The Vagliano Trophy began in 1931 as an annual competition between two teams of female amateur golfers selected to represent Great Britain & Ireland and France. Each contest consisted of three foursomes matches and six singles matches, played on a single day, with teams competing for a trophy presented by André Vagliano from the French Golf Federation.

Sixteen editions of the tournament took place up until 1957 and they were pretty one-sided affairs, with GB&I winning fifteen and drawing one of the matches. Great Britain & Ireland also played a series of matches against Belgium from 1949 to 1957 but the French and Belgian contests were amalgamated into a single 2-day biennial event versus the Continent of Europe in 1959.

There were five 36-hole foursomes played on the first day and ten 36-hole singles on the second – for a total of fifteen points – in 1959 and 1961. Ties were then reduced to 18-hole matches and between 1963 and 1973, the competition consisted of five foursomes and ten singles matches each day, giving a total of 30 points to play for.

Since 1975, the championship now comprises four foursomes and eight singles on each day, with 24 points up for grabs.

The GB&I v Europe chapter of the tournament started at the Wentworth Club in Surrey in 1959, with the home side winning 12-3 against their continental opponents. The GB&I ladies also won the next two contests and that set in train a streaky winning run phenomenon which has endured for almost sixty years.

Europe won three in a row from 1965 at Koln in Germany to Chantilly in France in 1969 but GB&I then responded with runs of four consecutive victories then six victories in a row between 1971 and 1993. Not to be outdone, Team Europe then replied with four straight wins (1995-2001) then seven on the spin (2017-2019).

So, in the “European era” of The Vagliano Trophy up until 2019, the spoils are evenly divided 15-15, with one match tied at Royal Porthcawl in 1979.

Four French clubs have hosted the event on a total of twelve occasions. Morfontaine has held five of these tournaments and Chantilly four. Several clubs have provided their facilities on a couple of different occasions to the R&A and European Golf Association who jointly administer the championship, including Hamburger Falkenstein (1985, 2009), Royal Porthcawl (1979, 2011) and Venezia (1989, 2001).