So Phil, can I clarify the historical question and ask which was the first 36-hole golf design in America? Not which was first to have 36 holes or 54 holes?
It sounds like Bethpage may have been the first 54-hole design plus a renovation of the existing 18 hole course, which is now the Green course.
In August of 1919, Golf Illustrated published a feature article by H.I. Fitzpatrick, which I quote, "...they are planning at ______ on a vaster scale than has ever been attempted on an American golf course, to insure a good turf, thick, plentiful and deep-rooted, to be ready for the opening of the Dual Courses. On some 150 acres that have been bought, increasing the _______ holdings to nearly 350 acres, ever since last winter, they have been chopping trees, pulling or blasting stumps, ploughing, harrowing, sub-irrgating and what not, to prepare for the grass seeding. All this was finished in June. Then came a new experiment on a mighty scope and extent, the treating of the soil to a crop of soy beans and cow peas stimulated by a chemical coctail of impregnation to hasten the growth, so that the perennial plants may send their long tap roots into the subsoil, that the nodules on them may breed the minute bacteria that extracts the nitrogen from the air and changes it, by magical transformation, into the most valuable of fertilizing elements."
So I have four questions:
1. What were the first three 36-hole golf course design projects that were constructed simultaneously in America?
2. What club/course is in the blank _________ above?
3. What was so unique about the experiment cited above on treating the soil to a crop of soy beans and cow peas stimulated by a chemical coctail of impregnation to hasten growth?
4. What were the first three 36-hole golf course design projects constructed simultaneously outside of America?
A nice prize of a signed golf architecture book will go to the person who gets these questions most correct. Thank you for participating.
- RW