left side of the cup, ultimately handing Haas the championship and his third consecutive Champions Tour win.
“I was expecting to go to the next tee and I think when Brad missed I didn’t know what to do or where to go, who to look at, anything like that,” Haas said. “It was a little relief, but definitely just bliss, joy. I don’t know.”
2000 PGA Club Pro Championship
A spectacular lightning display hovered long enough ... almost seven hours ... near Oak Tree Golf Club on the Sunday morning of the 2000 PGA Club Pro Championship, canceling the final 18-hole round of the Championship. A contingency plan of a five- hole cumulative score playoff was deployed to decide the winner of the Walter Hagen Cup. Tim Thelen of Richmond,Texas and Mark Brown of Glen Cove, N.Y., who had tied after 54 holes at 1-over-par 214, marched to the 10th tee on a soggy Oak Tree layout to decide the national championship. Thelen, a 39- year-old assistant at Baywood Country Club in Pasadena, Texas, opened the duel by saving par from a greenside bunker. Two holes later, at the 131-yard par-3 13th, Thelen hit a sand wedge to within four feet of the hole. Brown’s tee shot sailed wide right into a grassy swale, where he saved par with a brilliant recovery pitch with a 10-foot par putt. Thelen’s one-stroke margin held up on the par-4 14th, as he two-putted for par from 35 feet with Brown missing his downhill 20-foot birdie attempt. "Oak Tree was without question the toughest golf course I’ve played in my life - by two shots,” Thelen said.
1988 PGA Championship
Jeff Sluman won the 1988 PGA Championship in the most decisive way, with a round of 65 that tied David Graham’s 1979 mark as the lowest winning final round in PGA history. His score of 272 was only one off the championship record and it made him the first player since Jerry Pate in 1976 to make a major championship his inaugural victory.
The key hole was number 5 where Paul Azinger made a bogey 6 and Sluman stunned the field by holing out a 115-yard wedge shot for eagle 3. “As soon as I hit it I knew it was going to be close,” he said. “When it went in, it was the first time in 95-degree heat that I’ve had chills all up and down my body.”
Azinger followed his bogey, with another bogey at 6 as Sluman birdied 7 to go two ahead. Three more birdies on the back nine sealed it for him.
https://golfhistorytoday.com/1988-jeff-sluman-pga-championship-2/
1984 U.S. Amateur
Surviving a week of temperatures up to 107 degrees and even rain delays, participants of the 1984 U.S. Amateur included golf legends Dillard Pruitt, Bob Estes, Greg Turner and Sam Randolph. Of all the players, however, one young student from Oklahoma State University surprised them all.
Scott Verplank had never participated in a USGA Amateur before 1984. In fact, he had never participated in any USGA event. The odds, however, were on Verplank’s side. In the two years leading up to the ’84 amateur, Verplank had won scores of NCAA tourneys, the Porter Cup, the Sunnehanna, and even the Western Amateur. It was a winning streak that would not be broken this time around, either.
With OSU golf coach Mike Holder caddying at his side, Scott Verplank went on to win the ’84 Amateur with a score of 4 & 3, beating out runner-up Sam Randolph in one of the the first major victories of his golfing career.
https://www.usga.org/videos/2013/03/04/verplank-victorious-at-1984-u-s--amateur-2203223046001.html