Westchester Country Club might be considered the sassy grande dame of golf clubs in the county—she’s both stately and vibrant, classic, and up-to-the minute. And like many ladies of a certain age, she has quite a history.
The club was originally created by John Bowman, a stable boy who worked his way up to own the Biltmore Hotel group,as the centerpiece of what was to be a planned community for millionaire sportsmen. Things didn’t work out exactly as Bowman planned, but the club he created has thrived for nearly a century and hosted PGA Tour events for over four decades.
NBC Sports journalist Jimmy Roberts is a long-time member of Westchester Country Club and created this video history of the club when it hosted the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship earlier this year.
Here are a couple of other interesting notes about WCC:
As originally constructed, the West Course had additional greens and bunkers so it could be reversed for winter play.
The first professional tournament held at Westchester CC was in 1922. It was the final 36 holes of the “Golf Championship Of The World,” a match play event with a purse of $3,000, billed as the largest in the game. The winner was local legend Gene Sarazen, who promptly went to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy after the match.
The PGA Tour moved the Thunderbird Classic to Westchester CC in 1963, replacing the Westchester Classic that had been played as a one-day pro-am at The Apawamis Club for ten years. Arnold Palmer won the tournament that year, followed by Tony Lema in 1964 and Jack Nicklaus in 1965.
