Holyoke Golf Club (not Ballyneal) Design Origins

[MCirba]

Last week while out west I happened to play the Holyoke Golf Club nine-hole course and am looking for information related to the architectural origins.   The greens are quite small, but not unsophisticated by any means, and the general routing was rather sound.   My first impression was that it was perhaps designed by locals, but then came across a news clipping today that indicates some pretty significant names were associated with an earlier effort.

Here's what I know.   Golf was played in Phillips County since around 1919 with a course about 2 miles west of Holyoke.   In 1929 the club leased 129 acres from a woman landowner named Cora Shafer that included today's course location and it seems the course was open by 1930.   In 1943 one F.B. Kelly, owner and editor of the Holyoke Enterprise purchased the land for the club outright and by 1948 the course fell under municipal ownership, which continues to this day.

The following article is from 1922 and it seems the club was looking to Donald Ross (and by proxy, Henry Hughes) to build them an 18 hole course.   It seems unlikely that they would have made such a significant investment on leased land at the time but stranger things have happened.    in any case, I'm hopeful that others of our crack research team here might be able to contribute additional information.   Thanks in advance for any information.

[MCirba]

Well, Flickr seems to have changed their photo distribution methods so it looks like I need to change from Flickr.   In any case, I'll reproduce the contents of the article as follows;

April 17th, 1922 - Henry Hughes of Ivywild left last week for Holyoke in response to a message from the Donald J. Ross company to build a championship golf course at that place.   He was negotiating with the Cherry Hills club of Denver concerning the construction of that course, under Mr. Flynn of Philadelphia when he received this call east.   Mr. Hughes has been the constructor of the Ross type of links for some time.  He was accompanied by his son Lawrence, who will assist him.  The Broadmoor course is the Ross type.   Mr. Hughes helped with the laying out of that one.   He works from blueprints.

[Blake Conant]

Toughest greens in Phillips County. Cool bit of history associated with the place as well. Look forward to playing them next week!

[Tom Bacsanyi]

They have an open Superintendent position at last check. A great opportunity for all you armchair supers/greenkeepers to show us what you're made of!

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:


Thanks for this post.  I had never heard anything about the history of the Holyoke course.  You’d think someone would have mentioned it to me! 


I never went out and walked it, only drove by, so it’s not included in The Confidential Guide, and so I never tried to research its origin.

[MCirba]

Let me try this Flickr thingy again..