Paul Azinger: Player Profile
Paul Azinger is an American professional golfer and also a golf analyst. He has spent almost 300 weeks in the top-10 of the official World Golf Rankings between 1988 and 1994.
Even though he was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Azinger moved to Florida to attend high school and eventually graduated from Brevard Community College. After his time in Brevard Community College, he went to Florida State University and turned professional
in 1981.
Overall, in his career, he has achieved many titles. From 1987 to 1933, he won eleven tournaments on the PGA title. He won the Phoenix Open by 2 strokes against Hal Sutton in 1987. The same year he also won the Panasonic Las Vegas Invitational against Sutton
again. That year, Azinger was also victorious at the Canon Sammy Davis Jr. Greater Hartford Open.
In 1988, he defeated Tom Kite by five strokes to win the Hertz Bay Hill Classic. A year later, he won the Canon Greater Hartford Open by one stroke against Wayne Levi and took the Mony Tournament of Champions title in 1990. In 1991, he won the AT&T Pebble
Beach National Pro-am. In 1992, Azinger won the Tour Championship by three strokes. He defeated Lee Janzen and Corey Pavin. That same year, He also won the Memorial Tournament by defeating Corey Pavin by one stroke.
The highlight of his career was his victory in the 1993 PGA Championship. Following his triumph, Azinger got diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. His treatment was six months of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiation in California.
During his time in treatment, Paul Azinger wrote a book called Zinger, which was about his fight with the disease. Not getting too depressed with such a harmful disease, Paul used his time productively and also got awarded for it. Azinger got the GWAA Ben
Hogan Award in 1995. This award is given to a person who continues to participate in golf despite being diagnosed with a serious illness or being handicapped. In 1987, he was also awarded the PGA Player of the Year award.
Along with one major win, he also had decent finishes in a few majors. He tied for second place at the 1987 Open Championship, tied for third at the 1993 U.S Open Championship and came in fifth place for the 1998 Masters Tournament.
In 2000, he won his first tournament in seven seasons at the Sony Open in Hawaii. This year, he got the PGA Tour Comeback Player of the Year. Not having any big tour wins after 2000, Paul still stayed active in the sport. Eight years later, he was selected
as the Ryder Cup captain for the American Team.
He led the team to victory at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville. This was the first victory of the Americans since 1999 and was also by a big margin. The margin of the victory was and it clearly showed what brilliant captaincy was done by Azinger. The
team’s triumph was more or less due to his clever tactics. His strategies were so innovative that he wrote them down and got it published. Paul’s book,
Cracking the Code: The Winning Ryder Cup Strategy: Make it Work for You, was launched his book in May 2010. This book was written communally with Ron Braund who is the team psychologist and team builder. Braund also assisted Azinger throughout the
Ryder Cup.
Along with being a talented golfer, Paul is a skilled poker player as well. He took part in the 2006 World Series of Poker and 2008 World Series of Poker. As for his personal life, he is married to Toni since 1982 and has two daughters, Sarah Jean Collins
and Josie Lynn. Being a close friend of the famous golfer, Payne Stewart, he delivered a eulogy at the memorial service when Stewart was killed in a plane crash.
Overall, Paul Azinger was an amazing golfer in his time. Turning 50 in 2010, Paul joined the Champions Tour in February and made his debut at The ACE Group Classic.
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