Ryan Gay has an opportunity this week to join some very select company.

But another golfer with the same opportunity has an equal chance, and one of the veterans Gay is attempting to join is also likely to have plenty to say as he and 131 other amateur golfers from across Maine gather Tuesday for the first round of the 92nd Maine Amateur Championship at Portland Country Club in Falmouth.

Gay, the defending champion and a student-athlete at the University of New Mexico, is a two-time champion of the event, winning at Biddeford-Saco in 2008 and at Kebo Valley in Bar Harbor in 2010. He is among 10 golfers who have won Maine’s ultimate amateur prize twice. But only seven players have ever done it more than that.

Mark Plummer, one of the most recognizable golfers in Maine and the region — and still among the best — is the all-time leader with 13 titles, his most recent coming in 2002 at Falmouth Country Club to cap a run of three in a row.

Plummer will also be in the field this week, and will tee off in a group with another veteran and two-time champion, Ron Brown, who will be playing in the amateur on his home course.

Paired with Gay in the first group of the tourney is another well-known Maine amateur and one of last year’s runners-up, Ricky Jones. Jones won the event back-to-back in 2003 and 2004 and has been in contention every year since, including runner-up finishes in 2005 and 2010.

Last year’s other runner-up, Jason Gall, is in the second wave of players to begin play on the first day, and will have the early time in the event’s second round Wednesday. After two days, the field will be whittled down to the top 40 plus ties for Thursday’s final round. Those making the final round are exempt from qualifying for next year’s tournament.

Brian Bilodeau, one of four Martindale golfers in this year’s field, had the best finish at Kebo Valley in 2010 of any area golfer, placing 11th with a three-round total of 222, 10 shots behind Gay. Bilodeau will tee off Tuesday in the second group. Other golfers who call Martindale home in the tourney include Andrew Stonehouse, Joe Manganaro and Matthew Gallagher. Fox Ridge of Auburn leads the local contingent of courses with five entries: Perry Goodspeed, Andrew Slattery, Bob Langlois, Dave Kroll and Matt Simard. Three golfers from Poland Spring, which hosted a qualifier, are also playing this year, including Larry Ross, Matk Laliberte and Kyle Anderson.

The course selected for this year’s championship, Portland Country Club, is one of the older and more classically-designed courses in Maine. The course as it is played today was originally designed by Donald Ross in 1921, and tips out at 6,440 yards. And while the design may lack extreme length seen at many of the state’s newer courses, Ross designs are typically penal to those who are less than precise.

Crucial holes on the course this week will likely include the 600-yard par-5 sixth, the tricky 185-yard, par-3 seventh, the 430-yard, par-4 11th and the lengthy 465-yard, par-4 finishing hole.

The lead groups are scheduled to begin play Tuesday at 7 a.m., with the final time set at 2:10 p.m. The halves of the field will reverse for Wednesday’s second round, and the first groups of the final round on Thursday will begin play at 7:30 a.m.