State Amateur Season · Opening Edition
The first championships.
Before the U.S. Open. Before the PGA Tour. Before there was a Tour at all — there were state amateur championships. The first was played in West Orange, New Jersey, in 1900. State am season opens this week, 126 years later.
1900. Essex County Country Club. Archibald Graham.
In the spring of 1900, five years after the first U.S. Open was contested, the New Jersey State Golf Association — the second-oldest state golf association in America, behind Connecticut — held the first state amateur championship in the country at the Essex County Country Club in West Orange. The winner was a North Jersey Country Club member named Archibald Graham. He took home a silver trophy and the title of the first state amateur champion in the United States.
Massachusetts followed in 1903 at Myopia Hunt Club. Pennsylvania came in 1909. California in 1912. The model spread fast and stuck: a single 36- or 54-hole tournament, open to the state's best amateurs, contested at one of the state's better clubs. By the 1920s every meaningful golfing state had one. They predated the Masters by three decades. The U.S. Amateur of 1894 was the only national championship that beat them to the tee.
What's been won and lost on those trophies for 126 years has shaped American amateur golf as much as any USGA event ever did.
Who's holding the trophy.
Roughly 100 state amateurs were contested in 2025 — men's and women's, all 50 states. Some of those names will be back to defend in 2026; others have already turned professional or moved on. The seven storylines below frame the season ahead — and the kind of golf state am winners actually play.
Storyline 01 · California Amateur
Jacob Goode wins at Granite Bay — then walks home for the U.S. Amateur.
The 114th California Amateur went to a University of Washington fifth-year senior who happens to be a member at The Olympic Club. Goode beat 16-year-old Evan Liu 8 and 6 at Granite Bay in June, then six weeks later teed it up at the U.S. Amateur on his own home golf course in San Francisco. The trophy he took home in June has Ken Venturi, Johnny Miller, and Xander Schauffele engraved on it. "I have had it circled on my calendar for five years," Goode said.
Storyline 02 · Pennsylvania Amateur
Rocco Salvitti shoots 17-under and joins a heavy trophy.
The Notre Dame sophomore from Canonsburg, Pa., opened with rounds of 63–66–70 at Huntsville Golf Club for a five-shot win at age 20. Pennsylvania has the heaviest state am trophy in the country: Jay Sigel won it eleven times. Art Wall Jr. and Buddy Marucci are on it too. Salvitti now joins the engraving.
Storyline 03 · Florida State Amateur
Reed Greyserman wins the 108th Florida Am in a playoff — Florida's oldest sporting event, still settled on the last hole.
First played in 1914 — older than the Daytona 500, older than the Florida State Fair, the oldest continuous sporting event in the state. In June at BallenIsles Country Club, the 108th edition went to a Princeton freshman from Boca Raton. Greyserman shot 74-75-64-68 to tie Melbourne's Arth Sinha at 7-under 281, then made par on the first playoff hole to win. His weekend 64-68 total of 12-under was the lowest two-round score in the field. He had won the 2024 New Jersey Amateur the year before.
Storyline 04 · Illinois Women's Amateur
Bridget Butler tore her ACL. Eleven months later, she won her state.
Butler tore her ACL during her senior year of high school, redshirted her freshman year at Nebraska, then came back at 11 months and won the Illinois Women's Amateur. The longest road of any 2025 state champion — and the kind of comeback that travels into a college season the way nothing else does.
%20(5).png)
Storyline 05 · California Women's Amateur
Katelyn Kong joins Inkster and Sheehan on the trophy.
The 59th California Women's Amateur went to a 24-seed who only trailed for two holes across her entire match-play run. UC Irvine sophomore Katelyn Kong beat Darae Chung — an Oregon junior and the 2-seed — 4 and 3 in the final at Santa Ana Country Club, closing it out with a birdie on the par-5 15th. The names already on her trophy: Juli Inkster, Patty Sheehan. Kong earned an automatic exemption into the U.S. Women's Amateur at Bandon Dunes.
Storyline 06 · Southeastern Amateur
Luke Coyle beats Carson Baez in a playoff on Donald Ross.
Not technically a state am, but the regional flagship of the Southeast — and the kind of event state am winners use as a measuring stick. Coyle outlasted Carson Baez in a playoff at the Country Club of Columbus, the 1915 Donald Ross design that's quietly become one of the South's best championship venues.
Storyline 07 · National Backdrop
Mason Howell, at 18, is the youngest U.S. Amateur champion since 2009.
Eighteen years, one month, three weeks old. The third-youngest U.S. Amateur winner in history (behind Byeong Hun An and Danny Lee), and younger than Tiger Woods was when he won his first. Howell, from Thomasville, Ga. and a Brookwood High senior, went from the No. 63 seed at The Olympic Club to a 7&6 win over Jackson Herrington in the youngest championship final ever played. Sets the bar every state am winner is now chasing.
The Records Page
Eleven.
That's how many Pennsylvania Amateurs Jay Sigel won between 1962 and 1981. Five of them in a row, 1972 through '76. He also took two U.S. Amateurs (1982–83), the British Amateur in '79, played nine Walker Cups, and captained the U.S. team twice. The Berwyn, Pa. insurance executive who never turned professional was, for forty years, the standard for what an American mid-amateur could be. Sigel died in April 2025 at 81. His name is on more state ams than anyone in history.
Mid-Am Watch
The 25-and-over class is doing fine, thank you.
The state am bracket is increasingly junior-dominated — but the mid-am class has held its ground in 2025 better than the headlines suggest. Kelsey Chugg won the AGA Women's Amateur (Mid-Am division). Brandon Holtz took the U.S. Mid-Amateur at Troon. Evan Beck made the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball final and chases more in 2026. The state am paths into the U.S. Mid-Am at Sand Valley's new Lido course in September are open all summer.
Six of the past ten U.S. Amateur Four-Ball men's titles have gone to mid-am or college-aged sides. The teenagers are winning. They aren't running away with anything.
On Deck · 2026
What's already on the calendar.
State am season ramps up over the next eight weeks — most of the marquee championships fall between late May and the end of July, with a second wave of women's state ams running through August.
Late May – Early June
Florida Open Amateur · Texas Amateur · Georgia Amateur · North Carolina Amateur — the southern flight kicks off the calendar.
June
California Amateur (115th edition) · New Jersey State Amateur (126th edition) · Massachusetts Amateur (123rd) · Pennsylvania Amateur (117th).
July – August
Northeast and Midwest state ams cluster mid-summer. Women's state am season runs through August into early September.
Full 2026 state am calendar at AmateurGolf.com →
126 years of state amateurs. A 2025 class that left a few records to chase, and a 2026 season that starts in earnest this month. AmateurGolf.com will cover every trophy worth covering.
