GolfClubAtlas.com > Golf Course Architecture

Meadow Brook Club

<< < (5/5)

ChipOat:
Patrick:

Instead of just forwarding the info on to TEP, please give The Treehouse a report on a separate thread.

TEPaul:
"I think MeadowBrook is an exceptional golf course, especially when you consider that some of the original holes were sold off or abandoned, yet the course remains very strong."

Pat:

Perhaps, just perhaps it's too early for you to conclude that those holes behind #1 and #3 greens were original holes in the routing and design of what Meadow Brook is. They may have been but it's certainly possible that they may not have been. Was the golf course that's there today built by Dick Wilson at a particular time? That's probably the best question. Frankly, those old holes on the topography and part of the property that they were on never looked very exciting or interesting to me--even in 1955. It was pretty bland out there in that section and again it was pretty noisy over there. It may be of interest that one of the best things that ever happened to Dick Wilson and Meadow Brook was the Whitons got divorced around 1955 and sold the place.

TEPaul:
Very interesting. Just talked to my mother who not only filled me in about the Whitons owning what now is Meadow Brook G.C. but way before that! My mother had another old, old friend, Kitty Nelson, whose aunt a Mrs Burrill owned the entire property of what now is Meadow Brook and much much more. My mother said Mrs Burrill might have owned up to 1000 acres there extending well past the Jericho Turnpike (obviously before it was there). So my mother when she was a little girl used to go play with Kitty Nelson there--and get this--Mrs Burrill had a private 9 hole golf course that surrounded her enormous house--what's now the Meadow Brook clubhouse.

Mrs Burrill died in the late 1940s and my mother's closest friend, Emmy Whiton and her husband Swede Whiton bought the place. They got divorced in the mid 1950s and obviously sold the place to the Meadow Brook club which was in the process of moving from their former Devereux Emmet Meadowbrook course and polo club in Westbury.

And further, my mother remembers playing the old Dev Emmett Meadow Brook course in Westbury. She said it was absolutely lovely with long grass waving in the wind all around the course with beautiful streams and such that was right across from the Meadow Brook club's polo fields.

For those who may not be aware of polo--apparently the Meadow Brook polo team of that time was the strongest polo team ever fielded. It consisted of a team (four players) each of which was a ten goaler. One of that team, a Stewart Iglehart, was also a great friend of my family from both Long Island and later Delray Beach Florida and Gulf Stream G.C. Stewart told me once that as far as he knew a 40 goal polo team (Meadow Brook's) had never before or since been fielded. It also included one of the Bostwicks and Tommy Hitchcock, considered to be the finest polo player in the history of the sport. Stewart was probably considered to be the finest rider the sport knew (he grew up in Argentina with the gauchos!).

Stewart Iglehart called this team and their high level of polo "high speed" polo and he said they played all over the country and even in distant parts of the world and they were virtually unbeatable. But here's the ironic oddity. He said at one point they were in the Mid-West (I think most of them were in and around the Army cavalry base of Fort Devens in Kansas maybe at the beginning of WW2?) and they'd play pick up polo games with the cowboys and their quarterhorses and Stewart said we undeniably could beat any formal polo team in the world but we could never beat those Cowboys!!

Amazing stuff and a fascinating time. And then they moved from their Westbury club to Meadow Brook G.C. in Jericho built by Dick Wilson (definitely a Florida connection with all these people!) and that was the beginning of the end of the incredible power of the Meadow Brook polo club and probably Long Island polo. Of course about 40 years before that one  whipper snapper architect named C.B. MacDonald had the affrontery to take on the polo interests at Piping Rock and attempt to use their polo fields for golf holes. That didn't work, they confronted him, they kept their polo fields (today's massive practice range at Piping Rock), C.B quit the project in frustration and the architectural career of one Seth Raynor was launched bigtime!

SPDB:
I've heard recently that the redesign/additional work was done by Joe Lee. Not surprising given he worked for Wilson. The work was done in the early 60s, not too long after the course opened in 1955.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page