Three Tennesseans set to compete in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at The Honors Course

OOLTEWAH, Tenn. — The U.S Women’s Amateur will return to Tennessee for the fourth time in 131 years next month, with the championship set to take place at The Honors Course in Ooltewah from August 4-9. The last iteration of the competition to be hosted in the state was in 2018 at The Golf Club of Tennessee in Kingston Springs. Memphis Country Club has hosted the tournament twice prior to that in 1937 and 1979.

The Honors Course has hosted six USGA championships before 2026 — most recently, the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship in 2024, won by Louis Brown of Marietta, Georgia. Designed by Pete Dye and opened in 1983, the course is consistently ranked as the best in the state and is currently 29th in Golf Digest’s America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses and tied for 23rd on the Top Modern Course List by Golfweek. 

The Honors Course was designed with the amateur golfer in mind, created to honor the growth of the game of golf (hence its name) — it continues that legacy by hosting amateur, international and collegiate events. The brainchild of Jack Lupton, the Ooltewah course was curated for members with only the fiercest passion for the game, nestled within the Appalachian Mountains near Chattanooga. P.J. Boatwright, the former head of competitions at the USGA, was enamoured by the beauty of The Honors Course, telling Lupton that “You can host any tournament that the USGA sponsors on this golf course.” Lupton took that to heart, and the course evidently continues to showcase the best of the best at USGA events.

Lupton also made sure that The Honors Course was a place where women and minorities would be welcomed as golfers — a practice that was uncommon in Tennessee at the time. The wives of Dye and Lupton, both named Alice, were instrumental in building the course and making sure women were welcome. Alice Lupton’s sister-in-law, Betty Probasco, won nine Tennessee state titles, including eight Tennessee Women’s Amateur titles over the span of 32 years; these three trailblazers made sure that women had the freedom to play just as often as men on The Honors Course.

At this year’s showing, the course itself — known for its speedy greens and Zoysia grass fairways — will play as a 6,539-yard par-72. The Dye-designed course was renovated in 2020 following a tornado by Gil Hanse. He stayed true to the original plans and was struck by the soul of The Honors Course.

“There’s this aura about it when you come onto property, where you know you’re someplace special,” Hanse said in an article in The Golfer’s Journal. “It represents an architect at the height of his creative powers on one of the best pieces of property ever, an owner who decided this is going to be a special place dedicated to the game we love, and it was a confluence of really amazing intentions that were fulfilled. I think you could argue this was Pete [Dye’s] masterpiece.”

Three Tennesseans are set to compete in the tournament: Hanley Long, Molly Hardwick and Rachel Heck. All three are decorated golfers within the state, and each is chasing their first U.S. Women’s Amateur win. 

Molly Hardwick (Franklin): Molly Hardwick enters the U.S. Women’s Amateur field after earning an exemption with her victory at the Tennessee Women’s Amateur Championship earlier this month. With that win, the 22-year-old climbed up to third in the Tennessee Women’s Player of the Year rankings. As a senior last year at the College of Charleston, she garnered five top-10 finishes over the course of the season, earning the distinction of CAA Golfer of the Year. In her last U.S. Women’s Amateur appearance in 2024, the Franklin native finished tied for 20th in stroke play and advanced to the Round of 64.

Hanley Long (Clarksville): Hanley Long has had a successful 2026 season with the TGA so far, notching a top-20 (T11) finish in the Tennessee Women’s Amateur Championship and advancing to the semifinals of the Tennessee Women’s Match Play Championship. The 2019 Tennessee Women’s Amateur champion currently sits at 8th in the Tennessee Women’s Player of the Year rankings, and earned her exemption into the competition at The Honors Course with a runner-up finish at the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur in October of last year. 

Rachel Heck (Memphis): Rachel Heck enters the 2026 U.S. Women’s Amateur as a seasoned veteran of the event, earning her spot as a playing member of the 2022 USA Women’s World Amateur Team. The Memphis native earned semifinalist honors in 2021 and 2023, and was the stroke play medalist of the event in 2020. Heck has also achieved a three-peat in the Tennessee Women’s Player of the Year rankings, finishing at the top spot in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The former Stanford Cardinal was an NCAA team champion with the team in 2022 and 2024, and became the third-ever woman to sweep the postseason in NCAA history with wins at the conference, regional and national levels in 2021. Along with being the very first Nike Golf NIL athlete, Heck also serves in the U.S. Air Force reserves as a Second Lieutenant. 

It is completely free to attend the U.S. Women’s Amateur and The Honors Course is encouraging people to come spend time at the place they call home. A chance to see some of the best female golfers in the world, including rising stars that will headline the LPGA for years to come. Jack Lupton envisioned a place where all are welcome to honor the game he loved, and this is the perfect time to see that vision in full.

The competition runs from August 4 to 9, with two rounds of stroke play taking place on the 4th and 5th. From there, the top 64 players will compete in a match-play bracket until the 36-hole Championship match on Sunday.

Additionally, the Golf Channel will be broadcasting parts of the match-play portion of the tournament.

More information for fans can be found here, including information on parking and the TV Broadcast Schedule.