Siwanoy Country Club

Siwanoy Country Club was incorporated in 1901, when a 9-hole course was also established. The club moved in 1913, engaging Donald Ross to set out a new 18-course layout, and this course hosted the first PGA Championship three years later, won by Jim Barnes.

“With an entire property occupying only 110 acres, the club long ago reached its limits of expansion,” commented Dan Wexler in The American Private Golf Club Guide, “but this diminutive track retains virtually all its original routing and remains a significantly stylish test. The front nine occupies the property’s northern half and features back-to-back par fives at the 4th and 5th, the latter’s fairway crossed by one of several brooks which occasionally wander into play.

The back nine is the stronger loop and boasts more of the layout’s best holes, including the 12th (requiring an approach over a recently enlarged pond), the 15th (a strong two-shotter crossed by a brook), the 16th (its right side guarded by another modern-era lake) and the closer, a twisting par 5 made interesting by one final brook angling across the fairway some 75 yards shy of the green.”

Mike DeVries completed a long-term restoration in 2007, which included reinstating lost green margins, renovating bunkers and removing tree clutter. According to DeVries: “Opening up the course to its original intentions has brought back wonderful views and improved agronomics. The waterways were restored in several places and now serve to better drain the course and to influence play angles.”