The U.S. Amateur is heading back to Riviera Country Club in 2017. The announcement was made Monday by the U.S. Golf Association and this will mark the third time a USGA championship will be held at the famed layout. Bel-Air Country Club will serve as the companion course for the stroke-play rounds.
“The USGA is excited to bring the U.S. Amateur Championship to Riviera Country Club, returning our oldest championship to Southern California for the first time since 1976,” said USGA vice president and championship committee chairman Thomas J. O’Toole Jr. “Riviera has a rich and varied championship history and will become one of a select group of courses to host the U.S. Open, U.S. Senior Open and U.S. Amateur. Riviera has known great USGA champions in Ben Hogan and Hale Irwin, and we are confident the club will stage a successful national amateur championship.”
Ben Hogan defeated Jimmy Demaret by two strokes to win the 1948 U.S. Open at Riviera, the first of his record-tying four Open titles. In 1998, three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin sank a 12-foot birdie putt on Riviera’s 18th hole to edge Vicente Fernandez by one stroke and capture the first of his two U.S. Senior Open titles.
Riviera also hosted the 1983 and 1995 PGA Championships and has been the site of the PGA Tour event in Los Angeles 50 times in its 86-year history, including 37 of the past 39 years. Riviera will host the NCAA Division I Championship next week.
This year the U.S. Amateur will be at Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colo., from Aug. 13-19. The 2013 championship will be at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., and the 2014 championship will be Atlanta Athletic Club. In 2015, the U.S. Amateur will be at Olympic Fields (Ill.) Country Club and the 2016 championship will be at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.