New York State Golf Association celebrates its centennial with...

Amidst all of its annual tournaments and qualifiers — 122 events in a 127-day span — the New York State Golf Association is finding time to commemorate a milestone year.

The organization was founded in 1923, when the first Men’s Amateur was held at Garden City. The 100th Men’s Amateur will be held next week, Aug. 7-9, at Wykagyl in New Rochelle. (It would be the 101st, but no championship was held in 2020 because of COVID-19.)

To celebrate its centennial, the NYSGA is producing a slick, 64-page booklet that captures all of the key moments of the first 100 years. The plan is to make the ad-free publication available to participants of the upcoming championships: the Men’s Amateur, Super Senior (Aug. 14-15), Senior (Sept. 12-13) and Mid-Amateur (Sept. 22-24), and the Women’s Senior (Aug. 22-23).

What’s impressive about the booklet — and a statement on how important golf has been throughout the past century — is the numerous photographs documenting the sport’s history in the state. There are numerous Capital Region references, from Billy Shields’ dominance in the early 1950s to 15-year-old Dottie Pepper winning the Girls’ Junior and Women’s Amateur in 1981 (the only player to win both in the same year) to Charlie Murphy capturing the inaugural 1984 Mid-Amateur to Kennedy Swedick’s record-setting victory in the 2022 Women’s Amateur.

Several area courses have served as venues for much of the state’s golf history. There are fascinating photos of large galleries watching the 1959 Men’s Amateur final at Troy and the 2013 Men’s Amateur final at Schuyler Meadows.

In the department of full disclosure, I served as a consultant on the booklet, but the credit goes to the NYSGA for committing the funds for such an endeavor, and to its marketing director, Dan Thompson, who did...