Sleepy Hollow Country Club and Trump National Golf Club, U.S.A.

  
 

Sleepy Hollow Country Club - New York, U.S.A.

Sleepy Hollow Country Club is located in Scarborough-on-Hudson in the hills of Westchester made famous by Washington Irving in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irving's headless horseman, supposedly the ghost of a Hessian soldier, threw his head at Ichabod Crane at the foot of the "haunted bridge" that now links tee to green on Sleepy Hollow's third hole. The club was very much a millionaire's playground, founded in 1911 by the likes of William Rockefeller, John Jacob Astor, and Oliver Harriman. The clubhouse is one of the most impressive in the world, having originally been built as the estate of Colonel Elliott Fitch Shepard and his wife, who was from the Vanderbilt family. Designed by Stanford White, it is a 75-room Italianate villa constructed of limestone and orange brick with a rococo interior of marble and mahogany. The golf course was designed by Charles Blair Macdonald during the summer of 1911, with A.W. Tillinghast contributing seven holes-the first, the 18th, and the eighth through 12th, in the late 1920s. The par threes at Sleepy Holloware particularly outstanding. The 10th plays to a low-lying green lapped by a pond, while the 16th plays across a gully to an elevated green perched triumphantly above the Hudson River.

Trump National Golf Club - New York, U.S.A.

Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County officially opened on July 27,2002, with owner Donald Trump, a five-handicapper, hitting the opening ceremonial drive. In typical Trump style, no expense was spared in building the course and the Donald has proclaimed the course the best in New York State, predicting that it will outrank nearby Winged Foot, where Trump himself is a member. Designer Jim Fazio ripped up the old Briar Hall Country Club and began from scratch, moving three million cubic yards of dirt and rock in what was the largest excavation project in Westchester's history. A series of man-made lakes were constructed that dominate the front nine, and granite walls were built to run across the property. The trophy piece of the course is the par-three 13th hole, where a 10t-foot tall waterfall built of black granite pumps 5,000 gallons a minute into the frothy pool that encircles the green.