Wykagyl’s History

Wykagyl Country Club has a long and storied history of both amateur and professional golf. This week’s participants in the 100th New York State Amateur Championship will compete on the same challenging and beautiful course as many of the game’s all-time great players. This year’s winner will add his name to an impressive list of Wykagyl champions including Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Bobby Locke, Lloyd Mangrum, Roberto De Vicenzo, Pat Bradley, JoAnne Carner, Nancy Lopez, Betsy King, and Annika Sörenstam.

This year, Wykagyl is celebrating its 125th anniversary. The Club’s origins date back to 1898, during the formative years of golf in America and played an interesting role in its early development and growth. The first U.S. Open Championship (1895) was won by Horace Rawlins, who was Head Professional at Wykagyl in 1905 and 1906. Jerry Travers, who joined Wykagyl in 1912, won the Met Amateur in 1906, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1913, the National Amateur Championship in 1907, 1908, 1912, 1913, and the US Open Championship in 1915. Genevieve Hecker Stout won the Women’s Met Championship in 1900, 1901, 1905, 1906, and the US Women's Amateur Championship in 1901 and 1902. She was elected to the MGA Hall of Merit 118 years later.

Originally a nine hole course, Wykagyl moved to its current location in 1905. Architect Lawrence Van Etten crafted the front nine in a matter of months for a total cost of $2,100. The full 18 hole layout was completed later that season and earned critical acclaim.

Harry Vardon, the great English professional golfer and winner of one United States Open and six British Open Championships said, after playing the old 18th several times, that it was one of the greatest golf holes he had ever tackled.

Wykagyl’s reputation as a fine course grew such that by 1919, the Club’s membership grew to 450 regular members.

From its early days, the layout of the course has been changed and improved by some of the greatest golf course architects in the history of the game, including: Walter Travis, Robert Trent Jones, Stephen Kay, and Arthur Hills. Three of the major renovations took place in 1919 by Donald Ross, then in 1930 by A.W. Tillinghast and most recently, in 2006, by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

Donald Ross was introduced to golf in Scotland at Royal Dornoch and St. Andrews where he worked with Old Tom Morris. He moved to the United States in 1900. Ross was prolific and designed or redesigned over 400 golf courses, including: Pinehurst No. 2, Aronimink, East Lake, Seminole, Oak Hill, Glen View, Memphis, Inverness, Miami Biltmore, and Oakland Hills. In 1919 Ross came to Wykagyl primarily to update the front nine routing.

According to an article in the New York Times on July 20, 1920, Wykagyl was transformed from

Wykagyl was a favorite LPGA tour stop. Beth Daniel, who won at Wykagyl in 1980 and 1994, said of Wykagyl: an “ordinary links, nothing more,” into one of the longest “and most exacting courses in the metropolitan district…(and is) of thoroughly championship caliber,” (with) “an abundance of natural beauty.”

"I love this course. It's very distinctive with a personality of its own. But it's very, very difficult. If you mishit shots, the penalties are severe, but if you play well, you'll do well. You have to hit every club in the bag, which is a sign of a geat course."

In 1930, A.W. Tillinghast (Tilly) was contracted to do the next major renovation at Wykagyl. Another of the great architects of the early 20th century, Tilly worked on more than 265 different courses including some of the greats that have hosted numerous amateur and professional tournaments and championships including six PGA Championships and nine US Opens. Among them are: Winged Foot Golf (NY), San Francisco Golf Club (CA), Bethpage Black (NY), Baltusrol Golf Club (NJ), Somerset Hills Golf Club (NJ), Quaker Ridge Golf Club (NY), and Baltimore Country Club (MD).

The first and second holes were taken out of play, which became Wykagyl's driving range and adjacent short game area, as well as the former tenth hole, which stretched from North Avenue to the current tenth tee. He added the fourth, fifth, sixth, and eleventh holes and redesigned the current tenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth holes.

We celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the NY State Men’s Amateur and the 125th Anniversary of Wykagyl in this heritage year!

In 1966 and 1967, Golf Digest included Wykagyl as one of the 200 most difficult golf courses in the country.

In the early 2000s, it was determined that the course’s irrigation system was in need of replacement. The Green Committee, at the time, saw that this was also an opportunity to take on course renovations. In 2004 the Green Committee, chaired by Paul McEvoy, accepted proposals from preeminent golf course architectural firms. Martha Reddington, a member of the Green Committee and friends with Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, called Bill Coore and asked if he and his firm, Coore & Crenshaw (C&C) would be interested in the Wykagyl project. While C&C preferred original design and construction work, Bill came to Wykagyl and walked the course and took on the project along with his colleague, James Duncan, and their talented crew.

Ran Morrisett, in his profile of Wykagyl on his Golf Club Atlas website, said:

"Coore & Crenshaw's work lends the course continuity with a single voice that any course would benefit from. It is Van Etten's backbone and Ross and Tillinghast's modifications that give the course its flavor. Its overall design appears Golden Age without reminding one of a particular architect. And that's very neat."

Also found in Morrisett’s profile, is the following quote from Coore that sums up Wykagyl:

"A great routing has emerged over time with holes weaving over hills, through valleys, and across creeks. How they got all the holes in there is amazing and it is one of the most interesting designs I have ever seen on severe property. When I think of Wykagyl, the word 'interesting' always springs to mind -- interesting land, interesting hazards, and interesting holes. It is easy to make a course hard; it is a far greater challenge to make a course interesting and that's what they have done at Wykagyl."

The course presented for this 100th NY State Amateur Championship is the result of an ongoing relationship with C&C, James Duncan, Wykagyl Superintendent, Dan Rogers, and his hard-working and dedicated crew.

The cumulative impact of all the work on the course and Wykagyl’s commitment to superb conditioning has led to the inclusion of Wykagyl in Golfweek’s Top 100 Classic Courses and has brought accolades from golf course architecture expert, Ran Morrissett, who profiled the course on the Golf Club Atlas website in 2016.

See the full Golf Club Atlas feature about Wykagyl here:

Wykagyl Country Club

Golf Club Atlas golfclubatlas.com

Paul McEvoy (in memoriam)

Paul McEvoy, Jr.

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Dr. Chiles has received the prestigious honor of being named a Castle Connolly Top Doctor in Neurosurgery/Spine Surgery four consecutive years from 2020 to 2023. He has also been recognized as one of the Top Neurosurgeons in the region by Westchester Magazine in their annual November Top Doctors issue each year from 2020 to 2022, and will again be featured in their upcoming November 2023 annual Top Doctors issue. Additionally, he has been named one of the Top Neurosurgeons in the entire New York Metro Area for three consecutive years from 2021 to 2023, and in this regard was featured in the annual July Best Doctors issue of New York Magazine for both 2021 and 2022, and will again be featured in their upcoming July 2023 Best Doctors issue.