Page 13 - Westchester Magazine - 2020 Golf Guide

Winged Foot Golf Club, host of the 2020 U.S. Open Championship
Progress Country Club (the original name of Old Oaks CC), and the second in 1926, at Scioto CC in Ohio, where he defeated Joe Turnesa, a member of Westchester’s first family of golf.
1959
Billy Casper’s phenomenal putting clinched the title for him at the 1959 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. The hall-of-famer took only 114 putts over 72 holes with 31 one-putts
and just one three-putt during the four rounds.
Casper edged out Winged Foot pros Claude Harmon and MikeSouchak,whofinishedtied for third. Local favorite Doug Ford tied for fifth with Arnold Palmer. Ford was a perennial
1974 U.S. Open Winner Hale Irwin
1959 U.S. Open Winner Billy Casper putting
winner in Westchester, taking the 1956 Met Open title, as well as four Met PGA Cham- pionships, three Westchester PGAs, and the Westchester Open in 1961 and ’63. When he won the Met Open in 1956, Ford was at Putnam CC and, after stints at Tam O’Shanter and Vernon Hills, wound up his career as the head professional at the Spook Rock Golf Course when it first opened in the late ’60s.
Also in 1959, Charlie Sifford, the pioneer- ing African American golfer, played in his first major championship at Winged Foot, finish- ing in 32nd place two years before the PGA of America allowed African Americans to play on the PGA Tour.
Amateur Jack Nicklaus, 19, played in his third straight U.S. Open in 1959 but missed the cut for the second time, with two rounds of 77. After 1959, Nicklaus made 25 consecu- tive cuts at the U.S. Open through 1984, also at Winged Foot.
1974
Hale Irwin captured the 1974 U.S. Open championship by surviving what is considered the most difficult event in the tournament’s history. The penal rough, narrow fairways, and slick greens practically eliminated bird- ies, and not a single player broke par in the first round. Irwin won with a total score of 287, seven over par. His win was two strokes
ahead of the battered field. The tournament became known as “The Massacre at Winged Foot.”
A young pro named John Buzcek, who had won the 1970 Westchester Open when he was an assistant pro at Winged Foot, was
in the top 10 for the first
Westchester Hosts the Very First “U.S. Open”
On Oct. 4, 1895, the first official U.S. Open Championship was con- ducted by the USGA on the nine-hole course of Newport (R.I.) Golf and Country Club. The USGA itself had been founded in December the year before, and the Open was somewhat of an afterthought to the first U.S. Amateur, also played that week on the same course. The winner was Horace Rawlins, 21, an English pro at the host course, who won $150 and a gold medal.
But there’s a backstory to the U.S. Open that begins at St. Andrew’s in Yonkers. The club had recently moved to Grey Oaks on the Saw
Mill River, where it built a nine-hole course that hosted the first National Amateur Tournament in October of 1894, a few weeks before the found- ing of the USGA. L.B. Stoddard of
the host club defeated Charles B. Macdonald of Chicago at the new St. Andrew’s course.
That same week, St. Andrew’s also hosted the first U.S. Open — at least that’s what it was called at the time. Four top professional golfers played
a tournament of their own, compet- ing for a first-prize gold medal and $100. The winner was Willie Dunn, the pro at Shinnecock Hills, who also designed the original Ardsley Casino course (now Ardsley Country Club) and became its first club pro when it opened in 1896.
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