During the early days of the Club in the late 19th Century, Apawamis members played their golf on two different nine-hole layouts located on the other side of what is now Interstate 95. Then, in early 1899, the Club acquired from the Charles Park Estate the property upon which the existing campus resides.
There are a number of stories, some documented, some shared from conversations with members over the years about the designers of our golf course. Maturin Ballou, an important force for golf during Apawamis’s early days at our current location, and Willie Dunn, a well-respected golf course designer, are generally credited with the design.
In the May 4, 1899, issue of the New York Journal, there is a story about the new Apawamis property and its soon-to-be-built golf course, designed by Tom Bendelow. The piece states that the new 18-hole course is scheduled to open, with great anticipation, on July 1, 1899. The article describes the hole-by-hole yardages for the new Westchester County masterpiece. What is fascinating is that the 18-hole specifications in the story look nothing like what we see today; there also is no mention of Ballou or Dunn.
Our Golf Course
Fast forward to 1911….From the photos available from the 1911 U.S. Amateur Championship won by Harold Hilton, the golf course in 1911 looks very much like what we play today with some exceptions, such as Hole #8 which was then a par 3. So the question is begged. How did we get from Bendelow to Ballou/Dunn and the 1911 version of Apawamis golf?
In an October 1900 story from the USGA publication GOLF, we find an entire hole-by-hole description of the new Apawamis golf course. You can check out the entire piece on the wall in the lobby of the Clubhouse or by visiting the Club History web page on apawamis.org. The October 1900 golf course description is consistent with the 1911 version and our 2018 version. We continue to look for documents to help fill in the blanks of our unique history. Now the task is to discover what happened between May 1899 until October 1900.
A complicating factor is that until the mid-1970’s there was little discussion about the early architects of golf in the New World (view the article in Met Golfer authored by Tom Doak). So, the search continues.