The Dalhousie Golf Clubs principal reasons for pride in its history are its role as a founder sponsor of The Amateur Championship. The Amateur Championship is one of the biggest and most prestigious amateur championships in the world.
The first Amateur was held at Hoylake in 1885 where 44 players from 12 clubs competed. Some of golf’s greatest names have triumphed, including Bobby Jones, Sergio Garcia and José María Olazábal.
Contested over stroke play and then match play, the winner secures exemptions into The Open and the US Open, and by tradition, an invitation to play in the Masters Tournament.
The original Championship course was of ten holes, which crossed and re-crossed the now famous Barry Burn, following an upgrade by Allan Robertson from the natural links around 1840. In 1872 the Dalhousie Committee invited the legendary Tom Morris of St Andrews to upgrade and improve the course to the then new standard of eighteen holes. It measured 4565 yards.
It was Dalhousie captain James Wright, who engineered the visit of the legendary James Braid in 1926 so that he might inspect the Championship course and recommend further improvements. The golfing world now knows that, between Braid and Wright, arguably the greatest links course in the world was created and seven Open Championships have amply testified to their brilliance. This attracted the attention of the Royal and Ancient to select Carnoustie for the 1931 Open Championship, the first of seven which the course has now hosted. Carnoustie's roll call of Open Champions reads like a "who's who" of world golf.
Jock Calder was a Dalhousie captain; he will be remembered most, however, for the determination and enormous energy he put into the recovery of Carnoustie golf links from obscurity in the 1980's. In particular, he was the driving force which saw Carnoustie regain Championship qualities, resulting in the return of The Open in 1999. Sadly, he died just two years before the event.