The Trans-Mississippi Golf Association will head to Denver Country Club in Colorado for the 118th Trans-Mississippi Amateur Championship. The 72-hole stroke-play championship will be played on July 6-9. The 144-player field will be cut to the low 54 players and ties following the second round.
“We’re excited to host the Trans-Mississippi Amateur Championship on a newly enhanced golf course, redesigned by Gil Hanse. We can’t wait to see how the course tests every aspect of the player's games and look forward to hosting them at our historic golf club,” said Director of Golf Steven David.
The field
This year’s field will feature 54 players ranked inside the Top-500 in WAGR, including defending champion
Derek Hitchner. Ty Gingerich of the University of Cincinnati, ranked 11th by WAGR, is the highest-ranked player in the field. Australian Harrison Crowe, who became just the sixth amateur in tournament history to win the Golf Challenge New South Wales Open in March, is also in the field, along with Ben James, the top-ranked junior player in the world who reached the quarterfinals of last weeks North & South Amateur.
RELATED:
Pairings /
Round 1/2 Recap
Championships at Denver Country Club
Founded in 1887, Denver Country Club was the first club west of the Mississippi to be admitted to the USGA (1896). Through its over 125 years of existence, the club has always been evolving to stay with the times while holding true to the traditions that have made DCC what it is today. Denver Country Club last hosted the TMGA Amateur Championship in 2010 (Won by Scott Pickney) and the TMGA Four-Ball Championship in 2009 (won by John Elway and Tom Hart). The club has hosted the amateur championship five times (1910, 1921, 1946, 1980, and 2010), only Kansas City Country Club (8), Brook Hollow Golf Club (7) The Broadmoor (6), Prairie Dunes Country Club (6), and The Minikahda Club (6) have hosted it more times.
Trans-Mississippi Amateur history
The Trans-Mississippi Amateur was first hosted in 1901 at Kansas City Country Club and has a decorated history. Over the past century, the event has crowned many worthy champions including 18-time major champion Jack Nicklaus in 1958 and 1959, two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw in 1972, U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau in 2013, the twelfth ranked player in the world Will Zalatoris in 2014 & 2016 and the fourth-ranked player in the world Collin Morikawa in 2015.
Charles Coe, a two-time winner of the U.S. Amateur, wonthe Trans-Miss four times (1947, '49, '52 and '56) while Johnny Goodman, the last amateur to win the U.S. Open, won his first of three Trans-Miss titles in 1927 at the Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs. He added two more at Golden Valley (Minn.) Country Club in 1931 and Wakonda Country Club in Des Moines, Iowa in 1935.
Mike McCoy, who will captain the United States team in the 2023 Walker Cup Match at St. Andrews, claimed a pair of Trans-Miss titles in 2000 and '08.
Last year,
Derek Hitchner overcame a nine-shot deficit before birdieing the second extra hole to win the
Trans-Mississippi Amateur Championship over
Derek Busby at the Windsong Farm Golf Club in Independence, Minn. Hitchner will be back to defend his title this year.
Part of the Elite Amateur Golf Series
The Trans-Mississippi Amateur Championship is a member of the Elite Amateur Golf Series. The Elite Amateur Cup is a series of seven competitive amateur championships (Sunnehanna, Northeast, North & South, Trans-Mississippi, Southern, Pacific Coast, and Western) where the top amateur golfers compete to earn points through top finishes at each of the events. After the final events, the points are totaled to identify a champion of the series. Rewards for accumulating the most points include exemptions into professional tournaments and USGA championships.
Elite Amateur Cup Standings
Elite Amateur Series Recaps
Bryce Lewis holds onto win Sunnehanna Amateur
Record setting title defense for Menante at Northeast Amateur
North & South Amateur: Luke Clanton wins tight final match
• • • • •
History of the Trans-Mississippi Golf Association
When St. Joseph Country Club of Missouri played host to Omaha Country Club of Nebraska in a friendly challenge match, little did the players realize they were planting the seed for one of the most prestigious amateur golf associations ever organized.
Several of the participants agreed to attend a meeting on June 8, 1901 in Omaha to organize the Trans-Mississippi Golf Association, formulate a constitution and create a set of by-laws. The name was suggested by Howard G. Leavitt, of Leavitt, Nebraska.
On September 26-28, 1901, fifteen charter clubs inaugurated the Trans-Mississippi Match Play Tournament, now heralded as one of the premier amateur competitions.
The 15 original Trans-Miss clubs include:
Cedar Rapids Country Club
Denver Country Club
Des Moines Golf & Country Club
Dubuque Golf Club
Evanston Golf Club
Holdredge Country Club
Kansas City Country Club
Leavenworth Country Club
Leavitt Country Club
Norton Country Club
Omaha Country Club
St Joseph Country Club
Town & Gown Golf Club of Colorado Springs
Wichita Country Club
Jim Young of AmateurGolf.com contributed to this report.
ABOUT THE
Trans-Miss Amateur
The Trans-Miss is one of the oldest and
most storied golf tournaments in the United
States.
For 106 years the championship
was played in a match play format.
Past champions include Jack Nicklaus (1958
and 1959), Charles Coe (1947, 1949, 1952 and
1956), Deane Beman (1960), George Archer
(1963), Ben Crenshaw (1972), Gary Koch
(1973), Bob Tway (1978), Mark Brooks (1978)
and other professional tour notables. In
1987 the championship was changed to a mid-
amateur age requirement, and a senior division
was also added. Starting in 2010, the Trans-
Mississippi Championship, returned to its roots
as an
open amateur tournament, and immediately
established itself as a "must-play" among
top collegiate and mid-am players, while
changing to
a 72-hole stroke play format. The field size
starts at
144 players from Trans-
Mississippi Golf Association member clubs (or
players receiving a special invitation from the
Championship Committee). After 36 holes, a cut
is
made to the low 54 and ties who play the final
two
rounds.
View Complete Tournament Information