Country Club of Asheville

[Ben Hollerbach]

Ben:

That 1896 date for the Battery Park Hotel booklet is dubious.  The hole descriptions match the 1902 version of the course you posted much better than the 1899 routing.

As for the Barker routing, when it was first posted on this site Tom MacWood indicated he wasn't exactly sure of the date (it was taken from a Southern Railroad brochure).  Do you have information that pins down the 1912 timing?

Sven

It is dubious, that's why I said it was supposedly printed in 1896. Within "ASHEVILLE--the Ideal Autumn and Winter Resort City", the source of the last routing, It references a roadworks project that was completed in the latter part of 1911, the very next sentence mentions that asphalt paving of the road is expected to be complete by fall of 1913.

[Sven Nilsen]

I wonder if the booklet you posted is the pamphlet noted in this March 1900 Ad for the Battery Park Hotel.

[Sven Nilsen]

Figured it made sense to lay out all of the (relatively) contemporaneous sources dealing with the history of Swannanoa/Asheville.

What the articles and other notes below don't show is that they were playing golf in Asheville by members of the Swannanoa club some time around or before 1895.  Some sources (including Fifty Years of American Golf) have a date of 1893, others 1894 and still others 1895.

The early Annual Guides note the following:

1899 Guide -  9 hole course.  Laid out in October, 1897 by J.J. McCloskey.  A new and better nine hole course has been laid out for use in the Fall of 1899.
1900 Harpers - 9 hole, 2,970 yard course.  Laid out by J.J. McCloskey in October, 1897.
1901 Harpers - 9 hole, 3,013 yard course.

Jan. 1898 Golf Magazine:







Feb. 1899 Golf Magazine (with routing of what is called the present course):







The Battery Park Hotel pamphlet (which I believe dates from after the move in to the GPI location):



"The Manor - Albemarle Park" booklet (the 4 years language puts this around 1904):




The 1904 and 1906 Golf Magazine routings:



A Jan. 18, 1908 New York Tribune article discussing the club's withdrawal from USGA membership in 1907:



Jan. 1909 Golf Magazine:



Dec. 1912 Golf Magazine (which suggests the club had two locations before settling at the current site):

[Sven Nilsen]

One of the big mysteries about the course (other than exactly how much did Ross do when he worked on it in the 20's) is when was Willie Park involved and what did he do.  Park noted work on a course in Asheville in an advertisement.

A suggestion in earlier threads was that Park came in in the 1890's at some point and laid out one of the earlier iterations of the course.  The articles in the last post seem to suggest that all of that work was done by J. J. McCloskey, who was a member and an officer of the club.

Other sources have his work on the new 9 hole course that was put in place around 1907-1909.  Unfortunately, the timing doesn't work as Park wasn't in the U.S. during this time period.

The other possibility is that Park never worked on the Asheville CC/Grove Park Inn course at all, and that his work in Asheville was on an entirely different course (as discussed here:  http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59468.75.html).  I have not seen the advertisement and don't know if he specified a specific course.  In other ads, he did refer to courses he had worked on simply by their location as opposed to their actual name (this was the case for Alton Beach/Miami Beach CC).

[Daryl "Turboe" Boe]

Just notified that my club (Ross course) in Charlotte no longer has reciprocals with CC of Asheville due to the change in ownership at CC of Asheville.

Thats too bad,

The US Hickory Open was played at CCA last summer and after nearly universal praise was initially scheduled to return this summer, but the ownership change has precluded the return visit. They are still using an image from the USHO on the club's homepage though.

And under the heading of "every move make someone happy, and someone unhappy!"  Sorry Carl and Ben, but as a McConnell member I am excited about this addition to the family.  I can see a couple of mid summer trips up to CC of A when things get real hot and muggy down at Musgrove Mill.

Played CC of A years ago, but am looking forward to hopefully getting more familiar with it in the coming years.

[Carl Johnson]

.

[Jonathan Webb]

Does anyone have an old aerial or site pictures of the old Beaver Lake Country Club now known as Country Club of Asheville?

[Joe Sponcia]

Reading this thread and the other that has a ton of views but few responses ...and knowing that Ron Forse is pretty highly regarded with restoration work, I wonder aloud what Mr. Forse 'did'?  From reading Ben's responses, he didn't move greens?  It sounds like he kept the 1950's aerial bunker scheme.  Very curious how much he did and to what extent he 'brought' anything back?  From the things I've seen, Mr. Forse doesn't appear to be a 'stamper'.

[Richard_Mandell]

Joe,


From my understanding, Ron didn't do anything out there except a few walk-throughs and assistance with the short game area (which was already there) to the right of the first tee.  I don't believe he ever produced a master plan either.  Don't quote me on that, though.  From the photos I took prior to Ron being hired, the bunkers are all the same today.  Bunker work was done in-house a few years before that by the Superintendent, who was trying to lower bunker faces for ease of maintenance.