- December 26, 2025
Golfers competing in the 2025 Sally tournament at Oceanside Country Club. Courtesy photo
Brooke Henderson won the Sally in 2014. Henderson has gone on to win 14 LPGA tournaments, including two major championships. Courtesy photo
Pat Meyers won the Sally in 1976. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Sally Chairman Chuck Grant. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Lexi Thompson was 13 when she won the Sally in 2009. Courtesy photo
Gianna Clemente was not old enough to drive when she won the Sally in 2023. Courtesy photo
Jessica Korda won the Sally in 2010. Courtesy photo
Kary Hollenbaugh won the Sally for the second straight year in 2025. Courtesy photo
The South Atlantic Amateur Championship — the Sally — is turning 100.
The women’s amateur golf tournament at Ormond Beach’s Oceanside Country Club began its century run in 1926. The Oceanside Country Club was already 19 years old by then.
If you want to get technical, there has not yet been 100 Sally tournaments. Because of World War II, they didn’t hold a tournament in 1943-46. So, the upcoming tournament may be the 97th Sally, but it has survived 100 years, and it’s considered the oldest amateur golf tournament anywhere in the world that is hosted at the same location.
“That’s male or female,” notes tournament chairman Chuck Grant. “A lot of people keep saying it’s the oldest female tournament, but it’s both genders.”
The Sally will celebrate its 100th anniversary Jan. 5-10, 2026. The Member-Sally tournament will be Jan. 6 with the Sally scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 7, to Saturday, Jan. 10.
Of course, a lot has changed in 100 years. As the tournament has gotten older, the field has gotten younger.
Lexi Thompson, who has 11 career LPGA tournament victories including one major, won the Sally in 2009 when she was just 13 years old. Gianna Clemente won in 2023 when she was 14 and the top-ranked junior player in the nation. Now 17, Clemente announced on Nov. 5 that she is turning pro.
Daytona Beach News-Journal columnist Ken Willis has been covering the Sally since 1986. Back then, he said, it was kind of a mixed bag.
“You had some college players, but you had these lifetime amateurs like Lancy Smith and Carol Semple Thompson and Leslie Shannon and that group that were more or less winning,” Willis said. “In the 21st century, you've been seeing a lot of college players and a bunch of high school-age players and even younger. I mean, they've had some hot shots come in there that were 12 or 13 years old.”
Players from all over the world come to play the Sally. It used to be part of the Orange Blossom Circuit that included two other Florida tournaments. It was natural for college players to come down on their winter break and play the circuit to prepare for their spring season.
In recent years, three to five players from a college program will enter the Sally together, Willis said.
“There have been several schools you would see, like the University of Florida might have three or four girls here, or FSU, or Wake Forest,” he said.
Ohio State golfer Kary Hollenbaugh won the past two years.
Future LPGA stars Christie Kerr, Grace Park, Brooke Henderson, Lexi Thompson and Jessica Korda have won the Sally. Jessica’s younger sister, Nelly Korda, and the winningest LPGA golfer of all time, Kathy Whitworth, played in the Sally.
World Golf Hall of Famers Patty Berg (1938 and 1939) and Babe Zaharias (1947) won the Sally and each turned pro the following year. But they were both big names in golf before they took on the unpredictable winds on the Oceanside course.
There have been 31 Sally champs who have turned pro. Then there were the lifetime amateurs who came down from up north year after year. Lancy Smith won the Sally six times from 1970 to 1989. Tish Preuss won four out of five years from 1965 to 1969.
“In the ’90s, when they started cutting it off at a certain level of play, a lot of the women who came to play in the Sally every year now couldn't get into it because they weren't good enough golfers,” Willis said. “I remember some of them were irritated because they came and they treated it as a social week. And the people running the golf tournament wanted to keep increasing the level of competition.”
Grant, the tournament chairman, now reserves 12 spots for Sally veterans, an exemption they’ll keep until they stop playing golf, he said. And once they retire, those spots are given to locals kids.
“A club member may know a good young golfer who we’ll invite,” he said.
They rest of the 96-player field comes from the junior golf and college rankings.
“We’re focused on making it the best tournament it can be,” Grant said.
Pat Meyers, an Ormond Beach resident, won the tournament in 1976 at the age of 21. She spoke at the Ormond Beach Chamber of Commerce After Hours event, celebrating 100 years of the Sally, hosted by Halifax Health on Dec. 10.
“The first year I played was probably 1973. I was young, in high school,” Meyers said. “That was a big deal to be able to get into the Sally if you were a golfer. You would read it about it in the paper. It was always on my calendar that one year I was going to play in the Sally, and I ended up playing in it for three or four years. When I finally won it, it has marked my career.”
She turned pro the year after she won and played on the LPGA Tour for 12 years.
Another goal, she said, would have been to remain an amateur and try to get on the U.S. Curtis Cup team. She said because there were Curtis Cup players in the Sally, she knew she could compete at the highest level.
Meyers was asked why the Sally has had such staying power.
“Number 1, it’s a class tournament,” she said. “And number two, you have the support of the people who run it, who put all the work in behind the scenes. You certainly have the recognition nationwide. And the town's always been so receiving. Back in the day, businesses would have Sally specials, some little thing that just shows the contestants that the people here really care, and that does bring a player back whether they play well or not.”
