Paul Azinger
1 Major Championship • 90th All-Time
1
Wins
0
2nd Place
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First Win Age
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Last Win Age
Major Championship Wins
Career Highlights
- 1981 — Turned professional after playing at Florida State University
- 1987 — Breakout season: Won three PGA Tour events (Phoenix Open, Las Vegas Invitational, Greater Hartford Open); finished runner-up at The Open Championship by one stroke; named PGA Player of the Year
- 1993 — Won PGA Championship at Inverness in sudden-death playoff over Greg Norman; won 11 tournaments from 1987-1993
- 1993-1995 — Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in December 1993; underwent six months of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiation; received GWAA Ben Hogan Award in 1995 for perseverance
- 2000 — Triumphant return: Won Sony Open in Hawaii (first victory in seven seasons); named PGA Tour Comeback Player of the Year
- 2008 — Served as U.S. Ryder Cup captain at Valhalla, leading team to first victory over Europe since 1999 using innovative "pod system" strategy
- 2018-Present — NBC Sports lead golf analyst, succeeding Johnny Miller
- 2025 — Awarded the Payne Stewart Award
Did You Know?
- Elite Consistency: Spent almost 300 weeks in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Ranking between 1988 and 1994, peaking at #4
- "Zinger": Wrote a book titled "Zinger" about his battle with cancer; the nickname became synonymous with his fighting spirit
- Payne's Friend: Gave the eulogy at the memorial service for his close friend Payne Stewart, who was killed in a 1999 plane crash along with Azinger's two managers
- Ryder Cup Revolutionary: His innovative "pod system" for the 2008 Ryder Cup broke the team into smaller groups with dedicated captains; detailed in his book "Cracking the Code: The Winning Ryder Cup Strategy"
- Poker Player: Avid poker enthusiast who competed in the main event at both the 2006 and 2008 World Series of Poker
- Broadcasting Pioneer: First worked in television in 1995 while recovering from chemotherapy; recruited by Johnny Miller, whom he would eventually succeed as NBC's lead analyst
- Heartbreak at Muirfield: Lost the 1987 Open Championship by one stroke to Nick Faldo after making bogey on both the 71st and 72nd holes; said he was "heartbroken" to leave without the Claret Jug
- Ryder Cup Warrior: Represented the United States in four Ryder Cups as a player (1989, 1991, 1993, 2002) before his successful captaincy in 2008