HISTORY

2004 Amateur Championship at St Andrews

Stuart Wilson of Forfar won the 2004 Amateur Championship, overcoming England international Lee Corfield by 4 and 3 in the 36 hole final played over the Old Course at the end of May.

'I've always loved St Andrews,' said 26-year-old Wilson. 'To win at such a special place makes it even better.'

Wilson is the first Scot to win the Amateur on the Old Course since 1936, and only the fifth Scottish winner of the title since World War Two. Frequently outdriven by Corfield, Wilson used his knowledge of the course to great effect. His first ever round on the Old was given to him as a 15th birthday present by his uncle Ron, who caddied for him at the championship, and Wilson has also had three top ten finishes in the St Andrews Links Trophy.

He twice won the short par four twelfth hole despite his opponents driving the green, for example, knowing that a good pitch on to the putting surface is often more likely to bring reward than a putt from its heavily contoured peripheries. In classic Old Course style, Wilson closed out three of his matches at the Road Hole, including his 3 and 1 defeat of highly rated Italian Francesco Molinari. This quarter final tie was considered to be the best of the championship, and Wilson's three under par performance in strong winds was crowned by his chip to a few feet for a birdie at the 17th.

Wilson went on to win the Silver Medal for best amateur finish at the Troon Open.

New records during the championship
Both the Old Course and the Jubilee Course have new record holders following the Amateur Championship. On the final day of qualifying Kevin McAlpine from Alyth shot a 62 on the Old to equal the score set by professional Brian Davis at 2003's Dunhill Links Championship. Teeing off at 2.13pm, Kevin had played only two shots before play was suspended due to rain. After the break, with the wind in abeyance, he birdied seven of the next eight holes to go out in 29.

He continued his amazing form by getting birdies at the 10th, 13th, 14th and 16th, to stand on the 17th tee at 11 under par. Unfortunately, he bogied the Road Hole before making par at the last to set his final total at 10 under.

'I'd never played a St Andrews course until this weekend,' he later said. 'It could have been even better because I had at least three putts inside ten feet for birdies that I missed. I lipped out on the 15th for birdie as well. I had no idea that this was the course record and it's a bit hard to take in.'

(Note: Ulsterman Graeme McDowell also shot a 62 during 2004's Dunhill.)

At same time over at the Jubilee, James Heath from Coombe Wood was setting another record. Winner of the 2004 Lytham Trophy with a record total of 18 under par, James was expected to perform well at St Andrews, but his 63 represented an astonishing return on what is generally thought to be the hardest course on the Links. He went out in 31 with birdies at 2, 3, 6, 7 and 9. An eagle at the 11th brought the record within reach, and two further birdies at 14 and 18 sealed James' unprecedented performance. His caddie was a trainee from St Andrews, Duncan Wise, who was a bag carrier on the Links as a teenager and rejoined as a caddie in 2004.

Although both McAlpine and Heath finished the stroke play stage of the championship tied on 135, James was awarded the silver tankard by virtue of better inward nines.

Amateur Championship History
Golf has always been a competitive game and club medals have been keenly contested since the nineteenth century. Many of the leading amateurs were members of several clubs and, aided by an excellent railway system, they competed against each other at such venues as St Andrews, Prestwick, Hoylake and Musselburgh.

An embryonic open amateur competition was held in the late 1850s (the first being won by Robert Chambers, the publisher, in 1858) but there seems to have been little enthusiasm for such an event and it died around the time of the first Open Championship (1860). The best amateurs began to enter the Open from 1861. By the 1870s, there was renewed interest in organising a tournament for amateurs only but nothing happened, probably because no one club took a strong enough lead. A proposal in 1877 to the membership of the R&A that it sponsor a sort of Amateur Championship (involving club members and others nominated by members) was defeated.

It fell to the Hoylake golfers to set in motion the championship we now know as The Amateur. In 1884 the Secretary of Royal Liverpool, Thomas Potter, proposed that an event-open to all amateurs-should be organised. This original intention was not carried out until 1886 and so the winner of 1885 (AF Macfie) triumphed over a strong but limited, field drawn from certain clubs. The clubs which were responsible for the running of the championship until the R&A took over in 1920, and who made contributions for the purchase of the trophy were: