The Mid-Ohio Golf Association (MOGA) was formed in 1965 and sponsored the first Mid-Ohio Invitational that year at the Coshocton Town and Country Club. In place of merchandise, the association established a tradition of awarding trays to the champion, runner-up and other top ten finishers that were emblematic of their achievement. The Floyd F. Redman Memorial Trophy, named for the recently deceased father of a founder, would carry the names of all winners and be displayed at the championship each year.

The first four tournaments were 72 holes, the first two of which were won by Miami University golfer Dick Baker. He eventually would win a record five times, all in the early years of the tournament. The 1967 event was won by recent high school graduate John Mellett, who entered Miami U. the following year and two years later played on the Redskin team that took 13th in the NCAA Championship.

The original format proved unwieldy and the tournament was shortened to 36 holes in 1968. Because the event was not officially sanctioned by the club, substantial growth proved difficult. To achieve its goal of becoming an important amateur event, the tournament was moved in 1970 to the Hilltop Country Club, a public course nearby, and the field more than doubled. Former Ohio State University golfer Ted Beattie won the event that year by two strokes over Ohio high school champion Kim Miller. The success of the tournament in 1970 resulted in an invitation by the Town and Country Club to return the next year, this time as an officially sanctioned event.

The 1971 tournament proved to be one of the most exciting in all 45 years and generated the enthusiasm to achieve the level of play that exists today. Local high school prodigy Mark McConnell won by birdieing the third play-off hole after he and Mid-American Conference champion Chris Roderick from Miami U. tied at 138. McConnell later starred at Bowling Green State University and after graduation turned professional. Roderick also turned professional and eventually would serve as host head professional to the U.S. Open when it was held at the Olympic Club in San Francisco in 1987.

After four years at the nine-hole Coshocton Town & Country Club, the tournament was moved in 1975 to the Hickory Flat Greens Golf Course, a 6,600-yard, par-72 public course near West Lafayette, OH. It has been played there since.

Three more golfers who would eventually turn professional were winners during the 1970s---Chris Freeman in 1975, Don Beattie in 1977 and Mike Thomas in 1978. Beattie, a Floridian and Georgia Southern College golfer, won with a nine-under-par 135 to establish a tournament record. Former Otterbein College player Jim Stoffer became the event's second multiple winner when he took the 1973 and 1976 titles. He is the only player to win the event on more than one course.

For the first 14 years the oldest player to win the tournament was former Ohio University golfer Jim Nordstrom, who became champion in 1974 at the age of 30. But domination by the younger golfers took a hiatus in 1979 when Michigander Jim Briegel won his first of two consecutive championships. At age 53, Briegel's second victory in 1980 made him the oldest champion to date.

In the early 1980s, the dominant player in the Mid-Ohio Invitational was local golfer John Tignor. He won by four shots in 1981, returned on leave from the armed forces two years later to win in a sudden-death play-off over Tim Cooksey and Don Darr in 1983, and was one of three co-champions in a rain-shortened tournament in 1994. Between Tignor's first two wins was a victory by Indiana University golfer Mike Ingram, who won the Big Ten Championship the following spring.

Twice in the 1980s---Matt Chalcraft in 1985 and Tom Young in 1986---the tournament was won by reinstated amateurs. And twice in that decade it was won by future professionals---Kelly Maxwell in 1984 and Craig McConnell in 1987.

By the end of the 1980s, the tournament had begun to attract some of the top career amateurs that had been dominating the state's amateur golf scene for years. The first of those to play was Chuck Smith, winner of more than 200 golf tournaments nationwide and soon to be ranked by Golf Digest magazine as the nations's top senior amateur. Smith began playing in 1988 and won the championship the next year. He won again in 1993 at the age of 57, making him the oldest Mid-Ohio Invitational champion. Next to play was Raymond Sovik, a former Ohio State University All-American who had become prominent in Ohio amateur golf after a brief period as a professional. Sovik began playing in 1990 and has been a factor in the title chase on numerous occasions. He won the championship in 1996 and was runner-up in 2006. A third of the prominent career amateurs to play was Randy Reifers, the only golfer to win the Ohio Amateur, Ohio Mid-Amateur and Ohio Senior championships. Reifers never won the Mid-Ohio title, but was runner-up in 1996 and 1997, both times a loser in sudden-death play-offs.

It was the second of Reifers' play-off losses that sounded the beginning of the Mid-Ohio Invitational's current era of collegiate domination. The victor that year was Matt Smith, a player at Otterbein College, a major national NCAA Division III powerhouse at the time. Only once since Smith's win in 1997 has a Mid-Ohio Invitational been won by a player not on a college golf roster. That was in 1999 when the winner was Brad Baker, a high school golf coach from nearby Warsaw, OH.

During that time, collegians have virtually rewritten the tournament record book. Don Beattie's 15-year-old 36-hole scoring record of 135 was tied in 1992 by Kent State golfer Kevin Kraft and was lowered to 134 by Kent State's Steve Lohmeyer in 2002. It was lowered again by Ohio Amateur and Big Ten Champion Chris Wilson of Northwestern who shot 133 in 2005. In 2007, Ohio State's Zach Sebert shattered Wilson's record by five strokes to set the current record of 128, 16 strokes under par.

The eighteen and nine-hole records have also fallen to collegians in recent years. An eighteen-hole record of 64, set by Roger Redman 36 years earlier, was eclipsed by a stroke by Duke University's David French enroute to a runner-up finish in 2002. French's record lasted five years until Sebert shot 62 in the second round in 2007. The tournament's nine-hole record was broken by Youngstown State's Ryan Harmon, when he shot the tournament's first 29 on the opening nine of his victory in 2001. That record was tied by Sebert's final nine in 2007.

Players who have competed in the Mid-Ohio Invitational have experienced success in many other tournaments. The Ohio Amateur, Ohio Mid-Amateur, Ohio Junior, Ohio Senior, Ohio Publinx, Ohio Open and all three levels of the Ohio High School championships are among the titles owned by MOGA players. There have been many accomplishments in collegiate tournaments by MOGA players. Among them are five Mid-American Conference and two Big Ten Conference championships and a runner-up finish in the NCAA Championship. At the national level, major amateur tournaments won by MOGA players are the Northeast Amateur and Eastern Amateur.

Four MOGA players have made it to the PGA Tour. Raymond Sovik played the tour in 1977 and was reinstated to amateur status before playing the Mid-Ohio Invitational. Karl Kimball, who tied for eleventh in the tournament in 1976, competed on the tour in three separate seasons. His best year was 1991 when he made nine 36-hole cuts. In 2007, Kyle Reifers, who tied for third in the Mid-Ohio Invitational in 2002, played the PGA Tour and now is playing the Nationwide Tour. This year, 2005 Champion Chris Wilson is in his first year on the Tour.

The Mid-Ohio Golf Association is governed by a four-member board of directors, including three of its founders. Founder members of the board are Richard J. Baker of Westerville, OH; John R. Mellett of Frisco, TX and Roger S. Redman of Lumberton, NC. Tim S. Cooksey of Coshocton, OH became a member of the board in 2001. H. Frank Ackerman of Newcomerstown, OH joined the board in 2009.

The 46^th annual Mid-Ohio Invitational is set for June 26-27 at Hickory Flat Greens.