The Amateur Championship

The Amateur Championship

The Amateur Championship Trophy in 2009 at Gardagolf Country Club
Location	United Kingdom
Established	1885
Format	Stroke play and match play
Month played	June
Scott Gregory

The Amateur Championship (sometimes referred to as the British Amateur or British Amateur Championship outside of the UK) is a golf tournament which is held annually in the United Kingdom. It is one of the two leading individual tournaments for amateur golfers, alongside the U.S. Amateur. It normally has the widest international representation of any individual amateur event, with 34 golf federations from all six continents represented in the 2010 championship. It has been held in the UK on all but one occasion; in 1949 Ireland hosted the championship.

Before World War II it was regarded as one of golf's major championships, but given the modern dominance of the sport by professional golfers, this is no longer the case. Only one Amateur Championship winner in the post-World War II era has gone on to win a professional major championship: José María Olazábal.

The inaugural championship was held in 1885 by the Royal Liverpool Golf Club and was, for many years, regarded as an unofficial event. In 1922, the R&A decided that Allan Macfie, the winner of the event, should be added to the list of Amateur Championship winners.

The tournament was played on 20, 21 and 23 April and was "open to all amateur members of recognised golf clubs". The format was match-play. All players were included in the draw for each round, any extra player receiving a bye. If a match was halved after the 18 holes both players progressed to the next round, playing each other again. There were 49 entries from 12 different clubs, although only 44 were included in the draw and four of these players did not turn up. Of the 22 first-round matches, 2 were halved, meaning that there were 12 matches in the second round. There were no more halved matches in the following rounds which meant that 3 players reached the semi-final stage.John Ball beat his father, also called John, in the third round.Allan Macfie was the lucky player to receive a bye at the semi-final stage with Horace Hutchinson beating Ball 2 up in the only semi-final match. After his morning round, Hutchinson played badly in the afternoon and Macfie won 7&6.