Westchester Country Club is one of the premiere country clubs in America. Its extensive amenities include a historic residence with three restaurants and two banquet rooms, two eighteen hole courses, one nine-hole course, an indoor swimming pool, squash courts, grass tennis courts and a stand-alone beach, outdoor pool and restaurant facility on Manursing Island.
History
The Westchester Country Club was founded in 1922 by John McEntee Bowman , who hired Walter Travis to design two golf courses in the Town of Harrison, New York, as a luxury resort hotel. The West Course was designed for championship play and has hosted PGA tournaments since 1963. The South Course was originally designed for women and higher handicap golfers. Around 1997, the South Course was reconstructed with longer tees, new sand and grass bunkers, water hazards, and some new greens. The South Course is now more competitive with the West Course to accommodate low handicap golfers.
Tournaments
Westchester Country Club hosted the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship in 1923. The club hosted its first PGA tournament in 1963 with the Thunderbird Classic. The Thunderbird was also held at Westchester in 1964 and 1965. There was no PGA tournament at Westchester Country Club in 1966, and starting in 1967 the Westchester Classic was an annual stop on the PGA Tour through 2007. On January 14, 2008, an article in the Journal News announced the PGA Tour's desire to terminate its affiliation with Westchester Country Club. The decision was made primarily because of Tiger Woods' refusal to play in the tournament in 2007 and the tournament's subsequent low TV ratings and low attendance. On Saturday, January 26, 2008, a compromise agreement was made between the club and the PGA Tour at a town hall meetingat the club. The PGA paid WCC $1.1 million to move the tournament from Harrison to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, NJ, for the 2008 event. In a second compromise agreement, the PGA Tour recently awarded Westchester Country Club a major tournament on the Champions Tour. The 2011 Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship was played on the renovated West Course. This is one of the biggest stops on the Senior Tour. In June 2015, Westchester hosted its first LPGA major, the KPMG Women's PGA Championship.
Generoso Pope, Sr., publisher, owner of Colonial Sand & Stone, and the first person of Italian descent to become a self-made millionaire in the United States
