Euclid GC - The Math Was Too Much For Them

[Jim_Kennedy]

EGC in Cleveland Ohio has to be the shortest running golf club w/the best tournament pedigree. I can't think of any other club that held a premier event but only lasted for a decade.  ? 

Built in 1902, it hosted the 1907 US Amateur (won by Jerome Travers) but closed in 1912. Like many other clubs of the day, the land became too valuable and was redeveloped into housing.


A short history by Chris Roy:
 http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/299#.VRrNqfnF95c   

[C. Sturges]

Jim,

Thanks for posting!  The first time I heard of the course was in the small book I believe titled, Golf in Cleveland.  It also discussed a number of other courses that were short lived.  Where I currently live, on the west side of Cleveland, there was a 9 hole course up until the 1970's.  Now it is houses and very large trees.  It is hard to even imagine a course there, especially because old pictures of the course showed very few.  A friends dad told us about the course and said it had great green sites, but was short.
chris

[Brent Hutto]

Built in 1902, it hosted the 1907 US Amateur (won by Jerome Travers) but closed in 1912. Like many other clubs of the day, the land became too valuable and was redeveloped into housing.

Or put another way, for golf courses Geometry is Destiny.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Jim,

Thanks for posting!  The first time I heard of the course was in the small book I believe titled, Golf in Cleveland.  It also discussed a number of other courses that were short lived.  Where I currently live, on the west side of Cleveland, there was a 9 hole course up until the 1970's.  Now it is houses and very large trees.  It is hard to even imagine a course there, especially because old pictures of the course showed very few.  A friends dad told us about the course and said it had great green sites, but was short.
chris

Similar circumstances existed in and around Queens, NY in the first few decades of 20th century.

[Phil McDade]

Not too far from one of the great dive bars of its time:

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/10/clevelands_legendary_euclid_ta.html

with one of the great house bands of all time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AT0QDljpVk&noredirect=1

[Mark Jackson]

Jim,

Nice find. While attending law school, I lived in an apartment along Cedar Road that sat on what would have been the 9th hole of Euclid Golf Club. I believe the area where the clubhouse existed is now a municipal parking lot. I had no idea that a golf course existed in that area when I lived there.

I first learned of Euclid Golf after I joined Mayfield Country Club and was reading a copy of a book that was published in the 1980's to commemorate Mayfield's 75th Anniversary. The book mentioned that 9 holes of Euclid Golf Club was situated on property owned by John D. Rockefeller. According to the book, Mr. Rockefeller would not allow play on those 9 holes on Sundays due to his religious beliefs, which left the members of Euclid Golf to only be able to play the remaining 9 on Sundays. That was one of the reasons why, in 1908, a group of Euclid Golf members left and formed Mayfield. The professional at Euclid Golf, Bert Way, designed the Mayfield course and became Mayfield's first professional. Another group left and formed Shaker Heights Country Club.

The area in Cleveland Heights where Euclid Golf Club existed has some large, old money historic homes, especially along Fairmount Boulevard. There is quite a bit of historical information about Euclid Golf Club on the internet and the Euclid Golf neighborhood that developed on the property.

http://www.euclidgolf.com/index.htm

http://ech.case.edu/cgi/article.pl?id=EC3

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0738532541/qid=1085568763/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-6984566-9127164?v=glance&s=books

Phil,

It's also nice to see that the Euclid Tavern has re-opened, even if it needed a place that sells hot dogs to revitalize it. Both Happy Dog locations in Cleveland are really popular right now and, hopefully, will lead to its continued success. Quite a bit of redevelopment in that area.

[Jon Wiggett]

Interesting that the course plan uses a circle for the tees and a square for the greens. It is often surprising to what NLEs there are in places you never suspected.

Jon

[DFarron]

Thanks for the post!
Lived in pepper Pike for many years and was always interested in the club history but couldn't find much.

[Jim_Kennedy]

Mark,
Thanks for the adding more information.

It sounds like EGC was pretty good. Players in the 1902 Western Open thought "...the course  was very nearly as difficult as the best links abroad, and that the tourney had stamped the Euclid course as a first-class place for the amateur champlonship."
It was so well received that the WGA "...found that there was no rivalry about the (Western) amateur championship and gave it to Euclid."

That track record, and a little help from the Chicago Golf Club, was probably why they got the US Am in 1907. There was also a little bonus, they upset the New York contingent. 
   


Here's a newspaper map of the course:


Here's an excerprt about the course from The Golfer's Magazine. The full article is linked below, and it begins on page 33.

http://digitalarchives.usga.org/mbwtemp/GolfUSGABulletinSeptember1903.pdf

The Euclid course is interesting, the lay of the holes, especially the first nine, requiring  careful play. This half is picturesque, bordered for much of the way by trees and the ground itself undulating.The upper half is more level, and in general a pulled wooden shot is unpunished, although the same cannot be said of a sliced tee shot, as woods and shrubbery make recovery difficult.
But the greens are the most interesting part of the layout of the links. All, although of even texture, are undulating. Sometimes the undulations " take " the ball, and at others, for apparently the same amount of strength and from the same lie, the approach-putt would stop unaccountably short. Again, putts of a yard were missed repeatedly, as shown by Champion James's lamentable showing against young " Eddie " Brown. Chandler Egan was weakest in this department in the finals, repeatedly rimming putts of a yard.
The bunkers at Euclid are of the most sincere variety; cops sheer up for five feet, and with the ball close up, a sidestroke out—dead loss—is inevitable. So the wonder is that Willie Anderson was ever able to make his celebrated 69 there, as he did in last year's Western Open

[Tim_Weiman]

Jim,

Thanks for posting!  The first time I heard of the course was in the small book I believe titled, Golf in Cleveland.  It also discussed a number of other courses that were short lived.  Where I currently live, on the west side of Cleveland, there was a 9 hole course up until the 1970's.  Now it is houses and very large trees.  It is hard to even imagine a course there, especially because old pictures of the course showed very few.  A friends dad told us about the course and said it had great green sites, but was short.
chris

Can you tell us exactly where this course was?

[Joe Zucker]

Can you tell us exactly where this course was?
[/quote]

Based on the street names in the first post, it looks like it was just east of Case Western Reserve University, a few miles out from what is now downtown Cleveland.  Having been to a few bars in that area, it's hard to imagine a top golf course being there.  But there is some gentle elevation change in the area so I guess I can picture it if I squint hard enough.

[MCirba]

Who designed Euclid?

I find it interesting that by 1907 the biggest tournament in the country was still being played on courses with the old cross-bunker, forced carry mentality.   It would be interesting to see which was the first course where that tournament was played that featured more sophisticated methods, and I'm guessing that would be either Garden City (post-Travis) in 1908 or The Country Club in 1910.

[Steve Wilson]

Jon Wiggett,

Completely or at lest nearly off topic, but the late golf writer Peter Dobereiner had a story about stopping by a 9 hole course in Ireland where the actual tees were rounded and the greens squared off.  His conclusion from that phenomenon and some of the other strangeness of the course was that whoever constructed the course knew nothing of the game and had read the the blueprints backwards.  I wish I could recall just where I read that.  I don't think he identified the course and one suspects it may be NLE.

[C. Sturges]

Tim,

Do you mean the course I mentioned?  It was in Bay Village, on the East Side.  I think, but am guessing it was the Dover Bay Country Club, even though it was off of Clague Road.  It was just south of Lake Road and the old Bay Hospital were Sam Shepard worked.

Dover Bay Country Club and Euclid Country Club were both designed by William "Bert" Way.  He designed many of the Country Clubs in Northern Ohio, which were then redesigned by more famous designers, ie Firestone South, redone by RTJ SR.
chris

[Tim_Weiman]

Tim,

Do you mean the course I mentioned?  It was in Bay Village, on the East Side.  I think, but am guessing it was the Dover Bay Country Club, even though it was off of Clague Road.  It was just south of Lake Road and the old Bay Hospital were Sam Shepard worked.

Dover Bay Country Club and Euclid Country Club were both designed by William "Bert" Way.  He designed many of the Country Clubs in Northern Ohio, which were then redesigned by more famous designers, ie Firestone South, redone by RTJ SR.
chris

Chris,

I am very familiar with the area (Clague & Lake) on the border of Bay Village and Rocky River. Depending on exactly where the holes were laid out, it might have been a good little course.

[C. Sturges]

Tim,

From what my friend's dad said it had a couple holes near the river, not sure if they played over the river.  He made it sound like the course was east of Clague Road, as I said I am not sure, but if the park( at Clague and Wolf) was part of the course at one time, then it would of played over the river.  I wish I was older and had the opportunity to play it.  It is sad how many courses have closed just in my life time around Northern Ohio. 
Another course designed by William Bert Way, Aurora Golf Club, closed a couple years back.  Which was another very fun golf course.  I wish they had taken down a few trees, a couple hundred to start with! And this course hosted many tour events back in its day.  Not sure besides Mayfield Country Club, how many of his courses still exist in Northern Ohio.
Slightly off topic has anyone played Hawthorne Valley Country Club recently?  It is a very fun Ross course south east of Cleveland with some one of a kind holes.  Once spring and summer finally show up I was going to see if there would be any interest in a GCA play day there.  I will pre-warn the walkers, carts only, but worth it in my opinion.
chris
chris

[Joe Zucker]

Chris,
I love Hawthorne Valley.  You're right when you say it is a "fun" course and it's a shame that it is riding only since it is a reasonable walk.  There are a lot of really interesting holes.  Some of the best shots on the course in my opinion would be the tee shot on #2, it is tough blind shot around a sharp dogleg.  #6 is a funky par 5, but I always found it to be very challenging strategically. 

The finish is fantastic.  #16 is a long tough par 4 that leaves a really interesting second shot where the ball will probably be above your feet. #17 is just straight away and tough.  I think #18 can be overlooked because it is somewhat short by today's standards,  it looks a little like a Par 4 version of #10 at Pine Needles with the uphill dogleg left tee shot.  The approach is only a short iron, but it is not an easy shot. 

Even though  the course is shorter, the strategic options off the tee are much better than average.  The recession and tightening of the golf industry in Northeast, Ohio caused Hawthorne to open its doors to the public, which is a benefit to some.

[Tim_Weiman]

Tim,

From what my friend's dad said it had a couple holes near the river, not sure if they played over the river.  He made it sound like the course was east of Clague Road, as I said I am not sure, but if the park( at Clague and Wolf) was part of the course at one time, then it would of played over the river.  I wish I was older and had the opportunity to play it.  It is sad how many courses have closed just in my life time around Northern Ohio. 
Another course designed by William Bert Way, Aurora Golf Club, closed a couple years back.  Which was another very fun golf course.  I wish they had taken down a few trees, a couple hundred to start with! And this course hosted many tour events back in its day.  Not sure besides Mayfield Country Club, how many of his courses still exist in Northern Ohio.
Slightly off topic has anyone played Hawthorne Valley Country Club recently?  It is a very fun Ross course south east of Cleveland with some one of a kind holes.  Once spring and summer finally show up I was going to see if there would be any interest in a GCA play day there.  I will pre-warn the walkers, carts only, but worth it in my opinion.
chris
chris

Chris,

If the course was east of Clague Road it might have been very, very good. That area would have been much better than what Tillinghast was given to create Lakewood and also better than the property for Westwood.

[C. Sturges]

Joe,

Hawthorne Valley is very underrated/under the radar of most Cleveland golfers.  More people should be playing there now that it is public.

Tim,

I think the property is similar to Lakewood and Westwood, both have areas that are good, but with 18 holes they then play on flatter land for half the courses.  I think that would have happened with Dover Bay, unless the river was part of the course.  I am trying to find pictures of the course, I have seen a couple somewhere, I just can not remember where.

The part I find most interesting of the courses being discussed, they all have better property than Euclid CC did, or I am pretty sure.  That area seems to have a lot less ground undulations.  But that is where the money was.
chris

[Chris_Blakely]

The Harbor Club in Ashtabula
The Black Brook Club in Mentor
J E Good Park in Akron
Chardon Lakes (9 holes only)

Are all Bert Way courses.

Chris