The US Amateur Championship Trophy

CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY

Like the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Amateur Championships, the U.S. Amateur has been contested since the USGA’s first championship season in 1895. The trophy was initially presented to the USGA on March 28, 1895, in honor of the association’s first president, Theodore A. Havemeyer.

The original Havemeyer, an ornate silver trophy produced by J.E. Caldwell and Company in Philadelphia, was presented to C.B. Macdonald at Newport (R.I.) Golf Club after his 1895 victory. The prize was passed to each successive Amateur champion until Nov. 22, 1925, when it was lost in a massive fire at the home club of Bob Jones, East Lake Country Club in Atlanta, Ga.

Rather than replicate the original, the USGA decided to produce an entirely new trophy with an extended base to accommodate additional engraving. The new Havemeyer Trophy, a tall steeple cup designed in solid gold, was formally presented in January 1926 by USGA Treasurer Edward S. Moore. It was retired in 1992 and stolen during a theft at the USGA Museum in spring 2012, and never recovered. A copy of the trophy, produced in 1992, is passed from champion to champion. In 1996, the USGA replicated the original silver Havemeyer Trophy using two existing photographs. Fittingly, a second replica was produced for display at East Lake.

The original U.S. Amateur Trophy is on display at the USGA Museum in Far Hills, N.J.