First golf course in USA?

[Anthony Gray]

   Many places have claimed to be the first golf course in America.So which one was it?

   Anthony

[Jim_Kennedy]

Anthony,
First, you need to define 'golf course'. Is it a patch of scruffy ground in 18th century South Carolina where the gentleman who brought the first clubs to America may have played, or is it an area where greens and teeing areas have been laid out by a group of friends to mimic the Scottish Game, ala John Reid and his pals?

Oakhurst claims to be the oldest.

 

[Anthony Gray]

  I've heard West Virginia.Then you go to Hilton Head and they have a painting that says they the first golf in America.Then you hear St Andrews.I read a book that says Demonte was the first west of the Missippi,then at the KP you find out differently.So what's the fact?The egyptions used gold for fillings many years ago,but I think Java man had some charcoal resorations.

  Anthony

[Jim_Kennedy]

Anthony,
The field is littered with pretenders.

[Anthony Gray]

Anthony,
The field is littered with pretenders.

   I'm been married 4 times and well aware of that.

  A

[Jim_Kennedy]

From the Preservation Society of Charleston website

"It is thought that the first organized golf played in America was on Harleston Green, undeveloped pastureland near the corner of Pitt and Bull streets. As early as 1743, Charleston merchant David Deas received a shipment of 432 golf balls and ninety-six clubs from Scotland.

Golf historians suggest that the early game was played without a set number of holes, no greens, and no designated teeing areas. Players used clubs to move a ball across the field and into a crudely dug hole in the ground. Because the holes were not clearly marked, golfers sent "finders," forerunners of today's caddies, to stand by the hole and alert others of the approaching shot by yelling "fore." After completion of a hole, a player would tee off at a distance of two club-lengths away from that hole. Equipment included a ball, or "feathery," made of leather and stuffed with feathers while clubs consisted of a "play club," a series of "woods," and a utility iron for tight spots.
Enthusiasts organized the South Carolina Golf Club on September 29, 1786, and five years later announced its anniversary in the City Gazette.
Charleston golfers moved north to the Chicora Golf Club Links in 1899.........."

[Bill Gayne]

From the Colonial Williamsburg foundation.

"A Golf Timeline
1600s-1700s
Virginia death inventories from Northampton and Norfolk counties list “goff clubs, golfe sticks, balls” as items included in estates. Quantities in one Norfolk County inventory are large enough to suggest the deceased was a golf equipment retailer. In addition, it is likely that Scottish and Irish immigrants to the colonies brought their favorite recreation to the New World.

1774–1776
The last British colonial governor, John Murray, the Earl of Dunmore, was a Scot. Informal records indicate he played or practiced golf on the grounds of the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg. "

[Tom_Doak]

Anthony:

St Andrews in New York is the oldest 18 hole course in the USA with a continuous record of it's existence (since 1888). There are a couple of places where the course is only nine holes (Foxburg PA) or where the history was interrupted (Oakhurst WV).  The Charleston club has no records between 1800 and 1899 when someone founded a new course and attached themselves to the old history.

[Adam Clayman]

Tom, Was it 18 holes in 1888?

Because that was/is Chicago Golf Club's claim to fame.

[Phil_the_Author]

Some consider how in the early part of 1887, Alexander Findlay, along with his partner Edward Millar, on the Merchiston Ranch in Nance County, Nebraska, some 130 miles west of Omaha, built what some golf historians believe was the first golf course in America. It was but 6 holes, and on April 4, 1887, he played our nation's first round of golf.

Of course there is also what has been reported through some old newpspaer accounts how in 1688 Thomas Powell (Founder of Bethpage) and Thomas Dongan (then Colonial Governor of New York) were taught to play golf by a representative of the British government at a spot called by the local Indians "Rim of the Woods."

I, of course, like the romantic appropriateness of the idea that golf was introduced in America where the 13th hole of Bethpage Black sits majestically on that ridge area. I'm still on a many years quest to find the documents that past reporters swore to have seen and prove this...

[PCCraig]

I've always thought Chicago was the first 18 hole golf course in the USA, but that St. Andrews was actually the first golf course. Apparently I am off?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Given Pat M's Obama thread and the general economy, is it too soon to try to predict the last course built in America?

[TEPaul]

I think both Jim Kennedy and Tom Doak made fundamental points about this question---eg one needs to consider the question in the context of the very first golf course over here or the first one that remained in existence until to date.

I don't think there is any doubt that there was one in Charleston as early as 1743 but then we need to consider that that was during the world-wide British Empire and before this country became a country with its own governement.

To administer and control the British Empire as they did in the 18th century they needed a pretty comprehensive military and administrative presence of British and that long ago they obviously brought their game, clubs and balls with them and when they left (arguably after losing the Revolutionay War ) they took them home with them.

It was not as if there was a Titleist company over here then and so if there were no clubs and balls over here back then obviously the game could not sustain and endure.

PS:
Here's an interesting trivia question I heard the other day from august American historian Joseph Ellis in a lecture on CSpan 3. How many revolutionary wars did the British and their remarkable British military actually lose that had to do with their world-wide "British Empire?"

[Phil_the_Author]

Tom,

There were advertisements in at least one New York newspaper during the 1750-80 time period (speaking from memory as I'm too search for it right now and it could have been even earlier) offerings golf equipment, clubs and balls for sale.

[TEPaul]

Phil:

THAT I would definitely like to see. I bet whomever was advertizing them over here was not over here making golf balls and equipment at the time----eg they obviously came from abroad and all that probably changed quite a bit after GB lost the Revolutionary War and the GB presence over here was no more or was seriously minimized.