It was in January 2020 when I got a phone call from my friend John Yerger, who runs the Sunnehanna Amateur in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The Sunnehanna is the traditional summer opening golf tournament for elite amateur players in America.
Yerger had an idea. “What if,” he asked me, “the leading men’s summer amateur tournaments came together to create an alliance to make sure our events remain relevant in an ever-changing amateur landscape?”
It didn’t take long for me to digest it and to endorse the idea. And so, Yerger set off to recruit the leaders of the major elite amateur competitions.
Two months later, COVID hit. But instead of derailing the effort, the pandemic became a catalyst for Yerger’s idea. As a result, the 69th playing of the Sunnehanna Amateur this week marks the debut of the Elite Amateur Golf Series.
Yerger first approached Andy Priest, who runs the Southern Amateur. Priest loved the idea, and within a week, he and Yerger had the other five tournaments they targeted on board. By the end of the year, a basic framework was set in motion, and the USGA indicated its likelihood of supporting the initiative.
In addition to Sunnehanna and the Southern, the EAGS features the Northeast, the North and South, the Trans-Miss, the Pacific Coast and the Western amateur events.
"It was becoming increasingly apparent – and a subsequent evaluation was done that confirmed our belief – that kids were staying at home to protect their rankings. Who gets better by sitting at home and not competing?”
John Yerger
The goal for the group was to maintain the relevance of these events and to ensure their long-term viability. Setting up a non-conflicting summer schedule and improved communication/best-practice-sharing also were worthy objectives.
But as Yerger told me recently, “We wanted to incentivize the top players to play in our events who otherwise might not because of rankings and to whom history may not be as important as it once was. It was becoming increasingly apparent – and a subsequent evaluation was done that confirmed our belief – that kids were staying at home to protect their rankings. Who gets better by sitting at home and not competing?”
Those incentives became PGA Tour, Korn Ferry Tour and USGA exemptions. Players are competing for the Elite Amateur Cup. A points system consisting of the cumulative total points earned in the seven events from the World Amateur Golf Ranking will be employed to rank the players. The winner of the cup will be the player who has won the most cumulative points at the conclusion of the final event, the Western Amateur.
The top five finishers will earn exemptions into the 2022 U.S. Amateur if not already qualified. The top five also earn exemptions into Final Qualifying for the 2023 U.S. Open, provided that they remain amateur. There are also two PGA Tour exemptions and five Korn Ferry Tour exemptions at stake.
As the group began to meet by videoconference during the early days, it became apparent that their discussions proved timely. Had they not come together and shared ideas and best practices, it is likely that some of the events would not have been played in 2020 because of player safety concerns amid the pandemic.
The original goal was to debut the series in 2021, but the organizers determined that they just weren’t ready. The group took its time, gathered the exemptions, and secured sponsorship from Titleist and FootJoy. They also earned the support of the USGA, a critical step in the development of the series.
The USGA would like to see this concept extend to the elite women’s amateur game, which arguably could benefit even more than the men. The leadership of the EAGS would like to make that happen as well, and in time it might.
But for now, the time finally has come to implement the plan, and that begins this week at Sunnehanna Country Club, 2½ years after that first phone call from Yerger. It’s been a long time coming, but it will prove quickly to have been worth the wait.
June 15-18: Sunnehanna Amateur, Sunnehanna CC, Johnstown, Pennsylvania
June 22-25: Northeast Amateur, Wannamoisett CC, Rumford, Rhode Island
June 28-July 2: North and South Amateur, Pinehurst Resort (No. 2), Pinehurst, North Carolina
July 6-9: Trans-Mississippi Amateur, Denver CC, Denver, Colorado
July 13-16: Southern Amateur, Sea Island GC (Plantation), St. Simons Island, Georgia
July 19-22: Pacific Coast Amateur, Columbia Edgewater CC, Portland, Oregon
Aug. 2-6: Western Amateur, Exmoor CC, Highland Park, Illinois
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