Dave Stockton
professional golfer
David Knapp Stockton (born November 2, 1941) is an American retired professional golfer who has won tournaments on both the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour.
Early life and amateur career
In 1941, Stockton was born in San Bernardino, California. He attended the University of Southern California.
Professional career
In 1964, Stockton turned professional. His first PGA Tour win came at the 1967 Colonial National Invitation. Stockton was selected by former Colonial champions as one of two Champion's Choice invitations; he is the only Champion's Choice invitee to win the Colonial in the year of the invitation.
Stockton's best year was 1974, when he won three times, but his two majors, both of which were PGA Championships, came in 1970 and 1976. In 1970 he played the final round with Arnold Palmer, shooting a seventy-three which included an eagle and a double-bogey on the seventh and the eighth holes, respectively, and making a bogey on the thirteenth despite putting a ball in the water. In the end, this effort was good enough for a two stroke victory over Palmer and Bob Murphy. Due to rain at the 1976 PGA Championship, which was held at the Congressional Country Club, the final round had to be delayed until Monday.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Dave Stockton” is professional golfer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Dave, Stockton and professional, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “professional golfer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1173357. VIAF identifies the subject as 55869565. The Library of Congress control number is n95115745. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1964, 1967 and 1974.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Dave Stockton”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Dave Stockton primary sources, Dave Stockton archive and Dave research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dave Stockton”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Dave Stockton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.