110. First Meeting of Century Conquerors Club

110.  First Meeting of Century Conquerors Club

Golf Magazine starting publishing a World Top 50 in 1979.  In 1983 the biannual list was expanded to a Top 100 in 1985.  In 1986, Mr. James Wysocki, a trial attorney from Louisiana, became the first person to complete a GM Top100.  Unfortunately, Jim died in a crash of his Cessna airplane in 1989. 

The second person to complete the list was Bob McCoy, in 1988.  As a follow-up, about 9 years later Bob played a GM World 100 list in 100 days…walking and finishing every hole, without the use of a private plane, and logistical plans in those days were communicated via fax!  

As of May 21, there were 42 folks (41 men and one woman) who had completed the list.  Of those 42, seven had passed away, and one chooses to remain anonymous. Even though our plans for this gathering were not announced until mid-January 2108, a total of 25 of the remaining 34 came to all or part of the meeting.  All members received bag tags designating them as “Founding Members” of the Century Conquerors Club (Founded 2018).  

We stayed at Westchester Country Club in Harrison, NY and played golf at Wykagyl CC, Westchester’s West Course, and Quaker Ridge GC.  For sure the highlight of the meeting was dinner on May 22 at The Links in New York City, kindly hosted by Colin Sheehan, golf coach at Yale University and a founder of The Outpost Club.  Everyplace we went we were treated like royalty (appropriately, I should add).

The last evening of the meeting we unanimously agreed to form a club…papers are about to be filed.  All in all, simply a wonderful time and a chance to meet a whole bunch of interesting folks.  Nothing like a convention of compulsive Type A’s!!

It was great fun organizing events like this (my last one was a fraternity reunion in September 2011) but it is exhausting. Time to pass the baton onto the young turks (although there ain’t a lot of “spring chickens” in this crowd).

BTW, the new powers that be were not excited about our brilliant name for the club…so they decided to go with Global Golf Centurions Club.  Sooo, watch out for Century Conquerors Club bag tags being offered on e-Bay.  Not mine…in a few years they will be worth more than bitcoin!

Oh…and since the meeting we have one more member…so 43 to date!