What were the first 76 Golf Clubs in the US?

[Sven Nilsen]

Jim:

Well, wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wright_(sportsman)) has 1890, so it must be true.

All other reports I've seen have a date of 1896, but this could possibly be for an update done or a whole new course having been laid out.  One of the problems with the early guides is that they really only capture the last work done, not necessarily the first work.

One more to keep an eye out for.

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

Found an early edition of The American Golfer which supports the 1890 date for Wright's course in Franklin Park:

http://books.google.com/books?id=NIoCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA63&dq=george+wright+golf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=sgsiU-yOCaLAyAGZkYC4CA&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=george%20wright%20golf&f=false

[Jim_Kennedy]

No golf on the holidays at Franklin Park in 1903:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iW0-AAAAIBAJ&sjid=oVkMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5642%2C480304

[Jim_Kennedy]

Another reference to the 1890 course
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uuNPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W1UDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3222%2C6380866

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's a July 26, 1907 piece from The Spokesman Review noting that there were 7 golf clubs in the US in 1894 (not sure exactly how they defined a golf club, as it certainly wasn't a club that had a golf course).  The article goes on to note that there were 282 clubs aligned with the USGA by 1907.

[Sven Nilsen]

One more for the list.  The first golf course in Spokane, WA was built in July, 1894.  Not sure how long it lasted, but it was there.

From the Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 26, 1933:

[Chris Shaida]

Based on Sven's list in post47 here is the approximate breakdown by year (pre1895) opened

1884 1
1885 1
1886 1
1887 4
1888 1
1889 3
1890 8
1891 6
1892 16
1893 16
1894 28

plus another 22 courses identified as pre-1985 but without a specific year attributed

[Jim_Kennedy]

Sven,

The 1st art./1st col. confirms the Po'keepsie club, and the location is near the tennis club that still exists today.
The 2nd art./1st col. has Shelter Is. in the works and more info on privately owned LLewelyn GC.
The 3rd ar./1st col. locates the Paterson Club and mentions a new one in Rye, Oakhurst GC.

The 1st art.2nd co/. has a new one, Boulevard GC, and Dyker in the works
The 2nd art./2nd col. confirms Shelter Is. and adds some info about LLewelyn
The 3rd art./2nd col. confirms Oakhurst

Click twice for BIG

[Chris Shaida]

Jim, do you know if the Shelter Island 9 holes is 'Goat Hill' (subject of adjacent current thread)?

[jeffwarne]

Chris,
Sounds like Strath describes it perfectly

[Chris Shaida]

Chris,
Sounds like Strath describes it perfectly

So then the question would be does Jim have any later articles from his trove that refer to the Straith's course actually being built BEFORE 1901?

[Sven Nilsen]

The course is noted as having 9 holes in the 1899 Official Golf Guide, so we're looking somewhere between 1895 and 1899 for the opening of the course.

Definitely not one of the first 76.

Sven

[Jim_Kennedy]

Guys, I'm sorry , but it looks like Gardiner's is the course that Strath designed. The Goat (as you know) is in the Shelter Heights section and I have a couple of articles mentioning the ground breaking for that course taking place in 1899/1900.

I could  tell you who designed the logo for the Goat. That could probably win you a few drinks at the bar.  

[Chris Shaida]

I could  tell you who designed the logo for the Goat. That could probably win you a few drinks at the bar.  

send me a pm, Jeff already knows WAY too much about the goat:)

[jeffwarne]

Guys, I'm sorry , but it looks like Gardiner's is the course that Strath designed. The Goat (as you know) is in the Shelter Heights section and I have a couple of articles mentioning the ground breaking for that course taking place in 1899/1900.

I could  tell you who designed the logo for the Goat. That could probably win you a few drinks at the bar.  

Well they di use the word "links"
Gardiner's Bay used to run down near the water, which would've been a pretty good incline from where the rest of the current course sits.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Jeff,
I read an article or two from 1928 that mentioned Gardiner's was upgrading, although it was known as Dering Harbor CC back then. The DHGC name seems to have been in use until WW11, then there is a gap until the mid 50s, when it becomes GBCC.

p.s. and in 1899/1900 they went to 18 holes.   

[Chris Shaida]

If you drive around Gardiners Bay drive there's a house with what is clearly a bunker in its yard.  The yard is closer to the water than any part of the current course so it seems that at some point it was part of the course, maybe when the course got closer or to the water?

[Sven Nilsen]

Copied below is an Oct. 18, 1895 article from the New York Herald (forwarded to me by Jim Kennedy).  The article has some notes on a few of the courses noted in this thread, but the most eye-opening reference pertains to W. Seward Webb's course at Shelburne Farms.  Shelburne Farms has long been considered to be Willie Park's first design in America (with dates varying between 1894 and 1895).  This article suggests the course was actually laid out by Willie Davis, and was being improved by Davis in 1895.

The connection between Davis and Webb becomes obvious once you know that Webb was the son-in-law of W. H. Vanderbilt.  Davis designed a course for another member of the Vanderbilt family around the same time in North Carolina (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,55327.0.html).

If anyone has any information on the Park attribution, specifically if there is any evidence of his work that would suggest this article is in error, please let me know.

[Jim_Kennedy]

...and the Vanderbilts were also members at Staatsburg, another Davis layout.

[Mike_Young]

Savannah Golf club 1794

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike:

Savannah is noted in the "others" section of the list (I lumped all the really early courses in there).

Here's an 1898 article from Current Literature discussing Savannah GC, including an 1811 invitation to a "Golf Club Ball."  The article also discusses George Wright's first course and the game being played on Staten Island in 1863.

[Sven Nilsen]

H.B. Martin's 1936 book Fifty Years of American Golf contains a listing of courses in existence in the summer of 1895 and notes the year the club was born or first adopted golf.  Although not a contemporaneous source, the works proximity to the time period in question certainly gives it some veracity.  That being said, Martin's claim that there were around 50 courses in existence by 1895 seems to undershoot the actual number.

1888 - St. Andrews

1889 - Tuxedo Club

1890 - Middlesboro GC, Newport GC, Hotel Champlain Course (Bluff Point)

1891 - Shinnecock Hills GC, Philadelphia CC

1892 - Chicago GC (Belmont), The Warren's Farm GC, Baltimore GC, Powelton GC

1893 - The Country Club, Essex County CC (MA), Swannanoa GC, Montclair GC, Chevy Chase Club

1894 - Weston GC, Santa Barbara GC, Town and Golf Club (Colorado Springs), CC of Lakewood, Albany CC, Otsego GC, New Brunswick GC, Tacoma GC, Fairfield GC, Riverside GC (CA), Jekyll Island GC, Morris County GC, Oyster Bay GC, Staatsburgh GC, apawamis GC, Baltusrol GC, Portland GC (OR), Erlington GC (Seattle), Knollwood GC (NY), Meadowbrook GC, Devon GC, Westbrook CC, Paterson GC, Richmond County CC, Norwich GC

1895 - Palmetto GC, hampden GC, Hoosic-Whisick GC, Wollaston GC, Seabright GC, Morristown Field Club, Thomasville GC (GA), Bloomington GC (IL), St. Louis CC, Concord GC, Stockbridge GC, Sadaquada GC, Westchester CC, Presidio Reservation, Burlingame GC, Brooklawn GC, New haven CC, Ridgefield GC, Waterbury GC, Dyker Meadow GC, Cincinnati CC, Saegkill GC, Haddon Field GC, Glen Ridge GC, Salem GC, Storm King GC, Watervliet Arsenal GC, Allegheny CC, Mt. Pleasant Field Club, Staten Island GC, Van Cortlandt Park Municipal Links, Poland Spring GC, Queens County GC, Point Judith GC

Some additional information taken from Fifty Years of American Golf:

-There were 1,040 courses by 1900,
-By 1900, there was a golf course in every state of the union

Martin also listed state by state numbers, as follows:

NY - 165
MA - 157
PA - 75
NJ - 63
CT - 57
IL - 57
NH - 44
CA - 43
OH - 36
ME - 33
MI - 29
WI - 28
RI - 26
VT - 20
IA - 20
FL - 17
MN - 16
IN - 16
MO - 14
MD - 13
VA - 11
NC - 9
CO - 9
GA - 8
KY - 7
TX - 5
SC - 5
KS - 4
ND - 3
AL - 3
AR - 2
MS - 2
DE - 2
DC - 2
SD - 2
LA - 1
AZ - 1
NM - 1
WY - 1
OR - 1
NV - 1
UT - 1
OK - 1

[Dan Moore]

In Chicago matches were played in 1894 between golfers from the Chicago Golf Club and Lake Forest.  Lake Forest had a rudimentary golf course on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan originally staked by CBM on Sen. Farwell's estate   In 1895 the Lake Forest Golf Club was formed and played at the McCormick Farm course in Lake Forest.  The Lake Foresters abandoned the LFGC and formed Onwentsia Golf Club the following year at the Cobbs Farm location where they have been located ever since.  The Illinois Golf Club was formed in 1895 to occupy the course at Belmont when the Chicago Golf Club moved that year to Wheaton.

[Tom Buggy]

Here's another early course, such as it was.  In the spring of 1890 after being smitten by the golf bug on a family trip to France, Franklin Roosevelt's father James returned with clubs and balls and built a six-hole course on the family's Springwood estate in Hyde Park NY.  James apparently was unsuccessful in convincing many of his friends to adopt the game but one one those friends, Archibald Rogers, advanced to the quarter-finals of the first U.S. Amateur at Newport GC in 1895.  (Rogers was also one of the officers of the Staatsburg Golf Club when it was founded in 1893.  For the Amateur he listed his club as St. Andrew's.)

The existence of the Roosevelt course is documented in the books First Off the Tee and Presidential Lies.  The book Franklin Roosevelt - A Career in Progressive Democracy, published in 1934, appears to be the source of the information in the other two books, but it does not list any sources.  I have confirmed via wife Sara Roosevelt's diary that she and James played golf in Pau, France on November 30, 1889.  

The course no longer exists.  I, the FDR Library and the National Park Service are engaged in what so far has been a fruitless effort to determine the location of the course on the estate

[Tom Buggy]

With respect to H.B. Martin's 1936 book Fifty Years of American Golf, Martin somewhat arrogantly establishes St. Andrew's as the earliest golf club and dismisses others as "legends."  It appears that he missed at least three earlier clubs: Dorset Field Club (golf in 1886), Foxboro CC (golf in 1887) and Quoque Field Club (golf in 1887).  These dates are from the websites of the the three clubs, all of which remain in existence.  

It's possible that a fourth club, The Edgewood Club of Tivoli (in upstate NY), is the earliest club of all that has had golf continuously from its start to today.  It is unquestionably documented in club history books (one from 1937 and one from 1984) that this club was founded in 1884, and the clubhouse (which is still used) and tennis courts were built in that year.  It is believed by club members that golf was part of the club in the founding year or 1885, but the history books do not state a specific date for golf.  The books do document that the course started with five holes which were soon reduced to three because of a land sale, and that the course was expanded to nine holes in 1916 when two members purchased adjoining land and gave use of it to the club.  I am involved in a research project with the objective of documenting the date on which golf began.

Research Update - 6/15/2014: Research to date has not yielded a documented date for golf at The Edgewood Club of Tivoli.  However, there is evidence that the golf course was not there as of 1885.  Very detailed club rules for 1885 do not mention golf.  Further, the club's name at the 1884 founding was The Edgewood Tennis Club.  In 1885 and 1886 the name was The Edgewood Lawn Tennis Club.  There is no record for 1887 but in 1888 the name was the present name.  This MAY indicate that golf was added in 1887 or 1888 but, again, this is not definitive.  Research continues via a review of Livingston family papers at a local historical society.

Research Update - 9/30/14: The Edgewood Club of Tivoli can now claim to be the oldest continuously existing golf club in the U.S.  Documents in a long-forgotten saftey deposit box include the notation "tennis and 2 holes" in reference to the club's 14-acre property at the time of the 1884 founding.  With respect to previous information about the club starting with 5 holes, it is now believed that the expansion to 5 holes took place shortly after the founding, perhaps in the same year or in 1885.  With respect to the absence of a mention of golf in the 1885 club rules, it is plausible that because tennis was the club's dominant focus, the rudimentary and informal nature of early golf activity (the holes were "located in a remote field") did not warrant inclusion in formal rules.

Research Update - 11/21/14: I now have a copy of the material from the club's safety deposit box.  It consists of handwritten notes by a club Governor and Green Committee member who was a nephew of one of the Livingston family founders who was alive at the time the notes were prepared.  The notes document the club's property through 1925, the year of the club's incorporation.  A summary at the end of the notes documents that there were two golf holes in the club's 1884 founding year, and that the course consisted of seven holes in 1909 when member-owned land was provided for use by the club.  (It is possible that a few holes were added between 1884 and 1909.)  It is known from other sources that the course was expanded to nine holes in 1916; it has remained in use as a 9-hole course ever since.  I believe these notes provide credible evidence that The Edgewood Club of Tivoli is the oldest U.S. club with continuous golf at the same location.  I intend to provide this information to the USGA.  The response will be interesting.