Welcome back Doug.
Quick question - Why was the orignal Lookout Mtn. clubhouse moved?
Bob
This could start a long thread.
1st fact: I don't know.
Now, originally, Lookout Mountain GC and what is now known as Fairyland Club were the same club- the clubhouse for the FC is about a mile from the golf course. Before the depression, apparently, the Golf course got separated and the Fairyland Golf Club was born. Everything else was sold on the courthouse steps to investors from Atlanta. (I may have some of these particulars wrong as this is all word of mouth and putting together minute books, press clippings, etc.)
After the War the golf course started doing well, the Fairyland Club had been separated and was doing well, and I grew up never thinking about them together. The Fairyland Club had the pool and the swim team and the tennis courts and the dining every night; the golf club was golf only and Thursday night chicken dinner.
From the start the golf club had only a tiny little club house (it is now the old part of the maintenance barn by #8 tee). This club house was not where the original drawings had sited it (I have drawing showing two locations with one crossed out by hand and a note "use other club house"). They played the course with the original #6 as the first hole (this hole we now play as #8). There were even a couple of short tees added to play "playoff" shots to the 7th (18th as they played it) green which are still there.
There are a lot of stories from that old little "caddy shack" clubhouse alive in the Club.
In the '50's (1957 I think) they decided to build a more appropriate clubhouse. They had recently renovated the greens by converting to bent grass, by anecdote the first club this far south to do so. It was during this period that the greens for #11 (Alps), #14 (Lido), and #17 (Double Plateau) were destroyed. In the construction of the clubhouse the green for #12 was altered in some way, and the tee for #13 (Redan) was shifted to accommodate a parking lot.
No one at the club had any idea who Seth Raynor was, apparently, and that was not a consideration.
I would guess the clubhouse was sited with a mind to the view and the logistics of the road's location. In the course of placing the clubhouse where it is today, they changed #1 (the original par 5 17th) to a par 4, and changed from teeing off on the original 6th hole to teeing off on the original 17th hole.
One of the most striking and humbling aspects of all the changes at Lookout is that they were all done by intelligent, well-meaning members who genuinely had the best interests of the Club and its members in mind. These episodes are a constant reminder to me not to get too strident about anything- I could always be wrong.
At the same time, most of the great things I have seen accomplished over my lifetime have been pursued with great singlemindedness by people who were sure they were right.
I remain a strong proponent of recombining LMGC and Fairyland Club, and hopefully one day restoring the course to its orignal routing. I am told I will be dead before this happens, but what's a life without dreams?