US Open venues I know nothing about

[Garland Bayley]

Are any of these NLE? Are any of them of significant architectural interest that they could be informatively discussed here? Are any of you members of any of these?

When I look at names like Fresh Meadow, I think probably something they dug up to build Shea Stadium.   

1952 Northwood Club, Dallas TX
1946 Canterbury Golf Club, Cleveland, OH
1932 Fresh Meadow CC, Flushing, NY
1925 Worcester CC, Worcester, MA
1923 Inwood CC, Inwood, NY
1922 Skokie CC, Glencoe, IL
1921 Columbia CC, Chevy Chase, MD
1916 Minikahda Club, Minneapolis, MN
1914 Midlothian CC, Blue Island, IL
1912 Country Club of Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
1906 Onwentsia Club, Lake Forest, IL

[CJ Carder]

For no real reason at all, I've definitely heard of Worcester, Skokie, Columbia, and Canterbury.  Don't know anything of note to add to the discussion other than that they have at least some name recognition.

[Bill Gayne]

Columbia CC is still open and it's an outstanding golf course. In 2003 the club hosted the USGA Junior Am. It's too short and way too tight peice of property to host a modern Open. I suspect many of the courses on the list are still very good tests of golf but short by today's standard and lacks the real estate to host a tournament with a significant number of spectators.

[mike_beene]

The Northwood routing was posted by Kalen a few months ago.It is a William Diddel(sp?) course and real popular in near north Dallas. A lot of solid holes and great conditions.One of more expensive clubs in town.Open was only USGA event,I believe.Julius Boros interrupted Hogans Open streak there.I think Hogan still finished high.

[Patrick Hodgdon]

I know of 2 of them. Minikahda CC is a classic Ross course right outside Mpls. However at the time it was played for the US Open it was designed by Willie Watson (also the original designer of Interlachen CC before a Ross redesign). Chick Evans of the Evans Scholar fame won the 16 open with only 7 clubs. After some recent renovations that tried to go back to more of the Ross blueprints I've heard great things about the course and have heard their waiting list is about as long as ICC's which shows it holds its own as one of the best clubs in the Twin Cities. It was also the site for one of Bobby Jones' US Amateur's I think in 1927.

Midlothian C.C. I know a little about after having met John Coyne, author of The Caddie Who Knew Ben Hogan, who grew up caddying/caddymastering there in the 40's. He has a second golf novel coming out titled, The Caddy Who Caddied for Hickory which will feature a match at Midolothian between Walter Hagen and an up and coming caddy. To the best of my knowledge it still is around but probably was redesigned.

[PThomas]

Skokie- recently restored by ...i cant remember who! - and is a fine course

Onwenstia - Doak's group restored/reworked? it in the late 90's...has a Prairie Dunes look to it with a lot of high grasses....very enjoyable

Midlothian - still exits, a good course

Minikada- top 100!

[Adam Russell]

Through my love and research of Donald Ross, I know the CC of Buffalo has one of the most unique par-3's I ever seen from a "classical" design. It is originally a Travis from 1910 or 11. #6, 176 yards. It looks akin to an island green, rising from the middle of a limestone quarry with bunkers fronting both sides. They call it the "pulpit hole". Really striking architecturally. As for the rest of the course, I don't know enough about the tweaking by RTJ, Cornish, and William Schreiner to comment on the overall design of the course.

[J_ Crisham]

Skokie is probably a top 6 or 8 in Chicago. 8th hole is one of the hardest in Chicago area. Midlothian is a brute out of the gates-renovated in the last 10 years or so. Onwentsia was always a good course but long considered  to be more of a status club amongst the Lake Forest elite. Pales in comparison to nearby Shoreacres in golf quality. Minikada is a Ross gem that Chick Evans made history at -definitely worth playing along with Interlachen and White Bear Yacht Club and Edina . Canterbury is the site of a Nicklaus Pga  in 1973? All great courses that have been passed by the evolution of the length of modern championship venues.

[Brad Tufts]

Adam/all:

If I'm not mistaken, the Country Club of Buffalo now in play under that name is not the layout that hosted the US Open.  I believe the venue that hosted the Open is now the Grover Cleveland Park municipal course.  It's very close to the center of town, and is less than 6000 yards.  The Club moved when the current course was built.  It appears from the aerial that some of the cross-bunkering still exists as well.

As for Worcester CC, it remains the only venue in the US to have hosted a US Open, a PGA Championship, and a Ryder Cup (1929?).  It is a Ross classic, and an equal to many of the courses closer to Boston.  They hosted the MA amateur in 05 or 06.  I've never played it.

[Phil_the_Author]

Fresh Meadow is NLE. It was In Queens, New York. Designed by Tillinghast, Gene Sarazen was the head pro there when he won the Open in 1932.

This is the first course designed by Tilly to have hosted 2 national championships, matched later that summer when the Amateur was played at 5 Farms.

[JR Potts]

Skokie- recently restored by ...i cant remember who! - and is a fine course

Onwenstia - Doak's group restored/reworked? it in the late 90's...has a Prairie Dunes look to it with a lot of high grasses....very enjoyable

Midlothian - still exits, a good course

Minikada- top 100!

I would like to know how you gained access to Onwenstia and Skokie?

Those are two uber-rich, uber-blue blood and uber-exclusive country clubs.

[Jason Connor]

Canterbury was just awarded the 2009 Senior PGA Championship.  

http://www.pga.com/2008/news/pga/03/10/senior_pga_canterbury_031008/index.html

So you'll learn more about it soon. 

I used to drive by it all the time, but I never played it.  Actually made it to the first tee once but I didn't get to play it (the kid next door caddied there, he took me one Monday, but they wouldn't let me out, as they probably shouldn't have).

[Mike Erdmann]

Skokie's been discussed on here a number of times and has a profile here on GCA.   Interesting mix of Ross and Langford & Moreau holes.

Played Columbia CC just a couple weeks ago.  Just NW of Washington DC on Connecticut Ave.  Very enjoyable old course on a good piece of property with a number of interesting holes.  As said earlier, it's too short by modern standards.  Beautiful old clubhouse that's currently undergoing a major restoration of its own.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Garland,

Inwood is a neat course with a lot of history.

It also hosted a PGA.

Jones hit a famous 2-iron from the rough into the 18th green, a green that was fronted by water.  That green went right up to the water.
I've heard that the club was going to restore the green to that configuration.

Tom Doak did a nice job on the golf course about 10 years ago.

It's windswept, has some unique routing and hole order, a great clubhouse that reaks of history and tradition. 

If it was closer to my home I'd consider joining it, it's fun to play.

[Ed Oden]

Canterbury is very nice.  Most of the rankings seem to have it pegged at the bottom of the the top 100.  I'd say that's about right.  Immaculate condition, slick greens, thick rough and plays much longer than the yardage.  A very classic feel to the course and club.  Hopefully they have removed a lot of trees since I played it a few years ago.  They really encroached the lines of play on a number of holes.  I think its held a couple of PGA's in addition to the US Open.

[PThomas]

Jack did win the 73 PGA at Canterbury, his 14th*, passing Bob Jones at that point

* back then they counted Amateur wins as majors!

[Tim Nugent]

Ryan, I used to hang out at Onwensia when I was a young teenager - I caddied there.  It's an easy way to get "inside the gates".  Haven't been there since Tommy cut down all the trees (well reportedly alot of them).  It's a fairly short members club on fairly flat ground.  Had a back-to-back double green that could be dam-near impossible if the pin on #8 was up  on the back slope and they had the greens rolling double-digit (although you could get 2 chances with one putt - if you hit it past the hole, it would turn around on roll back, usually stopping farther then the last putt.  I always was fond of #18.  A long 4, it has old, short, penal horizontal bunkers flanking the begining of the fairway and the green was at fairway elevation (a fairway green).  The course had many big old Elms back in the late 60's/early 70's and some even survived the Dutch Elm plague.  I suspect Tom cut down many of the replants.  Committes tend to over populate to compenste and when they matured, look out - it';s a forest, not a golf course.
I think Ron Prichard did the Skokie work with Wadsworth doing the contruction work.  Also think Bob Lohman might have down the Midilothian bunker work.   Interesting fact about Midilothian.  Dick and Ken did what could have been the first computer controlled irrigtion system there.  Remember Control Data?  They worked with them on it.  I remember it took up a whole wall in the super's office.

[Sean_A]

As for Worcester CC, it remains the only venue in the US to have hosted a US Open, a PGA Championship, and a Ryder Cup (1929?).  It is a Ross classic, and an equal to many of the courses closer to Boston.  They hosted the MA amateur in 05 or 06.  I've never played it.

I am pretty sure Oakland Hills joined this club after hosting the Ryder Cup in 2004. 

Ciao

[John Foley]

Brad is correct on the CC of Buffalo. The current CC is a 1926 Donald Ross layout in Willamsville and the one hosting the US open is now the venerable Grover Clevland Park.

Some history.

The County Club of Buffalo built the clubhouse on this site in 1901. The 18-hole golf course, tennis courts, and a polo field were added in 1902. George Cary was the local architect and also built the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, a National Historic Landmark. In 1910, A.L. Pfitzner, a pilot from Curtiss, made the first airplane flight in Western New York from the Bailey Avenue site. The C.C.B. was host to the 1912 U.S. Open won by John J. McDermott with a score of 283. The city purchased the club in 1925 for $800,000.00.The site was renamed Grover Cleveland Park to honor the former Mayor of Buffalo, Governor of New York State and President of the United States Of America. The County of Erie now owns and operates the challenging 18-Hole golf course.



There was a  thread from a year or so ago on the current CC oF Buffalo that had some good pics of the said quarry hole but I did not find anything when I did a quick search.

[Adam Russell]

John, what events led to the city purchasing the club? And what facilitated the move to the '26 Ross layout? It seems strange to me that a club would choose to design a new course when the original was deemed worthy to host the Open. Are there any other courses that have hosted early major championships that are now on completely different layouts... ahhh so many questions 

[Brad Tufts]

Hi Sean,

I had it slightly askew, and neglected to look it up before my first post.  Worcester CC is the only course to have hosted a US Open (1925), a Ryder Cup (1927, different from what I wrote above), and a US Womens Open (1960).

Adam/John:

My guess on the move from Grover Cleveland to Williamsville was to gain some more room for polo, a new clubhouse, and a longer more interesting course.  The current driving range looks like it was once a prime place for polo.  I believe, (not having been by the GCP site though) that the city was growing quickly around the GC site.  My question is, considering I go to Buffalo every year on business, is Grover Cleveland worth a play for the history?  Anyone know the current course?  I think I saw that it was something like 5800 yards, par 68?

[Garland Bayley]

Wow! Great history lesson. Thanks guys! Amazing that my guess on Fresh Meadow being NLE turned out to be true, at least the NLE part. Don't know the location and if it has any relationship to Shea Stadium.

[Brad Klein]

The old Fresh Meadows site is on the southwest corner of the Long Island Expressway and Francis Lewis Blvd. It's 4-5 miles ESE of Shea Stadium, thus no relation in Queens County geography where 2-3 miles is another world.

[Tom_Doak]

Brad:

Isn't that the "new" Fresh Meadow.  I thought the course where Sarazen won was on the old World's Fair grounds.

Garland:

While I am pleased that a couple of people liked our work at Onwentsia, it was NOT a restoration.  The turn-of-the-century course which hosted the Open was about 5700 yards, and no one had a great desire to go back to that (or to fill in the pond they dug in the sixties).  We rebuilt a handful of greens and took out a lot of trees to present more open views across the course -- Tim N. was right, they overplanted the heck out of it when the elms started dying.

I believe the same is true for Midlothian, there's little left of the course that hosted the Open.

I have suggested to Inwood that they try to get an inter-club match going between some of these old Open sites (and others with which you may be more familiar) ... perhaps to mark the 75th or 100th anniversary of their Opens.

[Tim Nugent]

Tom,

I can understand about the pond, Dad put that in as an irrigation pond when they went to an automatic system.  The dirt went to create the contaiment mounds for the driving range (which was the old polo field).