CHAMPIONSHIPS
Championship Facts
Who Can Play? The championship is open to any amateur golfer in Connecticut who will have
reached their 25th birthday by September 25th, 2017, and who has a USGA Handicap Index not
exceeding 6.4.
A National History: In 1981, the USGA inaugurated its first new championship for amateurs in four
years, the U.S. Mid-Amateur. The Mid-Amateur, for amateur golfers of at least 25 years of age, was
instituted as a formal national championship for the post-college amateur. Before the arrival of the
Mid-Amateur, the post-college player could compete in the Amateur Championship, sometimes
successfully, but these older amateurs faced greater odds. While they fit their golf around their
work and families, they were most often competing against college golfers, for whom the game
is close to a full-time activity.
Seven years after the birth of the U.S. Mid-Amateur, the CSGA instituted its first new championship
in six years with the inaugural playing of the Connecticut Mid-Amateur Championship in 1988.
About the Course: Named after a historically important section of Old Lyme, Black Hall Club was
incorporated in March of 1965. The founders were steadfast to create a new golf club in Old Lyme
that would be devoted exclusively to the ownership, operation and maintenance of a superior
golf course of championship caliber. To that end in 1962, Robert Trent Jones was retained to
design and supervise the construction of the course. Jones is one of the most famous golf course
architects in history, having designed over 500 courses in his career. The present clubhouse was
built in 1980 and the championship layout has quietly become one of the highest regarded
layouts in the state of Connecticut.
36 | CSGA Links // September, 2017
www.csgalinks.org