Bid for weekday golf for four (4) with golf carts, luncheon service and non-alcoholic beverages.

Measuring a mere 6,702 yards, Wykagyl Country Club does not intimidate on paper, but since it was built more than a century ago, its relentlessly hilly, rocky terrain has provided a worthy challenge for the game’s best. This stellar layout plays much harder than it appears.

When a need to replace an antiquated irrigation system led to the consideration of a restoration, the club contacted numerous architects, including the noted minimalist duo of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. Although their company rarely accepts existing course projects, the opportunity to work on Wykagyl Country Club was too good to pass up.

The layout itself has seen a who’s who of golf architects during the 20th century, but the touch of three men have had the largest impact. Greens on the 1st, 7th, 9th and 16th holes remain essentially the creations of member Lawrence Van Etten, who designed a 6,326-yard layout. Van Etten built three consecutive par 3s: the 5th, 6th and 7th. Thirteen years later, Donald Ross created two par 4s to replace the 5th and 6th holes. Just over a decade after that, A.W. Tillinghast implemented dramatic changes, namely a rerouting that largely survives today. He eliminated the 1st and 2nd holes, built the current 4th, 5th, 6th and 11th holes, reversed the dogleg on No. 17 from right to left and substantially shortened the 18th, turning it from a par 5 into a two-shotter.

Coore’s work, undertaken during the last half of 2006, was aimed at subtly recapturing visually dramatic aspects that had faded over time, as well as renovating bunkers to make them more indicative of the look and feel from years past.

While the routing is the same, numerous holes have changed. The best example is the controversial par-3 7th, 172 yards to what Coore calls the “most severely tilted green I have ever seen.” He regraded the green, turning what was a marginally unplayable putting surface into a marginally playable one, where good putts should at least stay on the green.