Merion Golf Club has a long and rich history. Beginning in the middle 1870s, Edward Sayers began amassing a collection of scrapbooks documenting the earliest days of the Merion Cricket Club (founded in 1865). Later, George Scudder collected a wealth of material that became the critical mass in establishing the Archives at Merion Golf Club. Upon George Scudder's death, his family donated funds to be used in the creation of a formal archives. John Capers III urged the Board of Governors to appoint an Archives Committee and provide an operating budget. John was named chairman of the committee. Under his leadership, we have successfully reached out to the membership and the golf community at large to seek original or facsimile copies of a wide range of archival materials including, photographs (~2000, all of which are being digitized), architectural drawings (1916, 1924,1930 and 1934, all of which are digitized), films, videos, books, tournament memorabilia, clubs, balls, trophies, newspaper articles (~1000, all of which are digitized), magazines, clothing, and a host of other items.
In combining the Archives with our library, the club now has two rooms in our small clubhouse dedicated to the history of golf in general and of Merion in particular. This research facility is open to the public under certain guidelines. It is meant to allow interested parties access to an important collection of materials. Merion understands its place in the history of American golf and has a strong sense of responsibility to the sport. Thus the courses are made available to local and national tournaments and why the club feels a need to share the information housed in their historic clubhouse (an 1824 farmhouse and barn).
We recently had an Archives Day at the club to celebrate the formal opening of the facility. It was very well attended with a steady stream of visitors from 11am until 8pm. We're doing it again during the summer to coincide with some tournaments at the club. The response was fantastic and led to additional items donated to the club. I urge all clubs to put together a committee responsible for collecting, preserving and storing archival materials. As many of you know, the USGA formed a golf architecture archive and research center. The history of golf's playing fields is very important and I hope all of you get behind efforts at your clubs, both public and private to preserve its history.
Here are some photographs of our displays to give you an idea about what was of interest to our membership. We had a collection of photographs displayed in 6 second intervals projected on a wall in the ballroom. In the main entrance we ran a continuous loop of Bob Jones playing in the 1930 Amateur.
