Location Portland, Oregon Par 72 | Established 1944 Tour(s) PGA Tour | |
 | ||
Course(s) Portland Golf Club,
Columbia Edgewater
Country Club Length 6,445 yards (5,893 m)
(PGC in 1965)
6,435 yards (5,884 m)
(CECC in 1966) | ||
The Portland Open Invitational was a professional golf tournament in the northwest United States on the PGA Tour, played in Portland, Oregon. Established by Robert A. Hudson with a $10,000 purse in 1944, it was played in from 1944 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1966. The event was hosted eight times at the Portland Golf Club, and four times at the Columbia Edgewater Country Club. First played as the Portland Open, the revived 1959 event played as the Portland Centennial Open Invitational, in honor of Oregon's centennial of statehood.
Sam Snead won the inaugural event in 1944, and Ben Hogan won in 1945 by fourteen strokes, and also won the 1946 PGA Championship, then a match play event, held at the Portland Golf Club. The club also hosted the Ryder Cup in 1947; the U.S. team was captained by Hogan and won 11–1. Hogan was a runner-up in 1948, a stroke back in an 18-hole playoff.
The tournament was dominated by three-time winners Billy Casper (1959–61) and Jack Nicklaus (1962, 1964–65). Nicklaus' $3,500 win during his rookie season in 1962 concluded three weeks of victories; he took the massive winner's share of $50,000 in the exhibition World Series of Golf in Ohio, and then won his second tour title at the Seattle Open Invitational, which paid $4,300. Both Casper and Nicklaus won at both courses.
Bert Yancey won the last edition in 1966 and took only 102 putts. It stood as the 72-hole record for fewest putts for over a decade, until Bob Menne took 99 at the Tournament Players Championship in 1977.