Knickerbocker CC to receive the Club of the Year Award

Metropolitan Golf Writers Association

49 Knollwood Road    Elmsford, NY 10523    (914) 347-4653

 

 

For immediate release

 

www.metgolfwriters.org

 

KNICKERBOCKER CC TO RECEIVE CLUB OF THE YEAR AWARD

 

Elmsford, NY (June 10, 2014) The Knickerbocker Country Club, which will celebrate its centennial in 2014, has been selected to receive the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association’s Club of the Year Award. Knickerbocker, which is in Tenafly, N.J., will be honored June 23rd at the MGWA’s 63rd National Awards Dinner at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, NY.

 

The award is presented annually to a Metropolitan area club for upholding the spirit and traditions of golf through energetic support and consistent dedication to the game. The list of past winners is a cavalcade of some of the most notable clubs in American golf history, from Baltusrol Golf Club to Westchester Country Club to the inimitable golf offerings of Bethpage State Park.

 

In choosing Knickerbocker, the Met Golf Writers Association will recognize a gathering place that for a century has helped define the fundamental standards of service, community and fellowship that exemplify a great golf club.

 

“We’re very proud that we have about 30 families that are second or third generation club members,” said Ken Morris, Knickerbocker club president. “That says a lot. At the same time, because there has always been a family atmosphere, it makes it easy for new members to make friends and be welcomed.”

 

 About five miles from the George Washington Bridge, Knickerbocker has also been a favorite haven of urbanites from northern Manhattan longing for a pastoral golf respite. Morris said that about 18 percent of Knickerbocker’s membership lives in Manhattan, which is about a 20-to-30 minute drive from Knickerbocker on a traffic-less Saturday or Sunday.

 

Knickerbocker has the variety of amenities found in many old-world country clubs – be it swimming, tennis or fine dining – but the jewel in the club’s crown is its Donald Ross-designed golf course. Ross laid out the first holes in 1914 and took advantage of a wooded valley that stretched to the Palisades overlooking the Hudson River and New York City. Ross envisioned a golf course of strategy, deceptive simplicity and the inherent pleasures of the game and he found the elements he needed in the verdant fields and topographical changes of the parcel that became the Knickerbocker Country Club. Herbert Strong later had subsequent input and the golf course was lovingly restored in 2008-2009 by Ron Forse, who the club refers to as a modern traditionalist.

 

The restoration also elevated Knickerbocker’s standing among its peers. Golfweek Magazine has ranked Knickerbocker 144th in the nation’s top 200 Classic Golf Courses (courses opened prior to 1960).

 

The club is planned various celebrations of its centennial throughout the summer, including the burial of a time capsule near a new flagpole in front of the renovated entranceway to the pro shop.

 

Home to many of the area’s top players and instructors throughout the last century, the Knickerbocker Country Club benefits from a strong management team, including the club’s general manager, Gavin B. Inglis, Ed Whitman, the director of golf, and golf superintendent Samuel Juliano III.

 

The Met Golf Writers will also honor Fred Couples (Gold Tee Award), Nancy Lopez (Winnie Palmer Award), John Feinstein (Golf Journalism Award), The Blackwelders (Family of the Year), NJ PGA (Distinguished Service Award) and Travelers (Bing Crosby Award).

 

Since 1952, the MGWA has recognized the game’s greatest players, contributors, and organizations at its National Awards Dinner – the longest running and often the largest golf dinner in the U.S. each year.

 

The MGWA has produced a special video to celebrate six decades of the Dinner:  

https://vimeo.com/63849701

 

Long-time MGWA member Jim Nantz says, “There is no dinner in America that celebrates golf like this one.”

 

Golf’s leading organizations support the dinner – USGA, PGA of America, PGA TOUR, LPGA, MGA,

MetLife, and Rolex.  The National Awards Dinner has raised over 1.5 million dollars for Caddie

Scholarship programs in the metropolitan New York area; the MGA Foundation; and the Dave Marr

Journalism Scholarship at Columbia University. 

 

For tickets or additional information, please contact:

 

Kate Keller  (914) 347-4653

kate@metgolfwriters.org

 

Bruce Smith  (914) 944-4445

sportybear@optonline.net