MAMARONECK, NEW YORK | First staged in 1933, the annual John G. Anderson Memorial is among the most esteemed amateur invitationals in the game. Part of that is due to the four-ball tourney being contested on the A.W. Tillinghast-designed East and West courses at the Winged Foot Golf Club in this bucolic Westchester County burg. The highly ranked layouts are true championship tests, with the West having hosted six U.S. Opens as well as the 1997 PGA and the East being the site of two U.S. Women’s Opens (in 1957 and 1972) and the 1980 U.S. Senior Open.
Another factor is the quality of golfers that the Anderson attracts from all over the U.S. and as far as Ireland, France and Peru. And the people who have been part of winning teams include many of the amateur game’s best, from Willie Turnesa, Ralph Bogart and Bob Lewis Jr. to Deane Beman, George Zahringer and Jack Vardaman. Dick Siderowf, Jim Holtgrieve, Pat Tallent and Stewart Hagestad, too.
What also makes this competition so special is the participation of golfers from the host club. Winged Foot boasts an abundance of low-single-digit handicappers, and in addition to giving the event a local flavor, their participation strengthens already formidable fields. Sometimes, they even produce winners, and teams from Winged Foot have captured the Anderson a dozen times since its inception. Eleven of those have come in the championship division and one in the senior flight, which was established in 1996.
... the playing of the Anderson also affirms the importance of championship golf at Winged Foot, which was opened in 1923, and what a deeply ingrained part of the culture the game is.
This year, 11 of the 86 teams in the June 6-9 tournament are from Winged Foot, with five of those competing in the championship division and six in the senior section.
As it demonstrates what a deep pool of golf talent the club possesses, the playing of the Anderson also affirms the importance of championship golf at Winged Foot, which was opened in 1923, and what a deeply ingrained part of the culture the game is.
“Remember, this is a golf club,” said Brad Steinthal, a past Anderson participant who helps organize the event. “Everyone is a golfer, and there are a lot of very good ones.”
One of the very best of those in the early days of the club was the man after whom the competition was named, Johnny Anderson.
A first-generation American whose parents immigrated to Massachusetts from Scotland, Anderson took up the game at age 11 and developed into a very strong player. Twice, he reached the final of the U.S. Amateur and on two occasions won the French Amateur. A graduate of Amherst College who later earned a master’s in English from Columbia University in New York, Anderson also came to hold course records at 11 different tracks and win club championships at three clubs, including five at Winged Foot during the first nine years of its existence.
In his business life, Anderson was a journalist, and a highly regarded one at that, writing quite eloquently about golf for publications such as American Golfer, Golf Illustrated and Golf Magazine. But his time on this earth was short, and he died in the summer of 1933 of hepatitis at age 49.
Such was his impact at Winged Foot that club leaders decided to honor him by creating the four-ball event that now bears his name. And they held the first Anderson just two months after his death, asking selected clubs to send their best two players to Winged Foot for the competition.
The event quickly became a staple on the elite amateur golf scene and an integral part of the club’s ethos. And its stature in those regards is as strong as ever.
Current club members certainly see it in that way.
“The tournament is a huge deal for Winged Foot and the members who play in it,” said Greg Rohlf, who won the Anderson in 2009 and now serves as its co-chairman with three-time winner J.P. O’Hara. “It means a lot to represent Winged Foot in an elite, national competition and to play on major-championship courses that are in U.S. Open condition.”
Jim Graham, who teamed up with one-time touring professional Andrew Svoboda to take the 2003 Anderson, agrees.
“It is always fun to try and play good golf in a competition at Winged Foot,” he said. “It is such a great venue.”
The Anderson features 36 holes of medal play for the championship and senior divisions and then two days of match play. Those first rounds are staged on both the East and West, and then the competition moves to one of those layouts for the matches. As a rule, tournament organizers alternate between those two tracks year to year, with the West being the weekend venue in 2024.
“We give competitors the opportunity to play a practice round on Wednesday of tournament week, with the medal play on Thursday and Friday and then the matches over the weekend,” Steinthal said. “We have a good cocktail party and a contestants' dinner on Thursday night, between the two medal rounds.”
As for determining which Winged Foot members it into the field, Steinthal says that exemptions are given to past Anderson winners as well as the reigning club champion and senior club champion and those who made it to match play in the previous year’s Anderson.
“Most former club champions will also get in,” he added. “That’s largely up to J.P., who sets a very high benchmark.”
The club also holds a medal-play qualifier for Winged Foot members on the weekend before the Anderson.
“It’s pretty competitive and a lot of fun," Steinthal said. "And I would say that it ranks right up there with the qualifiers for the club championship as the most important golf event for any good players here.”
As for the Anderson, it stands among the best four-ball invitationals anywhere, thanks to the club where it is held, the courses on which it is contested and the members who have long been such a big part of it.
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Top: The first tee of Winged Foot Golf Club's East Course in Mamaroneck, New York, in 1925. Winged Foot, which opened in 1923, has hosted six U.S. Opens.
The Architectural Forum Volume XLII. Rogers and Manson, Getty Images