Winged Foot Golf Course

America golf course Winged Foot Mamaronect, New York.

One of the hardest of all the championship golf courses, Winged Foot was designed by A.W. Tillinghast for the members of the New York Athletic Club who said they wanted a "man-sized course". They may have got more than they bargained for.

The course has a championship par of 70 with only two par-5 holes. The difficulty of the course lies in the par 4s: there are ten over 400 yards (365m) and when you add to that the closely guarded slick greens and severe rough when the course has been prepared for a championship, it is little wonder that the course has been so difficult to conquer.

The US Open has been held here four times. In 1929 Bobby Jones won in a play-off with AI Espinoza after he had thrown away a huge lead over the last nine holes. In 1959 Billy Casper won with a magical display of putting: he took 114 putts in all, single-putting 31 greens, and ended up with a score of two over par! In 1974 Hale Irwin won the first of his three US Open titles with a total of 287, seven shots over par. Finally, in 1984 there was a titanic clash between Fuzzy Zoeller and Greg Norman who tied after 72 holes. Norman had holed a putt of 40 feet (12m) to birdie the 72nd hole and draw level but, unfortunately for him, the play-off was one-sided and Zoeller won easily.