Golf in the New York metro area gets much of its vitality from the organizations housed in a recently expanded brick building set back from Knollwood Road in Elmsford. It’s Golf Central, home to the Metropolitan Golf Association (MGA) and numerous other regional and national golf associations that are connected in some way to virtually every round of golf played in the area.
The MGA itself employs a small full-time staff (21 employees) and more than 300 volunteers who do things like run the handicap service for area golfers in conjunction with the USGA. (Actually, the MGA invented the handicap concept, which the USGA adopted, but that’s another story.) The MGA also runs 19 championship tournaments—including the one-time-major Met Open, whose winners include legends like Gene Sarazen and Byron Nelson—and stages 18 local or sectional qualifying tournaments for the USGA national championships, like the US Open. The MGA Foundation helps fund GOLFWORKS, internships for young people interested in careers in golf, junior clinics, and caddie academies.
Golf Central is also home to the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association and the Westchester Golf Association, not to mention the offices of the US, Westchester, Eastern, and Long Island Senior Golf Associations; the Metropolitan and Hudson Valley Golf Course Superintendents Associations; the Met Club Manager Association; the Tri State Turf Research Foundation; and the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association.
The Metropolitan Section of the PGA of America (Met Section) is located in Golf Central, too.