HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. -- On February 22, 1888, Washington’s Birthday, a Scottish sportsman named John Reid gathered several of his friends and took them to a pasture in Yonkers, New York, for what became the first official round of golf in the United States. Armed with a handful of clubs and balls imported from his homeland, the acknowledged cradle of golf, Reid roughed out a three-hole course and thus made history.

Now, some 120 years later, Reid’s legacy lives on at The Saint Andrew’s Golf Club in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, America’s oldest enduring golf club. Following Reid’s little competition, his band of golfing converts were dubbed “The Apple Tree Gang” to memorialize the tree located at the subsequent apple orchard course site where the gentlemen hung their coats and wicker decanters of whisky. Several months later, on November 14, 1888 at a formal meeting at Reid’s home, The Saint Andrew’s Golf Club was founded, according to minutes kept to mark the occasion.

American golf tips its cap to Saint Andrew’s rich history, notably for its many “firsts.” The club hosted the first unofficial U.S. Amateur as well as the first “open” championship. Saint Andrew’s was a founding member of the United States Golf Association (USGA) in December 1894, along with The Country Club, Brookline, Massachusetts; Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Illinois; Newport Golf Club in Newport, Rhode Island; and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, New York. And in 1988, Saint Andrew’s was the venue for the gala celebration of the first 100 years of golf in America, where a cavalcade of golfing greats assembled to play the Jack Nicklaus redesigned course. Nicklaus since has made a number of changes to his Signature Golf Course and the club continues to invest in improvements to maintain this shrine of golf in top condition.

The legendary Bobby Jones said of the club, “The finest thing The Saint Andrew’s Golf Club did in starting the game of golf was…that they started it right, with the right traditions.” Those traditions carry on today, 120 years later at this noble course where members take seriously their stewardship of the birthplace of golf in America and preserve important memorabilia and a priceless collection of early clubs and balls in the clubhouse museum.

Contact: Pat Norton/Jane Dally
On Course Strategies LLC
(203) 454-0232
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