While those in the heart of La La Land may have viewed Steve Elkington’s 1995 US PGA Championship victory as a bolt from the blue – especially given he started the final round six shots back of the lead – the Wagga native was well and truly in the conversation as the best player in the world without a Major championship.

And he knew it.

He was ranked No.17 in the world, had won the Australian Open three years earlier, had five PGA TOUR titles to his name and in the four majors prior he had finished inside the top 10 on three occasions.

He was at the height of his powers when he arrived at Riviera Country Club that week in August and needed every single one of them to leave that Sunday with the Wanamaker Trophy.

“It was just perfect,” said the winner.

WHAT CAME BEFORE

Born in Inverell but raised in Wagga in the New South Wales Riverina region, Elkington came to the attention of the NSW Golf Association as a teenager and was drafted into the State team.

That was where he would form a partnership with legendary Australian coach Alex Mercer that would take them from obscurity to the very highest echelon of the game.

Defying the accepted convention that Aussies should first play in Europe before taking their games to the United States, Elkington went down the college route and was a star on the University of Houston team that were national champions in 1982, 1984 and 1985.

He turned pro later that year and when he finished runner-up at the 1986 PGA TOUR Q School tournament secured his immediate playing future in his adopted country.

It took until the 1990 Kmart Greater Greensboro Open for ‘Elk’ to etch his name into history as a winner on the PGA TOUR but in the next five years established himself as an elite player in elite company, winning The Players Championship for the first time in 1991 and twice claiming the Tournament of Champions title in Hawaii.

Elkington’s first prominent appearance on a Major championship leaderboard came when he was tied for third at the 1993 Masters and in the lead-up to the PGA in 1995 was tied for fifth at The Masters and tied for sixth at The Open Championship at St Andrews.

HOW IT UNFOLDED

The long-time host of the LA Open and a revered George C. Thomas and William Bell design, it became evident early in the tournament that the game’s best players were going to be able to get after it.

At the halfway mark Ernie Els and Mark O’Meara had equalled the lowest 36-hole score of 131 in PGA Championship history and established a three-shot lead from Justin Leonard, Elkington, fellow Australian Greg Norman, Colin Montgomerie, Jeff Maggert and Brian Claar in a group a further shot back at 135.

“The weekend is when everything is going to start happening,” Els said somewhat prophetically.

By the end of Saturday’s third round Elkington was in fifth place six shots back of Els after shooting a 3-under 68 that very nearly didn’t happen at all.

His career has been spent fighting an allergy to grass but when Elkington picked up a sinus infection fly fishing in Scotland the week after the Open at St Andrews, his health was already cause for concern.

“Beware the golfer with the sniffles, the limp, the headache or the sore back. Steve Elkington turned up this week with his allergies kicking up, head aching, nose running,” wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray.

Add to that a cold that he picked up Friday night at Riviera and the possibility of withdrawing became very real.

“I felt so bad when I went to bed last night that I didn’t know if I was going to get up,” Elkington told The Daily Breeze. “Thank goodness I’m playing good.”

But trailing Els by six shots, good wasn’t going to be enough, but Elkington sensed that the South African would have to deal with more than simply the chasing pack.

“He is a pretty strong front-runner but it all rides on tomorrow.”

Unwilling to wait to see whether Els would wilt, Elkington showed the courage to push for a score capable of winning that could also have led to a Sunday blowout.

He birdied six of the opening 11 holes to roar into contention and when he picked up another birdie at No.12 had taken sole ownership of the lead.

When he posted a final round of 7-under 64 for a 72-hole total of 267 – the lowest in PGA history and tying Norman’s 1993 Open score at Royal St George’s for lowest in any major – it would take something special to catch him, and Montgomerie delivered.

He birdied the final three holes to match Elkington’s score and force a playoff, the 32-year-old Aussie responding with yet another birdie at the first playoff hole from 25 feet to complete an unlikely triumph in the home of Hollywood.

“I played the round of my life,” Elkington said.

WHAT FOLLOWED

Helped in no small part by his extraordinary play at Riviera, Elkington was awarded the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average by the PGA of America in 1995.

He finished with 10 PGA TOUR titles – including winning four tournaments on two separate occasions – and lost in a playoff at the 2002 Open Championship at Muirfield.

He turned 50 in December 2012 and finished tied for sixth at the 2013 US Senior Open and in 43 starts on the Champions Tour recorded eight top-10 finishes.

In 2017 he was elected into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame and hosts Secret Golf with Steve Elkington on CBS.