Westchester Country Club: The Barclays Golf Course
The Westchester Country Club was founded by John McEntee Bowman in the 1900s. He enlisted the help of one of the foremost golf course architects of his time, Walter Travis (1862 – 1927), to design the two courses.
Travis was a bit of a maverick for his time – he believed that golf course design should test and challenge the ‘thinking’ golfer, and consequently he made several changes to the traditional way of designing a golf course.
He was one of the most successful amateur golfers of his era, and apart from design, he was a well respected golf journalist and publisher. He was primarily critical of the way that bunkers were originally laid out on the early courses – all the way across the fairway, and at very predictable intervals.
He successfully argued for more strategically placed and aesthetically pleasing bunkers to be dotted along the edges of the fairways at the Barclays golf course. In his words: “Hazards arranged somewhat upon the lines indicated, rather than slavishly following the system adopted on the great majority of courses, would, I think, make the game vastly more interesting, and more provocative of better golf all round.”
Well, his innovative thinking paid off and his West Course at the Westchester Country Club now hosts one of the most important events of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup - the Barclays.
The club itself has been recognised by the USGA (United States Golf Association), as one of the first 100 clubs established in the United States, and in a 1995 edition of GOLF Magazine as one of “The First 100 Clubs In America”.
Course Profile
The Barclays is held on the West Course of the Westchester Country Club. The course is very long and undulating, has tight, tree-lined bentgrass fairways, and greens which are remarkably fast and chock-a-block with misleading breaks. The rough is particularly thick, and a man-made lake comes into play on one hole.
- It was rated as the 13th “Best In State” course for 1995 by Golf Digest
- It was ranked 80th among “America’s 100 Best Classical Courses” for 1997, 89th in 1998 and 91st in 1999 by GOLFWEEK.
The signature hole is the par-4, 466-yard 17th which requires a tee shot up a dogleg right fairway, followed by an approach shot that must carry over water to a medium-sized green.
Over time the course has been tweaked here and there by some of the most famous golf architects, including Rees Jones, William S Flynn and Joseph Finger.
Annually the Barclays golf course sees some of the most competitive betting on the golfing calendar. We recommend William Hill for the ultimate *golf betting experience.
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