Mike Cirba's Forgotten Foxburg: America's Oldest Golf Club? is posted under IMO

[Joe Bausch]

With recent discussions around the oldest North American courses, I'm resurrecting this great piece by Mike Cirba on Foxburg Country Club.
I recently stopped in for a round at Foxburg with my hickories.  Hickories is truly the ONLY way to enjoy this great old course.  It's a step back in time and provided me the same feel as visiting Oakhurst Links.  The history of the property is palpable.


The trees have encroached even more in some spots but the elevation change of the property is dramatic.  I dug into a few of the concrete containers to fashion an old sand tee.  Certainly the tee shot and cop bunkers on hole #7 stand out as a nod to the past along with the table top finishing green on #9.

If anyone is traveling across I-80 in Pennsylvania, Foxburg is 15 minutes out of your way.  A stop in to the clubhouse alone is worth the time.

Ken

I enjoyed it plenty with modern clubs, Ken!

[MCirba]

With recent discussions around the oldest North American courses, I'm resurrecting this great piece by Mike Cirba on Foxburg Country Club.
I recently stopped in for a round at Foxburg with my hickories.  Hickories is truly the ONLY way to enjoy this great old course.  It's a step back in time and provided me the same feel as visiting Oakhurst Links.  The history of the property is palpable.


The trees have encroached even more in some spots but the elevation change of the property is dramatic.  I dug into a few of the concrete containers to fashion an old sand tee.  Certainly the tee shot and cop bunkers on hole #7 stand out as a nod to the past along with the table top finishing green on #9.

If anyone is traveling across I-80 in Pennsylvania, Foxburg is 15 minutes out of your way.  A stop in to the clubhouse alone is worth the time.

Ken

Ken Fry,

Thanks for the lift and glad you enjoyed Foxburg.   It is certainly a gem and in a perfect world some of the vast USGA Treasury would look into how best to support, preserve and present such important pieces of our collective history.

Shouldn't that be a fundamental part of their mission?

[Ken Fry]

I enjoyed it plenty with modern clubs, Ken!

Certainly could Joe.  My view was for nostalgic sake!
Ken

[Ken Fry]

Shouldn't that be a fundamental part of their mission?

That's a great point Mike.  In the US, the time period from 1880-1910 is the foundation of golf.  There are so many stories of course foundlings and how golf was established is the US.  Places like Foxburg, PA or White Sulphur Springs, WV or Lenox, MA seem unlikely locations versus places like Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston or New York.

Ken