Kerry Haigh, The PGA’s ‘Course Whisperer’

FARMINGDALE, NEW YORK | The most valuable player at Bethpage Black is probably Tiger Woods in terms of his assets, his wealth, his profile and what he means to any golf tournament in which he plays. But the most valuable player to the PGA of America who stages what is now the second of the year’s four major events?

That’s a different matter. You may not know him. Indeed if you do know him you are probably an employee of the PGA of America, in which case you are disqualified from answering the question, or you have been spending too much time indoors reading about golf and not enough time playing it.

On Tuesday Seth Waugh, chief executive of the PGA of America, nominated that organisation’s MVP. Step forward Kerry Haigh, a tall, somewhat self-effacing Englishman who turned 60 in February. Born in Doncaster, England, he attended Leeds University, where he studied the esoteric-sounding subject of planning and administration before joining first the Women’s PGA in Britain, then the LPGA and finally moving comfortably to the PGA of A...