Given the global appeal of golf and the depths to which the competitive fires burn at all levels, there is an endless parade of tournaments to study.

Some command your attention, while others barely pique your curiosity. Then there are those tournaments that resonate emphatically (or should) – because of the winner’s passion, because of its aura, and because history just drips from the mere mention of its name.

We offer you The Met Open.

Before the world of social media helped warp the thinking of the golf community into believing that only the major stuff in April, May, June, and July matter, and long before we became overrun with those who assume Tiger Woods invented golf and that their precious Strokes Gained: Putting silliness is more important than the official scores, the Met Open was the real deal.

Which is why David Pastore’s recent victory at Meadow Brook Club in Jericho, N.Y., where he shot 68-73-70 – 211 to win by 1 over Ryan McCormick, has layers of substance to it.

The 33-year-old from Greenwich, Conn., who works at The Golf Performance Center in Ridgefield, Conn., certainly understood the impact of his victory, knowing that only three other players had ever swept the “Met Slam” as he has done. Pastore had won the Met Amateur (match play) and The Ike (amateur stroke-play championship) in 2014, the summer after he had graduated from the University of Virginia.

But in six bids to complete the sweep he had fallen short in the Met Open.

“I had wanted to win it for years,” said Pastore, who also has a pair of Met Junior Amateur victories on his impressive resume. “I definitely wanted to join that group.”

The “group” he speaks of are heralded names in the Met Section – George Zahringer, Jerry Courville Sr., and Johnson Wagner – all of whom had captured the “Met Slam” prior to Pastore.

Joining select company is a huge deal, said Pastore, and should you want to know why, perhaps you should do what he did after receiving the Met Open trophy – study the list of winners.

“It was so cool to see some of the winners names on there – like (Walter) Hagen, (Byron) Nelson, (Gene) Sarazen,” said Pastore.

Pertinent observation by him, though he was barely scratching the surface. When one considers how grandiose and lavishly rich is today’s PGA Tour, this suggestion is made from my heart – we owe it to the people who helped build the tour to be remembered for their achievements and not be discarded so callously.

What forever comes to mind in instances like this is a quote attributed to the late and great author Michael Crichton: “If you don’t know history, you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.”

Crichton added this: “The purpose of history is to explain the present – to say why the world around us is the way it is.”

Which is to say that the PGA Tour is a grand and mega-rich global organization thanks to tournaments such as the Met Open, which has been on our landscape since 1899. Give credit to Pastore, for he is cognizant of what this tournament means and to whom he owes thanks.

He's had his chances to win the Met Open, but this year David Pastore got it done. (Photo courtesy of the MGA).

Indeed, Hagen, Nelson and Sarazen all won the Met Open, but the prestige the championship went on for decades after that trio of icons. But there’s so much more.

Give praise to quite the work done by Jimmy Hines, who won in 1937 and 1938 by beating the likes of Henry Picard then Sam Snead, respectively. Craig Wood won in 1940 by outplaying a guy by the name of Ben Hogan, and when he won in 1949 Claude Harmon was doing so a year after he had won the Masters. As for Jack Burke Jr., he won the Met Open in 1949, seven years before he would win the Masters and the PGA Championship.

Doug Ford and Miller Barber? They both won the Met Open so, yes, we are talking a tournament rich in heritage and one that went a long way toward helping the growth of the PGA Tour. So, too, is the Massachusetts Open steep in tradition (Hagen, Sarazen, Nelson, Francis Ouimet, Horton Smith, and Leo Diegel all won it) and guess who also has his name on that trophy?

Bingo, David Pastore.

“It’s one of my favorites,” said Pastore, who fittingly won at TPC Boston in 2023 because for years he had watched the PGA Tour guys play there back in the Deutsche Bank Championship era.

Getting his name onto trophies which are already adorned with legendary players associated to past golf glory is getting to be a habit for Pastore.

(Other notables who’ve won the Met Amateur include current PGA Tour winner Chris Gotterup, former PGA Tour players George Burns and Jim McGovern, and iconic turn-of-the-century amateurs named Jerry Travers, Walter Travis and Jess Sweetser. Previous triumphs of The Ike include Cameron Young and Willie Turnesa.)

But it’s a very good habit from a very polished player who still dreams the dream that many Met Open winners ahead of him got to live. That is, to play the PGA Tour.

“I’ve given (PGA Tour) Q School a try every year (since graduating from UVA,” said Pastore. “This will be my 11th try.”

He’s made it to the Final Stage six times in a bid to gain Korn Ferry Tour status but hasn’t caught that elusive goal. As always, though, Pastore remains upbeat, perhaps even more so this year because rather than a first-stage site somewhere down south or in the southwest, Pastore has a spot in the field at Galloping Hill GC in Kenilworth, N.J., Oct. 14-17.

Given the short commute and a good feel for the weather and the grasses, “I’m looking forward to it; it will be nice having it in New Jersey.”

Before the KFT Q School, however, Pastore will travel to Sweden in mid-September for the first stage of the DP World Tour Q School. In four previous attempts, Pastore hasn’t gotten past the first stage of the DP World Tour pursuit, but there’s a wildcard, of sorts, in play this year. He’s coming off of a Met Open win that has poured even more fuel on his already-hot passion.

“It’s nice going in off a win so that’s exciting. I’ve been playing well and (given that he’s been doing this for more than 10 years now) I have a slightly different perspective,” said Pastore. “I’m more seasoned, I guess.”

He appreciates the 22 PGA Tour Americas tournaments he’s played in but concedes “that you can’t make a living on the developmental tours.”

The Korn Ferry Tour is the goal, of course, but knowing that some heralded golfers have used Met Section success as a springboard to loftier heights is a part of the motivation process that spurs Pastore.