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The 87th annual men’s golf championship teed off Friday and wraps up Sunday. It features a full field of 340 players, with 119 players in the championship flight. The other 221 players will be in seven net flights, with indexes ranging from 2.8 to 31.8.
“We’re fortunate to have last year’s champion Kyle An, who’s currently on the U C L A men’s golf team, and our former eight-time champion and renowned Southern California amateur, Tim Hogarth, in the field this year competing along with the other 117 in the Champ flight for this year’s trophy,” Doug Philbin, President of the Brookside Men’s Golf Club and Director of the Tournament’s organizing committee, told Pasadena Now.
The Tournament is an amateur event and is open to all male golfers with a USGA handicap index of 2.8 or lower. It is a World Amateur Golf Ranking-counting event and Southgern California Golf Association Player of the Year points Tournament.
The championship flight will play 54 holes, while the net flights will play 36 holes. The Tournament will have a shotgun start on Friday and Saturday, with the championship flight playing the back nine first. The net flights will play the front nine first on Saturday.
The Tournament is sponsored by the Brookside Men’s Golf Club and benefits the First Tee of Greater Pasadena. The First Tee is a non-profit organization that provides golf instruction and life skills education to children from low-income families.
Tournament leader An plays golf on the UCLA Bruins golf team. He won the 2022 Pasadena City Championship Golf Tournament after forcing a playoff with a birdie at 18 and then making par from the greenside, according to AmateurGolf.com.
The Tournament has a rich history, dating back to 1929. The first Tournament was won by Charles Whittingham, who would go on to win the U.S. Amateur in 1933. The Tournament has been won by some of the top amateur golfers in the world, including Tim Hogarth, who has won the Tournament eight times.
The Tournament saw a surge in popularity during its peak years from 1975 to 1990, with over 600 participants taking part. As a result, it became one of the largest city championships in the nation. However, the Tournament experienced a significant decline in participants, with less than 200 players in 2018, and was eventually canceled in 2019 due to a lack of interest, according to AmateurGolf.com.
In 2020, the Brookside Mens Golf Club joined forces with the Rose Bowl Operating Company, American Golf Corporation, First Tee Greater Pasadena, and AmateurGolf.com to reimage the Championship under new leadership. A large number of entrants this year shows the Tournament is back on the map.
“I would say the reimagined [Tournament] committee has been a key to our recent success. We’ve sold out every year since the formation of this reimagined committee, and each year we have an extensive wait list of others hoping to get in,” Philbin said.
The Brookside Men’s Golf Club organizes three City Championships, including a men’s championship in spring, a men’s senior championship in June, and a women’s championship in July.
The Tournament is a popular event for spectators and all tickets have sold out.
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