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Historical
Notes
The U.S. Amateur
Championship was born in 1895 because of a controversy. In 1894, two
clubs — Newport (R.I.) Golf Club and New York’s St. Andrew’s Golf Club
— had conducted invitational tournaments to attract the nation’s top
amateur players.
Newport’s stroke
play tournament was won by club member W.G. Lawrence, who triumphed
over a field of 20 competitors. The match-play competition at St. Andrews
attracted 27 golfers and was won by Laurence Stoddart, of the host club.
Both clubs proclaimed
their winners as the national champion. Clearly, golf needed a national
governing body to conduct national championships, develop a single set
of rules for all golfers to follow, and to promote the best interests
of the game. With that, representatives from five clubs founded the
USGA on Dec. 22, 1894.
As a result, in
1895, its first full year of operation, the USGA conducted Amateur,
Open, and Women’s Amateur Championships. The Amateur and Open Championships
were conducted at Newport Golf Club during the same week of October
and Charles B. Macdonald became the first U.S. Amateur Champion.
The Amateur Championship
is the oldest golf championship in this country — one day older than
the U.S. Open. Except for an eight-year period, from 1965-72, when it
was stroke play, the Amateur has been a match-play championship.
Over the years,
as interest in the game grew and the number of quality players increased,
it became necessary to establish a national handicapping system to determine
who was eligible to compete in the Amateur. The USGA’s first national
handicap list, which was published for the 1912 Championship, was the
forerunner of the present-day USGA Golf Handicap System.
Throughout its history,
the U.S. Amateur has been the most coveted of all amateur titles. Many
of the great names of professional golf, such as Gene Littler, Arnold
Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lanny Wadkins, Craig Stadler, Jerry Pate, Mark
O’Meara, Hal Sutton, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, grace the Havemeyer
Cup.
It was, however,
longtime amateur Robert T. Jones Jr., who first attracted media coverage
and spectator attendance at the Amateur Championship. Jones captured
the championship five times (1924, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1930). His 1930
victory was a stunning moment in golf history when, at Merion Cricket
Club in Ardmore, Pa., Jones rounded out the Grand Slam, winning the
four major American and British championships in one year.
Sixty-six years
later, in 1996, Tiger Woods of Cypress, Calif., attracted similar interest
and enthusiasm when he won a record third straight U.S. Amateur at Pumpkin
Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Ore.
In 1994, Woods,
at 18, had first entered the record book as the youngest ever to win
the Amateur Championship. In 1996, he smashed yet another record when
he won, having registered 18 consecutive match-play victories.
