Senior golf in the United States isn’t a new phenomenon. The American Seniors Golf Association was formed back in 1935, organizing a series of annual winter tournaments for senior amateur players at Kenilworth Lodge in Sebring, Florida. Twenty years later, the USGA decided to hold a nationwide contest for amateurs aged 55 and over with a maximum handicap of 10.

An art-deco trophy, produced by Rogers Brothers and featuring a gold-plated stem with blue enamel and a distinctive hand-hammered bowl, was donated by Frederick L. Dold, a USGA Executive Committee member, and put up for competition at the inaugural U.S. Senior Amateur in Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville, Tennessee from 26th September to 1st October 1955.

The first edition of this new golfing event drew 370 entries from thirty states and after an 18-hole round of stroke play to separate the golfing wheat from the chaff, match play knock-out ties resulted in J. Wood Platt, the seven-time Philadelphia Amateur champion, defeating George Studinger from San Francisco 5&4 in the final.

Apart from 1963, which was an exclusively match play affair, the championship has begun with a stroke play element (18 holes from 1958 to 1962 then 36 holes from 1964 onwards) where a medal is awarded to the player(s) with the lowest aggregate score. The tournament then advances to the match play stages, where the top 64 competitors compete against each other in knock-out ties.

Lewis Oehmig’s distinguished amateur career spanned five decades. An eight-time winner of the Tennessee State Amateur, the man from Lookout Mountain became the oldest USGA champion in history when he won the 1985 Senior Amateur aged 69. That victory was Oehmig’s third Senior title, having also won in 1972 and 1976, and he finished runner-up in 1974, 1977 and 1979.

Former USGA President Bill Campbell and Vinny Giles are the only players to have won a U.S. Amateur and U.S. Senior Amateur title. Bill claimed the Amateur in 1964 then the Senior Amateur in both 1979 and 1980, while Vinny added the Senior Amateur to his 1972 Amateur thirty-seven years later, in 2009. John Richardson won the Senior championship in 1987 and was followed by his son Kemp Richardson in 2001 and 2003.

More than sixty editions of the tournament have been played since 1955 and it’s yet to take place twice at the same venue. Two states have hosted the event five times: California (Monterrey Peninsula in 1958, Cal Club in 1970, Carmel Valley in 1975, Bel-Air in 2004 and Big Canyon 2014); and Illinois (Evanston in 1962, Onwentsia in 1973, Chicago in 1979, Skokie in 1998 and Beverly in 2009).

The following venues where the championship has been held are not ranked in our Best in State listings so they’re missing from the list of courses featured below: Big Canyon Country Club (2014) and Carmel Valley (1975) in California; Sharon (1972) in Ohio; Sunnybrook (1971) in Pennsylvania; Tucson (1982) and Tucson National (1966) in Arizona.