Royal Liverpool Golf Club at Hoylake hosted the first Amateur Championship in 1885. Scotsman Allan Fullarton Macfie won the inaugural event, but the R&A did not consider the first tournament to be official until 1922 when Macfie was finally added to the list of Amateur champions.

The maiden competition attracted an entry of 49, each paying an entry fee of one guinea, though only 44 golfers actually participated in the match play contest. Royal Liverpool also contributed 25 guineas to top up the prize fund. Ironically, the money paid to the winner of this amateur event was a lot more than the £10.00 given to Bob Martin for his Open victory that year at St Andrews.

Since 1885 The Amateur Championship match play finals have been staged on only 22 principal courses. Since 1984, however, the first two days of the tournament have been contested in stroke play format across two courses, the principal course and a second local course. José María Olazábal won the 1984 title when Formby, the main club, co-hosted the stroke play qualifying stage with Southport & Ainsdale. Since 1984, an additional 25 courses have co-hosted the championship.

Entry to the Championship is now given to almost 300 applicants from around the world, with around half the places reserved for players from the UK and Ireland. Major golf nations are allocated entries on a quota basis, with national golf federations liasing with the R&A on selection.

The first stage of the Championship involves two rounds of 18 holes, one on each of two courses, over the first two days. The 64 lowest scores and ties for 64th then compete in the match play stages on the event's main course, with seeding according to qualifying scores. Each match is played over 18 holes, except for the Final, which is over 36 holes.

The winner is invited to three of the recognised major championships, namely The Open, the following year’s Masters Tournament and US Open, provided the player remains an amateur competitor.

John Ball of Liverpool won eight of the ten finals that he contested between 1888 and 1912. He’s also one of only three golfers to win both The Amateur and The Open, along with Harold Hilton and Bobby Jones. The biggest margin of victory in a Final tie occurred in 1934, when Lawson Little from the US defeated Scotsman James Wallace 14 & 13 at Prestwick.

The first champion from outside England or Scotland was Walter Travis from the USA who defeated Scotsman Edward Blackwell in the final match at Royal St George’s in 1904. Another five American golfers would triumph before World War II, including Bobby Jones at St Andrews in 1930 when he trounced the 1923 champion Roger Wethered 7&6 in the final.

At that time, the Amateur and US Amateur were considered two of the annual Grand Slam events, alongside the Open and the US Open, before the two amateur championships were replaced in the pecking order by The Masters and the PGA Championship in the second half of the 20th century.

Jones won The Open the following month then the US Open a month after that before defeating Eugene Homas at Merion in the final of the US Amateur in September, becoming the first (and only) winner of the Grand Slam. He’s said to have placed a bet with a bookmaker early in 1930 to accomplish such a feat and he walked away with a tidy sum when his wager came up.

Other milestone victors down the years include Jimmy Bruer at Royal Birkdale in 1946 (first Irish champion); Doug Bachli at Muirfield in 1954 (first Australian winner); Bobby Cole at Carnoustie in 1966 (first South African champion); Frenchman Phillip Ploujoux at St Andrews in 1981 (first Continental European champion); and South Korean Jin Jeong at Muirfield in 2010 (first Asian winner). 

Twelve Royal golf clubs have hosted around half the total number of championships, with Royal Liverpool (18) and Royal St George’s (14) the leading contributors. Two courses have held the event once and they’re both Scottish: Royal Dornoch (Championship) in 1985 and The Nairn (Championship) in 1994 and Royal Aberdeen (Balgownie) in 2018. The tournament has taken place twice in the Republic of Ireland, at Portmarnock in 1949 and 2019, with Ballyliffin in County Donegal hosting in 2024.”