Winged Foot Golf Club

In 1920, a small group of men sitting in the New
York Athletic Club agreed that another world-class
golf course was needed in the metropolitan area.
Golf was already being played by New Yorkers at
Shinnecock Hills, the National on Long Island and
at Baltusrol in New Jersey, and the St. Andrews
Golf Club in nearby Yonkers was believed to be
one of America’s first golf courses.

At about that time, George M. Cohan was enjoying
another of his Broadway musical successes, and
one of his hit songs was “Forty-Five Minutes From
Broadway.”

Prophetic?

Perhaps.

Just forty minutes from New York City’s Grand
Central Station, in the town of Mamaroneck, N.Y.
and only five minutes from the Mamaroneck Station,
they found just the site they needed, a combination
of farm and private estates, with meadow, orchard,
pasture and woodlands, set in that enchanted terrain
of Westchester County.

It did not happen overnight, but how it happened as the idea
took form, grew and ultimately led to the creation of two
outstanding golf courses is interesting.

Winged Foot is sometimes wrongly connected with the New
York Athletic Club, because many of the early members were
also NYAC members. But a legal and binding relationship
was never the case.

When the notion was officially submitted to the NYAC board
of directors in 1921, for the purchase and building of a golf
course and club of their very own, it was turned down. Thus, no official, or legal, entity of this nature ever came into being.

The board's decision did not deter those gentlemen who still wanted a prestigiously designed golf course, however. In fact, this only spurred their determination to achieve their goal. The leader in this movement was Charles C. “Nibs” Nobles.

In August, 1921, certificates of incorporation were drawn up for both The Winged Foot Holding Corporation, and Winged Foot Golf Club, Inc., thus establishing the legal entity of the club. A committee had been at work for six months in late 1920 and early 1921, visiting properties that seemed suitable in Westchester County, investigating sites comprising every acre of available land south of White Plains and east of the Harlem Railroad. They inspected some of these sites several times before rejecting them.

From the very beginning, the most preferred land was the present Winged Foot property, being the highest point in Mamaroneck. But a major stumbling block stood in the way of the purchase of the property.

The owners of the land held a total parcel of 847 acres, land enough to build several golf clubs, but they wanted to sell all or none.

So, the search continued.

The Mamaroneck site was reopened as a possibility. and this time a new approach was taken, The New York firm of C.C. Lewis and Brothers was retained to negotiate the purchase of the site and, after considerable effort, was able to obtain an initial 280 acres of the tract.

The firm then came up with a plan and proposal to construct the 36 holes and sell them to the club as a completed project. In May 1922, this proposal was accepted by Winged Foot’s directors, and a contract was signed under the terms of which the C.C. Lewis organization purchased the land and began construction. Now they could go to work laying out the 36 holes, and that summer, under the supervision of the designer and his staff, the site began to take form.

The Mohegan Indians were the earliest ancestors of this countryside, finding it a hunting ground rich in deer and other game.

Reports from the days of construction tell us how stone arrowheads and other artifacts were found by the workmen. English and German coins of early vintage also turned up, most likely relics from the Revolutionary War, when the British General, Sir William Howe, camped in this area with his Hessian Granadiers, on their way to the Battle of White Plains in October, 1776.

Washington’s army also used part of this land for a camping ground, as the fortunes of war moved back and forth in our war for independence. Later, a thriving Quaker settlement grew up in the nineteenth century on ground near the club site, giving us the local name of Quaker Ridge. So this land had its aura of romance long before the golfers came along with their own romantic style.

Another part of the site was called Murdoch Woods, some of which is still visible along the West course holes 14 and 15. Westchester even then was still reminiscent of what Henry Hudson saw as he sailed his “Half Moon” up the river that would be named for him, a few miles from where Winged Foot would finally be sculpted from the land.

Geologists call the peninsula known as Westchester County the “Manhattan Prong,” because it is the tail end of a geological sub-province of the Appalachians called the New England Upland.

In the heart of this prong was the site that those visionary men chose for the project they set their hearts and minds to – Winged Foot, the symbol of Mercury, that mythical figure with the fleet feet, grace, wisdom and happy guise. A mile and a half from Long Island Sound to the southeast, and six miles from the Hudson River to the west.

The building of Winged Foot was challenging to say the least, but the architecture of the two courses and the clubhouse reflects the founding fathers’ dedication to excellence – a blending of earth and stone, of man and nature.

As a sheer physical effort, the club records of 1922-23, show that 7,800 trees were estimated to have been cut down that were less than six inches in diameter, or were suffering from blight and other problems. Also, part of the record reports 24,000 cubic yards of earth were moved in building the greens; 7,200 tons of rock were blasted in shaping the fairways and bunkers; 21,000 feet of drain pipe installed and 25,000 feet of water pipe laid for irrigating the greens and fairways. Ten and a half tons of Kentucky Blue, Red Top and Fescue grass seed were sown on the fairways and tees. Three and a half tons of Bent, Fescue and Red Top grass seed were planted in the greens – and the greens were mowed two weeks later, in the fall of 1922.

When we think of those workmen, 220 in all, with their 60 teams of horses and 19 tractors, primitive by today’s standards, they all but scraped the 36 holes into existence with their fingernails.

Today, the result, which is essentially the same as on the informal opening day on June 1923, stands as a monument to some dedicated people.