The first event of the EGA’s 2023 championship season is set to begin at Bogogno Golf Resort in Italy.
The 2023 European Mid-Amateur Championships, for men and women aged 25-and-over, will be contested over three rounds of stroke play from Thursday to Saturday.
A regular host of DP World Tour Q-School events, and host of the Vagliano Trophy matches in 2017, the par-72 Conte Course at Bogogno Golf Resort will provide the test for the 90 men and 54 women in the field this year.
The 2023 editions of the championships will be the 33rd for men but just the 5th for ladies, which was inaugurated in 2019.
The winners of the men’s and ladies’ titles are granted exemptions for the European Amateur and European Ladies’ Amateur Championships. However, new for this year, the winners will also receive invitations to the U.S. Mid-Amateur Men’s and Ladies’ Championships in September. Silver and bronze medals are also up for grabs for those finishing second and third.
Both the men’s and ladies’ reigning champions are amongst the participants this year. Joe Armstrong (FRA) and Ane Urchegui García (ESP) won the events at Golf du Médoc Resort in 2022 and will look to defend their titles this week.
Four other former male champions will also tee it up at Bogogno. Steven Rojas (SUI) the 2021 champion, Rodrigo Lacerda Soares (SUI) the 2020 champion, and Richard Heath (AUS) the 2019 and 2015 winner, will look to engrave their names to the men’s trophy an additional time.
27 different countries will be represented at this year’s event, with Germany having the most representatives (18 women and 17 men).
The last time the European Mid-Amateur Men’s Championship was played in Italy in 2004 was also the last time the tournament had an Italian winner. 13 home hopefuls, 10 men and three women, will have a chance to end Italy’s near 20-year drought in the event.
The EGA reduced the minimum age limit for the championships from 30 to 25 in 2021. This year, 30 players under-30 made it onto the starting list including the youngest player in the field, Louis Theys (BEL). The Belgian, who celebrated his 25th birthday less than two weeks ago, will have the chance to become the youngest winner in the event’s history this week.
Tee times, the leaderboard and results can be accessed throughout the week here: https://www.ega-golf.ch/livescoring#/competition/4038713/players