PGA Championship 2016: Baltusrol is dripping with major history

This is just the second PGA Championship at Baltusrol, but the history there is much richer than this fact implies

We've been gifted a mother lode of historic courses for the 2016 major season: Augusta, Oakmont, Royal Troon and Baltusrol is tough to beat as a four-course team of amazing tracks. Behind Augusta hosting 80 Masters, Oakmont has hosted 12 majors and Royal Troon and Baltusrol will have nine each when the year is over. That's a bevy of big boy tracks.

Oakmont has hosted nine U.S. Opens and three PGA Championships. Royal Troon has hosted nine Open Championships. Baltusrol, flipping the Oakmont model by going with U.S. Opens first and then switching to PGA Championships more recently, has hosted seven U.S. Opens, and this year its second PGA Championship.

History at Baltusrol, which is just 20 miles from New York City, runs deeper than at the other three courses as well. It was opened in 1895 and hosted the 1903 U.S. Open, which was won by Willie Anderson with a score of 307. He won $200. After touching off its seventh U.S. Open in 1993, it hosted its first PGA Championship in 2005, which was won by Phil Mickelson. Slick Willie to Big Lefty, that's quite a run. And for the first time in a decade, the PGA Championship returns.

Here are five other things you should know about Baltusrol's history.

1. Why Baltusrol is called Baltusrol. It's hard to spell and say, isn't it? When it was started in 1895, the club was named after a farmer who used to own the land named -- I'm not making this up -- Baltus Roll. He was murdered in a robbery in 1831 and the original founder of the club, Louis Keller, named it after him to the chagrin of golf editors across of the United States.

2. Baltusrol is actually three courses. Well, now it's two. But there were multiple majors played on the "old course," which was around for the first two decades of the 20th century. Then two new courses were built on top of that course and are now named the Upper Course and the Lower Course. The 1936 U.S. Open was played on the Upper Course, but all men's majors since then have been played on the Lower.

3. Jack Nicklaus hit the most famous shot in Baltusrol history. Nicklaus hit a 1 iron from 237 yards out at the 1967 U.S. Open before converting the putt for birdie and the (at the time) U.S. Open scoring record of 275. You can watch the shot at the 1:05 mark below.

4. Bobby Jones lost the 1926 U.S. Amateur at Baltusrol. Going for three straight U.S. Ams at Merion, Oakmont and Balsutrol (a triumvirate for all time), Jones lost in the finals to George Von Elm.

"I had beaten him at Merion and at Oakmont, and the Lord knows nobody is going to keep on beating a golfer like George Von Elm," wrote Jones in one his books. "I wanted to make it three championships in a row, but it wasn't in the book. It was George's turn."

Jones went on to become a member at Baltusrol in 1936.

5. Phil Mickelson took the 2005 PGA Championship on a Monday. Remember that? Tiger Woods took the clubhouse lead at 2 under on Sunday evening before rain washed out the rest of the day. He took Air Cat 1 home to Florida thinking nobody would fall to him in a playoff at that mark. He barely escaped as Mickelson took home his only PGA Championship at 4 under with this crazy flop shot at the last hole.