Apawamis Club

The Apawamis Club was founded in Rye in 1890 and played its first golf on leased ground before buying part of the Charles Park estate early in 1899. The 18-hole course on that land opened that year. The club credits its layout to golf chairman Maturin Ballou with the Scottish professional Willie Dunn Jr.; New York newspapers of 1899 named Tom Bendelow as its designer, a discrepancy the club's own 2020 history acknowledges. Between 1899 and 1911 the 1st, 2nd and 4th greens were moved to their present sites, and from 1906 to 1911 the head professional Herbert Strong added bunkers before the club hosted the 1911 U.S. Amateur.

In 1918 the club engaged Donald Ross to evaluate the course and draw a master plan, which hangs in the club's Grill Room. Money was short after the First World War and most of his suggestions were set aside. In the winter of 1920 the club hired the English greenkeeper Peter Lees, whose improvements, by the club's account, were in many cases in line with Ross's recommendations: two rows of bunkers below the 4th green, and new sites for the 5th, 12th, 17th and 18th greens. After Lees died in 1923, Robert White succeeded him as "Advisory Greensman."

In the late 1920s a second phase built a new par-4 8th in place of the original par 3, moved the 9th green and made the 9th a par 5, added a tee behind that green to stretch the 10th into a par 5, and moved the 14th and 15th greens to their present sites. The club's history says this work reflects Ross's 1918 plan, records no architect for it, and suggests White oversaw it. No source read says whether Ross visited Rye. The club's architects list gives Ross the date 1930, and the Donald Ross Society directory once listed three holes in 1930; its 2018 update changed that entry to a remodel of three holes in 1918-29.

Holes to Know

From the men's Red tees (6,703 yards) the course is par 36 on each nine, 3,310 yards out and 3,393 in, with three par 3s (the 5th, 12th and 16th), twelve par 4s and three par 5s (the 9th, 10th and 17th). The 9th and 10th are back-to-back par 5s at the turn. The 14th is a par 4 on the men's card and a par 5 on the women's, where par is 73.

The 334-yard 4th from the Red tees, stroke index 7, is the club's signature hole. Its fairway begins about 145 yards out and runs straight to a green fronted by two rows of bunkers, six about 30 to 35 yards short of the green centre and five about 20 short, with three more to the right. The club counts fourteen bunkers in Eleanor's Teeth, guarding a four-tiered green.

The 408-yard 7th from the Red tees is stroke index 1. It turns left about 32 degrees at roughly 245 yards, past a rocky knoll with a bunker on the right, and the approach goes between a wooded bank on the left and a treed rock outcrop on the right to a green with no bunker across its front, one at its left edge and one on its right side. M. James Ward, in Golf Today in 2020, described the approach as blind and the green as falling away from front to back.

The 361-yard 8th from the Red tees, stroke index 15, is the par 4 built in the late 1920s in place of the original short hole. A rocky, wooded knoll sits in the middle of the fairway from about 100 to 180 yards, the hole bends left about 44 degrees at roughly 250 yards with a bunker on the outside of the corner, and the green, wider than it is deep, has a single bunker short and left.

The 480-yard 14th from the Red tees, stroke index 2 on the men's card, crosses a pond under and left of the line from about 60 to 115 yards. A brook crosses on a diagonal about 45 to 75 yards short of the green, nearest on the right. The green, which was moved to its present site in the late 1920s, is broad at the back and narrowing at the front, with a bunker short and left and one along each side.

The 323-yard 18th from the Red tees, stroke index 18, is the shortest par 4 on the card, with a large bunker across the left half of the fairway at about 85 to 95 yards. The green, about 36 yards deep and 24 wide, is ringed by eight bunkers, the most on the course; Lees moved it to this site in 1920.

Ross's Design Here

Ross's work at Apawamis was a plan for an existing course, carried out by others over a decade. At the 4th, the two rows of bunkers beneath the green were added by Lees in 1920 in line with Ross's recommendations. The 5th, 12th, 17th and 18th greens were moved in that same 1920 work. The present 8th, the par-5 9th and 10th, and the 14th and 15th green sites date from the late-1920s phase that the club says reflects Ross's plan.

Today the 12th, a 200-yard par 3 from the Red tees named Bunker Hill, plays uphill to a perched green with a deep bunker short and right, and the 15th has the deepest bunker on the course beside the left of its green. The 9th has a creek and out of bounds on the right and a cross bunker on the left for the second shot; the 10th has out of bounds down the right and water left of the lay-up.

The club's 1925 aerial shows dozens of bunkers, most likely Lees's, including sets of small pot bunkers on the 6th, 9th, 16th, 17th and 18th. By 1940 only those at the 4th and 18th greens remained.

Historical Significance

Apawamis hosted the 1911 U.S. Amateur, in which Harold Hilton, the reigning British Amateur champion, beat Fred Herreshoff at the 37th hole after Herreshoff had come back from six down; the club calls it the first American championship to go beyond 36 holes. The club records the Met Amateur at Apawamis in 1901, 1909, 1915, 1920 and 1950, and USGA events since: the 1970 U.S. Girls' Junior, won by Hollis Stacy, the 1978 Curtis Cup and the 2005 U.S. Senior Women's Amateur. The U.S. Seniors' Golf Association tournament began at Apawamis on October 12, 1905, at the invitation of member Horace Hotchkiss, and is still played each June at Apawamis and three nearby clubs.

The club quotes Ben Hogan calling Apawamis "the toughest short golf course I have ever played." Tom Doak, as quoted by Top100GolfCourses from The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, called it "a very conservative club" and wrote that "the small greens and semi-blind shots between rock outcroppings still feel like it's 1911."

Changes Since Ross

The club's aerials record the main later change: trees. Plantings between the 9th and 15th and the 10th and 14th began in the 1940s and continued through the 1950s, and by the 1995 aerial fairway area had fallen from at least 30 acres to under 20. George and Tom Fazio worked on the course in 1977. Gil Hanse's 2001-02 renovation was, in the club's words, "in certain respects, a restoration," and Tom Marzolf worked on the course in 2014. From 2017 to 2022 Keith Foster expanded the greens, widened the fairways and renovated the bunkers.

What survives of the Ross period is the hole and green arrangement of 1920 and the late 1920s, and the bunkering at the 4th and 18th greens. The wide, open fairways and most of the 1920s pot bunkers seen in the 1925 aerial were lost by mid-century; Foster's work has restored width but not the pot-bunker sets.

Uncertainties

• Original designer: the club credits Maturin Ballou with Willie Dunn Jr.; contemporary 1899 newspapers, cited on Wikipedia and acknowledged by the club, name Tom Bendelow. This listing gives both.

• Date of Ross's plan: the club's history says 1918; a photo caption in Joe Bausch's collection calls it a 1917 master plan. The club's date is followed.

• Ross's later involvement: the club's architects list gives Ross 1930, while the Donald Ross Society's 2018 update lists a remodel of three holes in 1918-29, and no source names the three holes or a site visit. The listing follows the plan-plus-1920s account.

Sources & Notes

1. The Apawamis Club, Golf Course page. https://www.apawamis.org/golf-course Architects list with dates (Strong 1906-1911, Ross 1930, Fazios 1977, Hanse 2001-02, Marzolf 2014, Foster 2017-22); hole names and descriptions; Hogan quote; facilities.

2. Michael McCormick, "The Evolution of a Golf Course," Apawamis Now, Winter 2021-22. https://apawamis.org/default.aspx?p=.NET_ArticleView&tview=0&plugid=1090427&ssid=327139&qfilter=RSC22481&itemID=314739 Ballou and Dunn layout; 1899-1911 green moves; 1918 Ross plan; 1920 Lees work; 1923 death of Lees and Robert White; late-1920s changes; 1925, 1940, 1947 and 1995 aerials; tree planting; Foster.

3. The Apawamis Club, "Club History." https://apawamis.org/default.aspx?p=.NET_ArticleView&tview=0&plugid=1090427&ssid=327139&qfilter=RSC22481&itemID=314404 1890 founding; 1899 land purchase; 1907-08 clubhouse; Hanse restoration quote; 1911 Amateur; 1970, 1978, 2005 events; Seniors' tournament; squash.

4. Shawn Rowley, "Early Days of the Apawamis Golf Course," September 30, 2020. https://apawamis.org/default.aspx?p=.NET_ArticleView&tview=0&plugid=1090427&ssid=327139&qfilter=RSC22481&itemID=314407 May 4, 1899 New York Journal credit to Bendelow; 8th a par 3 in 1911.

5. James Ondo, "A Stroll Through History," Apawamis Now, Winter 2021-22. https://apawamis.org/default.aspx?p=.NET_ArticleView&tview=0&plugid=1090427&ssid=327139&qfilter=RSC22481&itemID=314738 Met Amateur years; Hilton's 1911 double.

6. Sven Nilsen, "Reunderstanding Ross," Golf Club Atlas discussion group, reply #127, March 3, 2018. https://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,65481.125.html Donald Ross Society directory entry (3 holes, 1930) and its 2018 update (3 holes, remodel 1918-29).

7. M. James Ward, "Grade A Architecture: The Apawamis Club, New York," Golf Today, November 2020. https://golftoday.co.uk/grade-a-architecture-the-apawamis-club-new-york/ The 7th hole; USGA events; Foster master plan.

8. Top100GolfCourses, Apawamis. https://www.top100golfcourses.com/golf-course/apawamis Doak quote from The Confidential Guide; Hanse 2001 and Foster 2017 work.

9. Wikipedia, "The Apawamis Club." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apawamis_Club May 1899 opening and Bendelow credit from 1899 newspapers; Strong's bunkering; stone clubhouse; 1970 and 2005 winners; paddle tennis.

10. Joe Bausch collection, Apawamis album. https://homepage.villanova.edu/joseph.bausch/images/albums/Apawamis_1100/index.html Caption dating Ross's master plan to 1917.

11. GolfPass, The Apawamis Club. https://www.golfpass.com/travel-advisor/courses/9699-the-apawamis-club Caddies and swimming among amenities.

12. Greens Visited scorecard and course-tour aerials (New York State Digital Orthoimagery Program). Hole pars, yardages, stroke indexes and features.