The WPGA Open Championship is one of the two oldest WPGA championships, along with the WPGA Amateur Championship.

First contested in 1899, it has been played each year with the exceptions of during World War I (1917-18) and World War II (1943-45), making it one of the country’s oldest golf championships.

Previous champions include some of the top names in both amateur and professional golf in the region.

Past winners include Fred Brand, Sr., Eben Byers, William C. Fownes, Jock Hutchinson, Ed Furgol, Ted Luther, Sam Parks, Jim Masserio, Lew Worsham, Arnold Palmer, Kevin Shields, Nathan Smith, Steve Wheatcroft, Roy Vucinich, Mark Goetz and Neal Shipley.

Winners of the WPGA Open Championship have gone on to claim six major championships and numerous USGA national championships.

Roy Vucinich's victory in 2005 was a significant accomplishment that tied him with Jock Hutchison and Perry DelVecchio for most career victories in the event with his fifth. Vucinich won the West Penn Open in four separate decades and is the last player to win the championship in consecutive years (1977-1978).

The only WPGA competition that includes professional players, the WPGA Open has seen amateurs win the championship several times, most recently by Neal Shipley in 2022. Shipley, two years later, finished with Low Amateur honors at The Masters and at the U.S. Open.

Only four players have won the Open and Amateur in the same year: Eben Byers (1902), William C. Fownes (1904), Jim Masserio (1971) and Nathan Smith (2008).

The first ‘West Penn Open,’ as it has become known colloquially, was contested in 1899 at Pittsburgh Golf Club, and won by George H. Cann. John Moorhead, Jr., the founder of the WPGA and the Association’s first president, finished second that year.

The championship is 54 holes of stroke play over three days. Qualifying rounds are used to narrow the starting field for the championship.

The winner of the WPGA Open Championship receives the Harry C. Milholland Vase.