Past RDGA Senior Champions

The RDGA Wilson Fitch Senior Championship

Winning his second RDGA Men’s Senior Championship title in 2024 was Stuart Harris of Oak Hill Country Club – seen here accepting the trophy from RDGA President David Uhazie.

The Rochester District Golf Association Senior Championship is one of the longest-running annual championships on the RDGA calendar. Entries are open to all amateur male golfers age 55 and over (as of the beginning of each year’s competition) and are members in good standing at an RDGA club. All contestants must have a RDGA/USGA® Handicap Index® supplied by the RDGA.

Tracing its origins back to 1938, the first “Senior Championship for Players 40 Years and Over” was hosted by Ridgemont Country Club. Three years later, the event was re-named the “Clint Patchen Memorial Senior Championship,” honoring the long-time Durand Eastman Golf Club delegate and RDGA Board Member who had passed away in 1941. During these years, the RDGA Senior Championship was conducted as an 18-hole, flighted, medal play competition in four age groups: Class A (70 and over), Class B (60-69), Class C (50-59) and Class D (40-49). The overall champion was determined as the player with the low score from among the four age flights.

By the mid-1970s, the format for the present day RDGA Senior Championship was streamlined as a medal-play competition that was run concurrently with a small field during the RDGA District Championship – determining only one annual winner of the RDGA Senior Championship title. Later, as the number of entries into the RDGA Senior Championship continued to grow, the competition evolved into a stand-alone, three-day, 54-hole, medal play format, with the age requirements changed to players ages 55 and over.

In 1997, a Super Senior Division was added to the RDGA Senior Championship for competitors over the age of 65. In 2008, the format was expanded to include three age-based flights; Senior, Super Senior and Super-Super Senior – and in 2011 the format was expanded again to include four age-based divisions (as it continues to this day): Senior (ages 55-59), Super Senior (ages 60-64), Masters (ages 65-69) and Legends (ages 70 and over). Beginning in 2015, the RDGA Senior Championship was changed once more – shortening the competition from a three-day, 54-hole format to a two-day, 36-hole format.

Starting in 2008, the overall RDGA Senior Champion was determined as the competitor with the lowest score from among the Senior and Super Senior Divisions (which both played from the same tees). Additionally, winners of the Senior and Super Senior divisions earned an exemption into the following year’s RDGA District Championship John H. Ryan Memorial.

Beginning in 2020, two additional changes were made to the RDGA Senior Championship. Now called the RDGA Wilson Fitch Senior Championship – honoring long-time RDGA Rules official and Board Member Wilson Fitch – the 36-hole, scratch stroke play competition still takes place over two days but with a slight format change. Now, the overall Championship is determined to be the low 36-hole scorer from among the Senior (ages 60-64), Super Senior (ages 55-59) and Masters (ages 65-69) divisions, which all play from the SAME TEES, while the Legends division plays from a shorter set of tees.

In 2024, Stu Harris of Oak Hill Country Club – playing in the Super Senior flight – won his second overall RDGA Senior Championship title at Penfield Country Club by posting the low 36-hole score between the Senior (55-59), Super Senior (60-64) divisions) and Masters divisions (ages 65-69). Harris outlasted Senior Flight winner and 3-time RDGA Senior Champion Jim Scorse by two shots to become the 2024 RDGA Wilson Fitch Senior Champion.

With the victory, Harris was able to answer the final round battle that he lost with Scorse a year earlier, in the 2023 Senior Championship at Canandaigua – although there, the two competitors were not paired together in the final round. Harris also becomes the fourth player to win multiple RDGA Senior Championship titles since the format last expanded in 2011.