The Senior Azalea Invitation was first held in the Spring of 1988.  It was as the direct spin-off of the Azalea Invitational dating back to 1946.  The Azalea field during the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s grew to an unmanageable number of players to its popularity.  As the field was gradually cut from 200 to 100 players, many of the good old boys that had been coming here for years, enjoying a Charleston vacation plus the fun tournament, were crying for the old days and some sort of venue to get back to Old Wappoo as it was called.  In response to the pleas and demand, Alan Rubin and Tim Ireland began a Senior version of the Azalea.

Alan and Tim ran The Senior Azalea for eleven years and through their efforts, a newly renovated golf course, and the ever growing popularity of Charleston as a vacation destination, they developed a very good field and nationally recognized senior amateur event!  Golf Week in 2002 initiated its senior rankings for the country and placed the Senior Azalea high on the list of point distribution thus validating the strength of its fields and the quality of the tournament.

The Charleston Country Club can trace its roots back to golf in Charleston as far back as 1786.  The formal club was organized in 1901 and moved to its current location in 1924.   In that year the club engaged Seth Raynor to design and build the golf course.  He completed his work and the course was open for play in 1925.  Mr. Raynor, a trained landscape engineer, was the town surveyor for Southampton, N.Y. when he was hired by noted golf course architect, Charles Blair McDonald.  They later formed a very influential design team with a penchant for incorporating the best of original British golf holes in their architecture.  After designing a number of courses with McDonald, Raynor began to design and build courses on his own.  Continuing the British influence and his considerable skill for routing and building firm playable courses, Raynor had established a reputation by 1925 as one of this country’s signature architects.  His signature hole at the Country Club of Charleston being hole #11 (a version of North Berwick’s fifteenth hole better known as the famous Redan hole).  Eleven of Raynor’s courses are ranked in the top one hundred of American’s traditional golf courses.  Included in this group are Fishers island, Long Island, N.Y.; The Carmargo Club, Indian Hills, Ohio; The Yale Club, New Haven, Conn.; and Charleston’s own Yeaman’s Hall Club.  The Country Club of Charleston is very proud of the fact that its course has received the 15^th ranked course in the state.

The Senior Azalea owes a debt of gratitude to Tim and Alan for years of hard work.  We are also fortunate to have two top professionals tending to its members, golf course and the Azalea tournament.  Paul Corder, Golf Course Superintendent, is highly recognized in his field and Hart Brown, Director of Golf is the epitome of a PGA Professional.  The professionalism of the two men and their staffs has played an integral part in establishing a tournament atmosphere that has helped the Senior Azalea to become one of the most popular amateur tournaments in the country.