NLE courses still in the ground

[Craig Disher]

Peter,Pinehurst #3 is partially NLE and the holes are certainly different than the original design especially with the addition of condos and homes bracketing the fairways and the loss of a few holes. There is a wealth of historical photographic info and I believe LIDAR data is also available.

[Bill Seitz]

The south course at Makena on Maui looks like it's not totally jungle from the Google Maps aerial, but not sure how old that is.  I think they maintain four holes from that side, including one along the ocean.  The north course is still there, and is a private Discovery Land properly, and a lot of fun to play, with really great turf.

[Padraig Dooley]

Harbour Point in Cork is still in the ground.

https://goo.gl/maps/Brk3rqndpA22
It closed about 10 years now.

[Jeff Evagues]

The south course at Makena on Maui looks like it's not totally jungle from the Google Maps aerial, but not sure how old that is.  I think they maintain four holes from that side, including one along the ocean.  The north course is still there, and is a private Discovery Land properly, and a lot of fun to play, with really great turf.

They kept a few holes for the staff to play. I liked both courses.

[Kris Spence]

The Fort George Island GC, Jax FL is a closed Ross I walked about 10 years ago.  Hole corridors still visible on Google Earth.  The course was fully intact with bunkers and greens still recognizable through the growth. The park system has maintained trails through the course.


Another is the 9 hole Mayview Manor course by Ross near Blowing Rock NC.  It is currently an equestrian facility but you can see green fill pads and tee boxes in the pasture areas.

[Jonathan Mallard]

The Lower Cascades was part of The Homestead's offerings.


It's a RTJ course, opened in the 60's I think.


It has been the second course for qualifying rounds for the US Amateur and US Mid-Amateur, when the Cascades, or as it is sometimes called, the 'Upper.' was the tournament host course.

[BCrosby]

Is the Ross course that adjoins FDR's Little White House still maintained?


There was talk several years ago about a renovation, but I've heard nothing on that since.


Bob

[Dave Doxey]

Virginia National in Bluemont VA.    Jerry Matthews design.  Closed a few years back.  Site is near a Civil War battlefield.  Now a nature center owned by Shenandoah University.  Open to the public with cart paths as walking/biking trails.  Interesting to watch nature take over an abandoned course.


https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1369232,-77.8741291,1512m/data=!3m1!1e3

[Mike Bodo]

Ann Arbor Country Club (o.k.a. Loch Alpine Golf and Country Club) NLE since 2016. Comprising 128 acres, the Front 9 was built in 1928 and the back 9 completed in 1931. Architect unknown.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/Ann+Arbor+Country+Club/@42.1861151,-83.7342397,44411m/data=!3m1!1e3

The golf course was part of a mixed-use tract of land located not far from Barton Hills CC, with residential homes part of the future development plan. The original owner/developer, Ward Blakely, died in 1935. His son, Malcolm, took over ownership and in 1954 sold the course and its 454 residential lots to a consortium of Detroit businessmen for $130,000.00. Nothing by today's standards, but I'm sure a pretty penny back then. Hoping to generate more interest, the club rebranded itself the Ann Arbor Country Club in 1963. Ownership changed hands a number of times from 1961 until 2001, when an equity membership was formed. As fate would have it, after 9/11 and the ensuing economic downturn, membership declined drastically and in 2010, the club went back into the hands of private ownership and was sold to Lew Whaley, a physician from West Virginia, for $625,000. To personally protect himself, Lew set the club up under the LLC, A2C2. Lew apparently was a friend of then member, Michael Weikle, who convinced Lew to purchase the bank note the club owed and keep the club operational.

After several years of struggles and the club going the semi-private route, the losses eventually became too great and the Ann Arbor Country Club closed its doors following the 2015 season. Whaley listed the property in the spring of 2016 hoping to sell it to someone willing to continue operating is as a golf club or a residential real estate developer. There were no takers to buy the property for use as a golf club, nor could Whaley (A2C2) sell it to the residential developer that was interested in acquiring it due to a stipulation written into the clubs deed stating that 75% of Loch Alpine's home owners had to agree to any golf course conversion. The ensuing litigation that's occurred as fall-out from A2C2's inability to get the required approval from the Loch Alpine Improvement Association (LAIA) of any conversion plan has resulted in the course becoming overgrown and non-recognizable. A great article on the stand-off between the residents, current owner and real estate developer can be found here.

https://annarborobserver.com/articles/trouble_at_loch_alpine.html#.XI6OZrfYpKs


The course itself sits on a beautiful piece of rolling land, with some interesting elevation changes. At 6,400 yds. it's arguably on the short side, with homes on certain holes being somewhat too visible. It's not in an easily accessible or heavily trafficked area, which works against it for daily fee play. And unlike Barton Hills, just a few miles to the East, it never had the same prestige or brand-name recognition to attract a sufficient amount of private members. In the time that's passed since the course closed there is waste-high grass where the greens once stood and coyotes and deer now roam the fairways golfers once occupied. The image of the course from Google Maps would lead you to believe there's still a healthy, vibrant course on site. That aerial image had to have been taken before it closed, because it looks nothing remotely like this now.

I never played Ann Arbor Country Club, but I visited and walked the grounds in the fall of 2015. I considered joining the following year only to learn that they had shut their doors for good. I had hoped a company such as Club Corp. would buy the owner out and preserve Ann Arbor CC as a going concern, but they appear to not have shown an interest and probably for good reason.

For anyone interested, here's a link to a video of still images taken of the course in 2014 by Golfblogger.com (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMXQwpMTPwU&t=70s). It's sad to drive by this course and see what it's become, but it was probably ill-conceived by the original owner to build a course so close to Barton and try to go toe-to-toe with them on a private membership basis.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Not quite on topic, but I saw a history of O'Hare airport in Chicago, and an old aerial showed a pretty nice looking golf course right where the eventual terminal stands today.  Any historians know which one that was?

[BCrosby]

Jeff -


It was a Langford course called The Orchard. I heard recently from Ron Forse that the course is the source for O'Hare's call letters - ORD. Amazing if true.


Bob

[Jeff_Brauer]

I knew the Orchard name derivative, but thought the whole area was an apple orchard, not just a golf course.


Another interesting gca tidbit about O'Hare - Larry Packard's first job as a landscape architect involved something in the layout of O'Hare.  Never thought to ask him exactly what.

[Peter Flory]

My understanding was that it was the club that then migrated to Twin Orchard after it got eminent domained. 

[Sven Nilsen]

Jeff -


It was a Langford course called The Orchard. I heard recently from Ron Forse that the course is the source for O'Hare's call letters - ORD. Amazing if true.


Bob

It was known as Twin Orchard CC up until the club moved at which point it was named O'Hare Field GC.  The course survived at least until the 1950's as it appears on a 1956 map.


Mohawk CC and Greenview GC were two other courses nearby which went by the wayside due to either highway expansion or utilization of the land around the airport for other purposes.


Sven

[Tim_Cronin]

Jeff -


It was a Langford course called The Orchard. I heard recently from Ron Forse that the course is the source for O'Hare's call letters - ORD. Amazing if true.


Bob

Twin Orchard Country Club was organized in 1924, and the Langford and Moreau course opened later that year. It was build on two farms and two fruit orchards, hence the name, adjacent to the unincorporated town of Orchard Place.


In 1942, Douglas Aircraft bought adjacent land and built a manufacturing plant and Douglas Field, which was eventually named Orchard Place Airport. The ORD designation comes from that name.


Twin Orchard had 27 holes. The extra nine was for ladies and children, and that nine remained when Orchard Place Airport began expanding after Chicago took it over. By 1951, the main 18 closed and the membership took over Skycrest and renamed it Twin Orchard. The remaining nine was leased by the Walsh brothers and run as a public course through 1959, when the three original O'Hare International terminals were built on the site of the nine holes.


Larry Packard was working for the Chicago Park District as a landscape engineer when word came a comprehensive airport plan was needed. He drew up a design for a circular field with the terminals in the middle. So did someone else, but his plan was accepted. He turned down the job of landscape engineer there, he said in his biography, "Double Doglegs and Other Hazards," because there wasn't much to plant and, "After a couple of years, I'd be out of a job again."

[BCrosby]

This thread is why we love GCA.


Thanks all.


Bob

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tim,


I saw that circular runway plan in the article.  Wild, and effective circulation, something O'Hare could have used in future years.



DIA uses a similar plan with all the land they have, but all 90 degrees, where the runways end at the terminal on both sides, eliminating turning around and taxiing back to save time.  And on one of my flights out of there, beat a storm coming in.  Packard's plan was really something else.


BTW, was the Twin Orchard out in Long Grove in any way related to the original one?  It later gained a bit of infamy because MLK's shooter had a brother working there on the maintenance crew.

[Peter Flory]

BTW, was the Twin Orchard out in Long Grove in any way related to the original one?  It later gained a bit of infamy because MLK's shooter had a brother working there on the maintenance crew.

Yes, I believe they relocated their club to Long Grove from the O'Hare location. 

[Tim_Cronin]

BTW, was the Twin Orchard out in Long Grove in any way related to the original one?  It later gained a bit of infamy because MLK's shooter had a brother working there on the maintenance crew.

Yes, I believe they relocated their club to Long Grove from the O'Hare location.

That's right. The Twin Orchard membership bought Skycrest, which was originally called Kildeer, and renamed it Twin Orchard after the original location. And actually, the Twin Orchard at O'Hare wasn't the original location of the group. It started as a club called Devonshire, but lost the lease on the original location and started Twin Orchard as a permanent place. It was, for 27 years.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Looking at Historic Aerials, they were building the first terminal building (now replaced by a United terminal) right up to the western border of TO in 1951.  You can also see several trademark LM box car greens.  By 1960 grading is going on for the rest of the terminals (now housing American) but you can see a few greens in between some haul roads that haven't been obliterated.


There was an old course at the current Twin Orchards site.  In the 1952 aerials the maintenance level really picked up from the 1939 aerial.  Not sure if due to irrigation, a good early super, or the new group buying it and investing.


I remember from 1958 to 1962 or so, we took Dad down to O'Hare, where he helicoptered to Midway for his flights out of town.  After that, he flew directly out of O'Hare.  OT, but he claimed to have flown with O'Hare briefly in WWII.  Could never confirm, of course and I always suspected dear old Dad exaggerated some of his war stories.  For instance, he claimed to be an Ace, requiring 5 "kills" but I only found 4 in his log book.  (which is now in the Nimitz museum in Fredericksburg, TX)