Philly’s Rodman Wanamaker started the PGA and provided ‘the voice of Philadelphia’
Wanamaker will be remembered on Sunday at Aronimink Golf Club when the PGA Championship winner lifts the trophy he created. But locally, he is best known for the organ he brought to Market Street.
They took the bus from Drexel Hill to 69th Street, hopped on the El, and soon stood in what felt like a fantasy for a 5-year-old boy in the 1950s from Georgia who was visiting his grandparents in Philadelphia.
The Grand Court at Wanamaker’s on Market Street was decorated like a Hollywood set, the Christmas light show was shining, and the organ — the world’s largest — was playing.
“It was unbelievable to see a spectacle on that scale,” said Ray Biswanger, who started a group in the early 1990s to help preserve the iconic organ. “Everyone just marveled. It was like going to Disneyland.”
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Rodman Wanamaker — the son of John Wanamaker — will be remembered on Sunday at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square when the winner of the PGA Championship lifts the silver Wanamaker Trophy. Wanamaker is credited with creating the Professional Golfers Association in 1916 and designing the trophy for the PGA Championship.
Wanamaker, in golf circles, is known as the Founding Father of the PGA. But in Philadelphia, he is best known for the organ he brought to Market Street.
Wanamaker purchased the organ after it was used in 1904 at the St. Louis World’s Fair. The organ had been in storage for a few years, so Wanamaker got it at a discount. It took a year to install it at his father’s store near City Hall and even then it wasn’t loud enough. Wanamaker built an organ factory in the store, hired the people who built it, and made it even bigger. It sounded like a symphony orchestra.
“It’s the voice of Philadelphia,” Biswanger said. “It’s something everyone has experienced. Everyone has met in the Grand Court, heard the organ, wondered at it. The public spiritedness of it made the Grand Court Philadelphia’s living room. People from all over the world make pilgrimages to come and hear it. It’s such a wonder.”
The trophy
Rodman Wanamaker didn’t regularly golf and wasn’t known to be much of a sportsman — though he did “play” on Princeton’s 1885 national championship football team — but he did want to sell golf equipment in his department stores. The sport was starting to grow in popularity in the U.S. and Wanamaker wanted to pounce.
He called a meeting in New York in February of 1916 with a group that included legendary golfer Walter Hagen to create a professional association. Eight months later, the first PGA Championship was held at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, N.Y. Wanamaker donated $2,500 worth of prize money and a gold medal for winner Jim Barnes, the head professional at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club in Lafayette Hill. Wanamaker later created the iconic silver trophy.
“The trophy has its roots in Philadelphia,” said Jeff Kiddie, Aronimink’s head professional. “It’s really neat that it’s coming back to Philadelphia.”
The trophy was made in New York and intended to be unique. The 27-pound sterling silver cup is 28 inches tall and topped with a knob of grapes. Wanamaker loved nice things as he imported French goods to Market Street, and built a beautiful chapel at St. Mark’s Church on Locust Street in memory of his first wife. He spared no expense. His trophy was no different.
“He wasn’t as interested so much in making money as his father was as he was in creating beautiful statements,” Biswanger said.
Hagen won the Wanamaker Trophy four straight years before Leo Diegel won in 1928. The trophy — similar to the Stanley Cup — was passed each year from winner to winner. Except Hagen didn’t have the trophy for Diegel. He lost it. Hagen said he left it in a taxicab in Chicago.
The PGA made a new trophy for Diegel before the original was found by a janitor two years later in the basement of the Detroit sporting goods plant where Hagen’s clubs were made. The Wanamaker Trophy — which would be lifted by Ben Hogan, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer — was back.
“It’s had some refreshments and redos,” Kiddie said. “But it’s the same trophy.”
Keegan Bradley, who won the PGA Championship in 2011, said winning the Wanamaker was surreal. He left the course that night with the trophy on his lap and couldn’t believe it. Wanamaker’s trophy still carries weight.
“I took the trophy and put it right next to my bed. I remember waking up in the morning and looking at it, like, ‘This is crazy. I can’t believe this,’” Bradley said Monday. “And then I got back, and a few of my buddies picked me up. I was single and 25 years old, and all my buddies picked me up from the airport. We went on a few-day celebration tour with the trophy, bringing it everywhere.”
Meet me at the Eagle
Biswanger’s grandparents, Raymond and Jean, dressed up for their trip to Wanamaker’s.
“They put on coats and hats,” Biswanger said. “The women put on their gloves.”
The Biswangers — just like so many others — treated a trip to the Grand Court as an event. Philadelphians regularly told each other to meet at the store’s eagle statue, and the light show was a staple every December.
“My story is not unique,” Biswanger said.
Rodman Wanamaker funded early aviation projects, helped preserve Native American history, and is credited with starting the tradition of playing the national anthem before sporting events. He adorned his father’s store with beautiful decorations and regularly brought the Philadelphia Orchestra to the Grand Court for performances. Everything was grand.
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“He wanted his stores to be the utmost of elegance and halfway measures would not satisfy him at all,” Biswanger said.
Rodman Wanamaker died in 1928, six years after his father died. The store has since changed owners numerous times but the organ kept playing. It played twice a day, six days a week before Macy’s closed in March of 2025.
The owners of the 12-story building — TF Cornerstone and Alterra Property Group — are renovating it and plan to reopen in 2028 with retail and apartments. The Grand Court will be refurbished and the organ is staying. Biswangers group — the 1,200 member Friends of the Wanamaker Organ — is helping to make sure the organ stays safe during construction. No one will forget about Wanamaker’s organ the way Hagen forgot about his trophy. The organ will soon play again.
“You hear the organ and you just fall in love with it,” Biswanger said.
The 108th PGA Championship returns to Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square for the first time in over six decades.
Marcus Hayes and Jeff Neiburg will host Gameday Central from Aronimink (Wednesday, 9 a.m.), and be sure to check out the PGA Championship Range Show from 12-2 p.m daily, starting Wednesday.
Whether you're going, watching from home, or just curious about what all the fuss is about, we've got you covered with our PGA guide and stories on everything from Aronimink's history and design, to what the players have to say about returning to the Philly area. We even made a golf video game so you can play the course and learn its secrets.
Get it all with our full PGA Championship preview. And follow the latest news and action from the course, right here.
