Founded in 1899, the Western Golf Association (WGA) is one of the United States’ oldest golf organizations. More than 460 member clubs, organizations, and affiliations are part of the WGA. Par Club members and 100,000 golfers participate in the Bag Tag Program in support of the Evans Scholars Foundation. One of the nation’s largest individually funded scholarship programs since its inception in 1930, The Evans Scholars awards full college tuition and housing to deserving golf caddies across the country. More than 11,300 caddies have graduated from college as Evans Scholars. To qualify for the Evans Scholarship, students must have outstanding academic and caddie records, good character and leadership skills, and financial need. The Scholarship is renewed on a yearly basis.
The WGA oversees and hosts professional and amateur events. Since 1899 it has conducted more than 300 tournaments. Its first tournament was the Western Open hosted by the association until 2006, when the name was changed to the BMW Championship for the 2007 tournament.
Every top amateur and professional golfer played in these tournaments. The archive allows the association and its members to follow the growth and careers of many now famous golfers as they were competing at the Junior Championship levels. Players such as Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, and Tiger Woods all started at the Western Junior and Western Amateur.
TDAG had the honor of hiring a recent Evans Scholars Northwestern University graduate to assist and eventually lead this massive digitization project.
