Page 34 - Westchester Golf Guide - May 2022

GOLF IN YOUR WORLD | WCC
Westchester
Country Club
Centennial
Celebrates Its
The magnificent facility is recognized internationally as a PGA and LPGA Tour stop and has hosted two national USGA championships, but it’s best known locally as the epitome of the good life in Westchester County. By Dave Donelson
Rob Labritz
How large is the good life at West- chester Country Club? Its 1,500 members and their families and guests enjoy three golf courses, a world-class golf-practice facility, an eight-story clubhouse with 400 rooms, every paddle sport known to man, and not just a swimming pool but an entire 62-acre beach club with 1,000 feet of sand beach on Long Island Sound. It’s easily the largest country club in the county.
As NBC Golf broadcaster Jimmy Roberts says, “It’s grand. They just don’t make places like this anymore.” The Rye resident is a long- time member of WCC and adds, “There’s an intimacy about it, despite the size. It’s a club where you can get close to people.” Roberts, a 13-time Emmy Award winner, believes the golf courses are among the finest he’s seen. “The West Course has true character, perhaps the 18 best green complexes you’ll find on tour.”
In the beginning...
A hundred years ago, hotelier John Bowman had a vision. The president of Biltmore Hotels hoped to cap a stellar career by building a planned community for millionaire sports- men on 583 acres of land in Harrison, pur- chased from the Hobart Park estate. He added several other parcels, including 62 acres on nearby Manursing Island, in Rye. When it opened in 1922, the community had every- thing a Golden Age sportsman could want,
Playing polo where the WCC driving range and John Kennedy Learning Center now stand
including golf courses, polo grounds, tennis, stables, boating, swimming, and shooting, a luxurious hotel with both private apartments and guest rooms, and land for private homes that would be serviced by the hotel’s staff.
Money was no object to Bowman, but lack of it proved to be his downfall. By 1929, he had spent more than $6 million to build the facilities (three times his initial $2 million budget) and was more than $6 million in the
red, jeopardizing the health of the parent hotel corporation. The members of the club banded together and bought the properties for $5.8 million to preserve their interests and ensure their big slice of heaven would survive.
There were golf courses...
Golf remains the centerpiece of the club, with two world-class 18-hole courses, a nine-hole par-3 course, and one of the most complete
32 GOLF 2022 WESTCHESTERMAGAZINE.COM Photo courtesy of Westchester County Historical Society