The Vagliano Trophy began in 1931 as an annual competition between two teams of female amateur golfers selected to represent Great Britain & Ireland and France. Each contest consisted of three foursomes matches and six singles matches, played on a single day, with teams competing for a trophy presented by André Vagliano from the French Golf Federation.

Sixteen editions of the tournament took place up until 1957 and they were pretty one-sided affairs, with GB&I winning fifteen and drawing one of the matches. Great Britain & Ireland also played a series of matches against Belgium from 1949 to 1957 but the French and Belgian contests were amalgamated into a single 2-day biennial event versus the Continent of Europe in 1959.

There were five 36-hole foursomes played on the first day and ten 36-hole singles on the second – for a total of fifteen points – in 1959 and 1961. Ties were then reduced to 18-hole matches and between 1963 and 1973, the competition consisted of five foursomes and ten singles matches each day, giving a total of 30 points to play for.

Since 1975, the championship now comprises four foursomes and eight singles on each day, with 24 points up for grabs.

The GB&I v Europe chapter of the tournament started at the Wentworth Club in Surrey in 1959, with the home side winning 12-3 against their continental opponents. The GB&I ladies also won the next two contests and that set in train a streaky winning run phenomenon which has endured for almost sixty years.

Europe won three in a row from 1965 at Koln in Germany to Chantilly in France in 1969 but GB&I then responded with runs of four consecutive victories then six victories in a row between 1971 and 1993. Not to be outdone, Team Europe then replied with four straight wins (1995-2001) then seven on the spin (2017-2019).

So, in the “European era” of The Vagliano Trophy up until 2019, the spoils are evenly divided 15-15, with one match tied at Royal Porthcawl in 1979.

Four French clubs have hosted the event on a total of twelve occasions. Morfontaine has held five of these tournaments and Chantilly four. Several clubs have provided their facilities on a couple of different occasions to the R&A and European Golf Association who jointly administer the championship, including Hamburger Falkenstein (1985, 2009), Royal Porthcawl (1979, 2011) and Venezia (1989, 2001).

Two courses used in the competition do not feature below as they no longer exist. The first is Oxhey (1931) where Ted Ray was the professional from 1912 to 1940, and the second is Bramshot (1939) which never re-opened after World War II.