Fresh Meadow CC, NY

[Jim_Kennedy]

Although the loss of good courses by the likes of AWT and others is sad, don't feel too sorry for the members of Fresh Meadow. They ended up purchasing the failing Lakeville GC and saving a  Charles Alison gem, which was considered to be  “one of the most beautiful and exclusive clubs in America”, and “the peer of American inland courses.”

Portions of "Lakeville" are seen in this photo:




Below is the original routing (thanks to Joe Bausch) and then the aerial photo of the original course that AWT built for the club. It held a PGA Championship in 1930 and a U.S. Open 1932, but in February '46 the land was sold to New York Life Insurance Co. and it became the Fresh Meadows Housing Development.
The club's website has this account  of the course: “News of the Tillinghast Course" in Flushing, New York, had started to spread throughout the golfing world. When the course was officially opened large numbers of golf celebrities and experts came from far and near to test its rigors. What they found was a course in exquisite condition, as though it had been groomed for a decade, and of scenic delight. It contained holes of fascinating variety, some fairways finding their way through groves of towering trees, others with water obstacles on the way to the greens; doglegs with treacherous sand traps as they curved around corners to the left and to the right; out-of-bounds galore to plague the ‘hooker’ and ‘slicer’ alike; the famous Tillinghast pear-shaped greens fiercely trapped. All these features created one of the finest tests of golf anywhere.”



Use the slide bar to see all the holes

[Steve_ Shaffer]

And their food is outstanding!!!

[Bill_McBride]

Sarazen won our Open there the same year he won at Princes.  1932  a good year for the Squire.

[Tom_Doak]

Somewhere in my files I have a Xerox of the GOLF ILLUSTRATED from 1932 that shows hole-by-hole aerial photos of Fresh Meadow with Sarazen's shots from his best round laid out over the top of them (club, distance, and where the ball landed).  They did that for several different championships ... it's a great archive.  Unfortunately, the quality of my 32-year-old Xerox copy is not very good, I don't think it would scan well.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Tom,
The quality of the photos is a bit rugged. Here's one of them and the rest are in the article you mentioned, found at:

http://photoarchive.usga.org/mbwtemp/August%201932.pdf  (takes some time to download)

[Patrick_Mucci]

It's a pretty neat, member friendly golf course.

Not overly long but interesting and challenging and usually in very good condition

[Alex Lagowitz]

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but it looks like I can see a few template holes from the first aerial:

- road hole
- possible biarritz
- eden
- possible redan

[Mark Bourgeois]

It's a pretty neat, member friendly golf course.

Not overly long but interesting and challenging and usually in very good condition

Pat, you're a treasure. Besides Tillie's Fresh Meadow can you tell us how it felt to play Mackenzie's Bayside and Raynor's Oakland?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mark,

I was referencing the current version, although I did have friends who played the original, along with the original Lido

[Jim_Kennedy]

So, what do you think Tillie had in mind whe he was designing this hole? Most of Sarazen's shot had to fly over an area marked OOB (look at the diagram) and it was over someone else's property, not the clubs.

Number 17 at Stockbridge GC in Ma. is a similar hole, although the shortcut isn't over someone else's property, and I'd guess another 17th, the Road hole, is also similar.

But, this is only the third hole in Tillie's layout. Wasn't there another way? Is it his worst-hole-ever?  

[Bill_McBride]

Sarazen was a competitive player with large balls.  Here he is at Fresh Meadow, cutting a dogleg across the OB area.  At Princes he dominated the field by carrying a brassie second on a par 5 over a diagonal dune ridge, resulting in three birdies and an eagle in four rounds. 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Nothing to do with Sarazen's cojones, just the horrible angle of the dogleg.  

[Bill_McBride]

Nothing to do with Sarazen's cojones, just the horrible angle of the dogleg.  

He could have played safely right like I suspect most of the field did.   I've seen the dune ridge at Princes, it's on the 3rd nine, "Himalayas."   That must have been a heroic carry to reach the green.  Read Sarazen's book, "Thirty Years of Championship Golf" with Herbert Warren Wind, great account of both 1932 wins. 

No questioning of Sarazen's cojones is allowed, IMHO.   

[Alex Lagowitz]

Although the loss of good courses by the likes of AWT and others is sad, don't feel too sorry for the members of Fresh Meadow. They ended up purchasing the failing Lakeville GC and saving a  Charles Alison gem, which was considered to be  “one of the most beautiful and exclusive clubs in America”, and “the peer of American inland courses.”

Portions of "Lakeville" are seen in this photo:

I am surprised no one responded to my earlier post, so i'll try to bring it up again.
I notice a few template looking holes in the aerial of lakeville, notably a road hole, redan-looking hole, possible biarritz (top right) and possible looking eden hole
- did Alison use template holes?
- was Raynor/Banks/CBM ever involved in this course?
- or am I just seeing things?

[Jim_Kennedy]

Alex,
This comes from an article published in The Sun, April 10, 1924. Perhaps it will help answer one or two of your questions.


What are the first principles in laying out a golf course? That question was put up to Dr. Mackenzie. one of the greatest architects In the world, and he answered as follows:

"That is an extremely difficult thing to answer, for the simple reason that an architect does not work on any hard and fast rule as does the architect who designs houses. It Is the first duty of a links doctor to work with nature rather than against it. There is nothing new about the ideas of the so-called architect; he simply wishes to reproduce the old ideas as exemplified in the natural courses like St. Andrews."

The remaining one might be answered by the opening date of Alison's "Lakeville" course, which was 1925.