Harold Sanderson, Canoe Brook’s `All Pro’

1930 - 1948

Canoe Brook’s longest-serving golf professional was the venerable Harold Sanderson. A native of England, Sanderson came to Canoe Brook on Thanksgiving Day 1930 and would hold the head golf professional position for 37 years, until his retirement in 1967. Sanderson was born in 1903 in Surrey, and learned to golf on the world-class heathland links of the Sunningdale Golf Club, whose architect was H. S. Colt.

Harold Sanderson came to the United States in 1920 as an indentured apprentice to Charlie Mayo (later long-serving professional at the Hackensack Golf Club), and served as assistant pro at the Edgewater Golf Club outside of Chicago. He took his first head professional position at the Briarwood Lodge in Westchester, which Gene Sarazen represented as playing professional. He also briefly worked at Thornburg Country Club in Pittsburgh and Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Westchester before working five years (1925-1929) at Hollywood Golf Club as head professional.

Sanderson was hired to help develop Canoe Brook as a family club. While at Canoe Brook, he would win the New Jersey Pro-Am Championship twice with member Dr. Gerry Lee and captured the NJPGA Seniors title five times. He played occasionally on the PGA Tour and made his best US Open showing of several appearances with a 49th place finish at Fresh Meadow in 1932.

One of Sanderson’s most remarkable achievements while representing Canoe Brook was his victory in the 1959 New Jersey PGA Championship at the age of 56. On that occasion, Sanderson posted a 279 score for four rounds over the rugged Forsgate course. Sanderson defeated the state’s leading player, Al Mengert, in a fierce head-to-head battle over the last 18-holes.

Al Laney, award-winning golf writer for New York’s Herald-Tribune, wrote of Sanderson in 1967, just prior to his retirement:

“Harold Sanderson long ago became a major New Jersey institution, and still is a fine golfer at 63. He has won innumerable Pro-Ams and Pro-Pros in the district and has been NJPGA champion four times. He has the unusual record of having been runner-up in the state PGA in 1929 before he came to Canoe Brook and of winning that title thirty years later in 1959 at the age of 56. More important than these things, perhaps, are the 36 years of service he has given the generations of Members of one of our finest clubs, the fact that from his shop have gone nine assistants, thoroughly trained under his tutelage, to be head pros at other clubs. Harold Sanderson is a fine example of what a real “all pro” can mean to a golf club and to a community.”