Tamarack Country Club To Host Qualifier for U.S. Senior Amateur Championship

Tamarack Country Club in backcountry Greenwich will host a strong field of senior golfers who will be trying to qualify for a spot in the 60th U.S. Senior Amateur Championship on Aug. 27.

Qualifiers age 55 years and older will compete at Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach, CA, from Sept. 13 through Sept. 18. Tamarack is one of 51 golf clubs around the country selected to host a qualifier.

Among the group of Tamarack registered players are Dick Siderowf, one of America’s most renowned amateurs and a member of Century Golf Club in Purchase, NY, and George Zahringer III, a member of Deepdale Golf Club on Long Island, who won the 2013 British Senior Amateur, the 2002 U.S. Mid-Amateur, multiple Long Island Amateurs, as well as four consecutive Met Amateur Championship titles.

Tamarack, which opened for play in 1929, is celebrating its 85th anniversary. It is one of only a handful of original Charles Banks designs. Banks learned his craft from his association with legendary Golden Age architects Seth Raynor and C.B. Macdonald.

Nicknamed “Steam Shovel Charley” because of his use of the new machine in moving massive amounts of earth to create elevated greens and deep greenside bunkers, Banks left an exquisite signature sandy footprint on Tamarack’s par-5 17th hole aptly named “Big Bertha.”

The club has a number of famous European classic hole designs including: the stunning long “Biarritz” par-3 (the 12th); a “Redan” (the 7th); the “Eden” (the 3rd); a “Road Hole” (the 14th); the “Short” (the 15th) and a “Punchbowl” green on the 11th.

Tamarack gained local fame as co-host of the popular Ike Championship during its formative years from 1953 to 1962. The Ike was named in honor of former President Eisenhower, who personally approved the competition, and many of the top name amateurs of the day who were affiliated with Met area clubs competed for this prestigious title. The name Tamarack refers to a species of pine indigenous to the region.

Photo credit: Tamarack Country Club Facebook page.