United States Golf Association

The United States Golf Association is the national governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. The USGA's most visible role is played out each season in conducting 13 national championships, including the U.S. Open. The USGA also writes the Rules of Golf, conducts equipment testing, funds research for better turf and a better environment, maintains a Handicap System, celebrates the history of the game and administers an ongoing grants program.

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Historical evidence demonstrates that golf has been played in the United States of America for well over 200 years. Records show that immigrants to America founded a golf club in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1786, although the longest continuing club operation is credited to the St. Andrew's Golf Club in Yonkers, New York, which was organized in 1888.

In the 1890's, a dispute arose over the question of a National Amateur Champion. In 1894, St. Andrew's and Rhode Island's Newport Golf Club each staged invitational tournaments and each declared its winner to be the National Amateur Champion. The confusion made it clear that an impartial governing body was needed to administer golf, conduct national championships and oversee the codification and interpretation of the game's rules, as well as Rules of Amateur Status.

The formation of the United States Golf Association (USGA) was the end result of a December 22, 1894, meeting of delegates in New York City from Newport, St. Andrew's, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, The Country Club (Brookline, MA) and the Chicago Golf Club. Theodore A. Havemeyer was elected as the USGA's first president.

Dedicated to the promotion and conservation of the best interests in golf, the USGA is guided by its 15 member Executive Committee, which is the organization's policymaking board and represents more than 9,700 member clubs, courses and training facilities. More than thirty committees, comprised of approximately 1,200 men and women volunteers, augment the Executive Committee. All donate their services and pay their own expenses.

Championship golf began in this country in October 1895, with the playing of the first U.S. Amateur, won by Charles Blair Macdonald. The first U.S. Open was played the very next day and was won by Horace Rawlins, an English professional. Both championships were played at the Newport Golf Club and conducted by the USGA.

One-month later, Mrs. Charles S. Brown won the Women's Amateur, arranged on short notice and played at the Meadow Brook Club in Hempstead, New York.

Today, the USGA conducts 13 national championships annually, and the number of players who enter grows at a phenomenal rate. In 2002 the figure surpassed 37,000 entries, setting records for the number of entries in the U.S. Open, Senior Open, Women's Amateur and Women's Mid-Amateur.