The first College Golf Courses

[Kyle Harris]

My efforts to restore and preserve the Penn State White Course have lead me to this interesting note:


I can't help but wonder what other college golf courses had been built to that point. In 1899 Penn State had an erstwhile 9 holes built but the present site wasn't occupied until 1919.

[Allan Long]

Kyle,

I found an old article on campus courses from Golf World (1994) that listed these around the same period.

Aurora University - (George Williams GC, 1900)
Dartmouth - (Hanover CC, 1899)
Princeton - (Springdale GC, 1895)
Williams College - (Taconic GC, 1896)

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle,

I found an old article on campus courses from Golf World (1994) that listed these around the same period.

Aurora University - (George Williams GC, 1900)
Dartmouth - (Hanover CC, 1899)
Princeton - (Springdale GC, 1895)
Williams College - (Taconic GC, 1896)

Thank you Allan. I've begun to probe into these places and none are still existing. Dartmouth's current course (Hanover Country Club) was built in 1922 and was recently restored/renovated by Ron Prichard. Coincidentally, the architect (Orrin Jones?) may have worked for Willie Park, Jr. at one point.

Springdale is currently a Flynn design built in the latter 1920s and is not owned by the University as far as I can tell. Is Taconic owned by Williams?

Amazingly, The White Course holes still existing from 1922 are largely unchanged except for corridor widths!

[Allan Long]

Kyle,

From Hanover's website, "The Hanover Country Club, Dartmouth College's oldest existing recreational and athletic facility, continues to fit the description of 1899. At the time, HCC was a mere 9 hole course measuring a total distance of 2100 yards with its longest hole being 318 yards. Through a series of generous gifts from Henry H. Hilton, class of 1890, additional land was purchased in the early 1900's on the east side of the Vale of Tempe (more commonly known today as "The Gully") allowing the expansion of the course to 18 holes in 1922. Orrin Smith, a former construction superintendent for both Donald Ross and Willie Park, Jr., is credited with the design of the original 18 hole course."

From Princeton, "In the fall of 1895, the Princeton Golf Club – now Springdale Golf Club – was formed by the alumni, faculty and undergraduates of Princeton University. A nine-hole course was laid out in a large field known as "Stockton Woods" to the west of the old race track at the lower end of Bayard Lane. The course opened for play in 1896, and the first tournament was held a year later. Work was started on a new nine-hole course that opened for play in March 1902. The old course on "Stockton Woods" was then abandoned, and the existing 18-hole course was opened on June 1, 1915. The corse, as laid out by Gerald B. Lambert, was substantially the same as it is today. Well-known designer William Flynn, who created Huntingdon Valley Country Club in Pennsylvania, reworked some of the course's features in 1928.

As far as Taconic, the land that Taconic occupies is owned by Williams College, but an independent Board of Directors oversees the daily operation.

[Mike_Cirba]

Kyle,

I found an old article on campus courses from Golf World (1994) that listed these around the same period.

Aurora University - (George Williams GC, 1900)
Dartmouth - (Hanover CC, 1899)
Princeton - (Springdale GC, 1895)
Williams College - (Taconic GC, 1896)

Thank you Allan. I've begun to probe into these places and none are still existing. Dartmouth's current course (Hanover Country Club) was built in 1922 and was recently restored/renovated by Ron Prichard. Coincidentally, the architect (Orrin Jones?) may have worked for Willie Park, Jr. at one point.

Springdale is currently a Flynn design built in the latter 1920s and is not owned by the University as far as I can tell. Is Taconic owned by Williams?

Amazingly, The White Course holes still existing from 1922 are largely unchanged except for corridor widths!

Kyle,

Hugh Wilson was on the greens committee that built and opened the 1902 Princeton nine-holer.

[Kyle Harris]

Thanks all.

The current White Course was a part of a larger Athletic Program started by the ever fascinating Hugo Bezdek in 1919. The Course was developed as a part of a large master plan that includes the Recreation Building, The current White Course, and old Beaver Stadium which was moved to its present site on the eastern edge of campus in 1960.

I am curious as to whether or not these earlier efforts were organizations of the students or actual planned developments of the college like Penn State's. Penn State students had laid out golf courses around the campus in the late 1890's (a 1901 article mentions golf being played for 'several years' prior) and had several abortive attempts to organize a country club in the 1900s/1910s.

[Mike_Cirba]

The "Golf Clubs of the MGA" book by Dr. Richard Quirin indicates that the nine-hole course built in 1902 was on the same site as today's Sprindale and that it was designed by Willie Dunn.   I'm not sure if that's accurate.

[Kyle Harris]

Mike and all,

I'm hoping someone comes along with something that knocks my obvious bias into the ground but there must be something to the fact that PSU's 1922 holes have a clear architectural history dating back to 1919 and with such names as R.D. Pryde and Willie Park, Jr. with aerial data showing that the golf course is a chainsaw and a lowered H.O.C. from that original design has some significance in the timeline of College Golf Courses. I am awaiting Ron Prichard's response about Hanover, but the website is throwing around words like "new original holes" and "renovation.'

Coincidentally, the distances on the Park holes at PSU are the same as in 1922 as well!

[BCrosby]

I've read of plans to build a Harvard course circa 1903. My impression is that it was built and then lost to urban development not very long after it opened. The schlep from Cambridge to Myopia Hunt is a long one.

Bob 

[Kyle Harris]

I've read of plans to build a Harvard course circa 1903. My impression is that it was built and then lost to urban development not very long after it opened. The schlep from Cambridge to Myopia Hunt is a long one.

Bob 

Bob,

Is that where Harvard plays? I've been wondering what their stake in this whole thing is.

[BCrosby]

Kyle -

They did at one time. I think they now move around Boston area courses with TCC being used most often.

Bob

[scott_wood]

my understand of the restoration/renovation that Gil Hanse is currently doing at Williams is that Taconic's Board conceived and have implemented the plan, but that approval and funding came via Williams.....
some pretty neat stuff...am anxious to see more next spring....

[Ronald Montesano]

"While the land that Taconic Golf Club occupies is owned by Williams College, an independent Board of Directors oversees the daily operation."

Straight from http://www.taconicgolf.com/

The Hanse work will be completed by late Spring, 2009.

[John Kirk]

I don't have notes in front of me, but I'm pretty sure Stanford University had a nine hole course called Machrihanish around the turn of the century, before Thomas and Bell were hired to design the full eighteen hole course.

[Phil McDade]

Kyle,

I found an old article on campus courses from Golf World (1994) that listed these around the same period.

Aurora University - (George Williams GC, 1900)
Dartmouth - (Hanover CC, 1899)
Princeton - (Springdale GC, 1895)
Williams College - (Taconic GC, 1896)

Thank you Allan. I've begun to probe into these places and none are still existing. Dartmouth's current course (Hanover Country Club) was built in 1922 and was recently restored/renovated by Ron Prichard. Coincidentally, the architect (Orrin Jones?) may have worked for Willie Park, Jr. at one point.

Springdale is currently a Flynn design built in the latter 1920s and is not owned by the University as far as I can tell. Is Taconic owned by Williams?

Amazingly, The White Course holes still existing from 1922 are largely unchanged except for corridor widths!

Kyle:

The George Williams GC is very much alive and well. See this:

http://www.aurora.edu/gwc/community/golfcourse.htm

This is one of the more fascinating historical courses in Wisconsin. It dates to 1900, making it one of probably among a dozen or so oldest courses in the state (the oldest dates to 1895, if memory serves...). Its original designer was James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, who had a strong local connection to the Lake Geneva, WI, area. I have not played the course (I live about an hour away), but have driven by a few times, and some of the original quirky architecture still survives. I'm hoping to go down there this summer for a round and some historical research; given that it's on a college campus, I'm guessing there's a good chance some archival records are still around. I'll certainly share whatever I turn up.

[Kyle Harris]

Phil,

I'd be very interested in what you find, especially how this came to be:

"It was created in 1900 with only one hole and expanded to 18 holes in 1927."

[Mike Sweeney]

RTJ built the first 9 holes of the Cornell course in 1941, and before that they used the CC of Ithaca:

The Country Club of Ithaca was founded in March of 1900 by a group of leading Ithaca businessmen and distinguished professors at Cornell University.  The first Country Club President, W.D. Bancroft, a professor from Cornell University, wanted a country club similar to the ones that were being built at the time in Corning and Elmira.  Professor Bancroft and the founding members were able to rent land from Cornell and build a clubhouse and 9-hole golf course on what is now Wyckoff Avenue. 

During the first half of the 1900s the clubhouse and golf course changed locations several times in the Cayuga Heights area, moving from Wyckoff Avenue to Highland.  In the 1920s the club moved again to Triphammer and Jessup Roads and built an 18-hole course.  In 1958, the club sold some of its land to Cornell University and built a new clubhouse, swimming pool, and the present day golf course that was designed by Geoffery Cornish, who was one of the premier designers of the time.  For additional recreation, tennis courts were added in the 1970's.

[Phil McDade]

Phil,

I'd be very interested in what you find, especially how this came to be:

"It was created in 1900 with only one hole and expanded to 18 holes in 1927."

Kyle:

Some more background....

Naismith's involvement in designing the GW golf course presumably has its roots in the YMCA movement, which both Naismith and GW College were deeply involved in.

Naismith invented basketball in the 1890s at Springfield College in Mass., then one of only two colleges in the country devoted to training recreational and physical education instructors specifically for the YMCA. The other was GW College, based in suburban Chicago, and named for the founder of the YMCA movement. GW College organized educational and training workshops for YMCA leaders and instructors, and bought land on the western shore of Lake Geneva, WI, near the town of Williams Bay, as something of a summer retreat/institute.

At roughly the same time (late 1890s), the world-famous Yerkes Observatory (now operated by the University of Chicago) was built on grounds nearby the GW College Lake Geneva summer retreat. See this (last two paragraphs):

http://www.aurora.edu/news/releases/gw06/060405golfcourse.htm

Apparently Naismith laid out the original six holes in 1902, to meet the recreational desires of Observatory faculty and YMCA staff at the nearby GW College retreat/institute. (The retreat really is a beautiful spot, and a place where all kinds of recreational activities -- boating, hiking, orienteering -- were actively encouraged.) It's not hard to imagine golf capturing the imagination of a populace devoted to recreational pursuits; golf had already taken root in the Lake Geneva area, where Robert Foulis of the famed Foulis brothers had designed the Lake Geneva CC in 1897 (still in existence). The GW golf course is routed right next door to the Observatory, and is composed of two distinct nines on different pieces of land, with a road separating the two nines. Presumably the second nine was built on the land on the other side of the road, with the original holes built closer to the observatory.

What I don't know is how Naismith came to design the GW golf course. He presumably visited the GW Williams Bay retreat/institute, because of its strong ties to YMCA training, sometime in the early 1900s. Naismith was something of a sporting enthusiast (by this time, he had taken a post teaching physical education at the University of Kansas), and it wouldn't surprise me to learn he saw the emerging game of golf as one more recreational pursuit to enbrace.

I hope to learn more this summer.

[Mike_Cirba]

The "Golf Clubs of the MGA" book by Dr. Richard Quirin indicates that the nine-hole course built in 1902 was on the same site as today's Sprindale and that it was designed by Willie Dunn.   I'm not sure if that's accurate.

Joe Bausch has uncovered a December 1899 article that confirms Willie Dunn's original design, which then was altered somewhat by professional James Swan.

Nine holes of this course were constructed and opened by 1902.   Hugh Wilson was on the Princeton Greens Committee that built and opened the course.

[Anthony Fowler]

From Hanover's website, "The Hanover Country Club, Dartmouth College's oldest existing recreational and athletic facility, continues to fit the description of 1899. At the time, HCC was a mere 9 hole course measuring a total distance of 2100 yards with its longest hole being 318 yards. Through a series of generous gifts from Henry H. Hilton, class of 1890, additional land was purchased in the early 1900's on the east side of the Vale of Tempe (more commonly known today as "The Gully") allowing the expansion of the course to 18 holes in 1922. Orrin Smith, a former construction superintendent for both Donald Ross and Willie Park, Jr., is credited with the design of the original 18 hole course."

It sounds like the original 9 holes at Hanover were on the land currently  occupied by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 18.  From what I understand, the routing of these holes were unchanged during the Prichard redesign as were 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 15.  Given that the original course had nine holes on the property that now has 5, those holes have obviously changed dramatically.  However, it seems plausible that 2, 3, and maybe even 4 could have originally been routed as part of that original 9 holes.  Does anyone know if this could be true?

[Brad Tufts]

Not sure if that is plausible or not, but I am guessing that 3 and 4 could be roughly original.  #4 is only 100 yards long.  Both greens have been changed however in the Prichard renovation.

As for holes whose routing was kept:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 from the tee, but the green was moved 60-70 yards to the left creating a dogleg, old 8 became current #7, old 9 became current #8, old 10 became current #9, old 11 became current #10, 13, 14, 15 from the tee, but it now plays to a green 75 yards beyond and left of the old one, and 18. 

The renovation omitted the old 6th green, the old 7th (now a chipping green) the old 12th, the old 16th and old 17th (hole still there b/t 6th fairway, 16th tee, and 17th green, but unmowed).

There is an interesting story as well, that I can't completely remember, about the other 9 designed by Ralph Barton (Dartmouth prof. turned Raynor/Banks groupie and associate).  Several of these holes exist as today's "practice holes" across Lyme Road.  The current 16th and 17th of HCC are routed over land used by Barton's nine through the woods.  Also still in existence is a great push-up green in the backyard of the house across Lyme Rd. from the gully between the current 16th green and 17th tee.  I think they stopped using these holes for safety reasons as the road became busier, but members and students still cross the street all the time to use the "practice holes" and driving range.

[Sven Nilsen]

Phil,

I'd be very interested in what you find, especially how this came to be:

"It was created in 1900 with only one hole and expanded to 18 holes in 1927."

Kyle:

Some more background....

Naismith's involvement in designing the GW golf course presumably has its roots in the YMCA movement, which both Naismith and GW College were deeply involved in.

Naismith invented basketball in the 1890s at Springfield College in Mass., then one of only two colleges in the country devoted to training recreational and physical education instructors specifically for the YMCA. The other was GW College, based in suburban Chicago, and named for the founder of the YMCA movement. GW College organized educational and training workshops for YMCA leaders and instructors, and bought land on the western shore of Lake Geneva, WI, near the town of Williams Bay, as something of a summer retreat/institute.

At roughly the same time (late 1890s), the world-famous Yerkes Observatory (now operated by the University of Chicago) was built on grounds nearby the GW College Lake Geneva summer retreat. See this (last two paragraphs):

http://www.aurora.edu/news/releases/gw06/060405golfcourse.htm

Apparently Naismith laid out the original six holes in 1902, to meet the recreational desires of Observatory faculty and YMCA staff at the nearby GW College retreat/institute. (The retreat really is a beautiful spot, and a place where all kinds of recreational activities -- boating, hiking, orienteering -- were actively encouraged.) It's not hard to imagine golf capturing the imagination of a populace devoted to recreational pursuits; golf had already taken root in the Lake Geneva area, where Robert Foulis of the famed Foulis brothers had designed the Lake Geneva CC in 1897 (still in existence). The GW golf course is routed right next door to the Observatory, and is composed of two distinct nines on different pieces of land, with a road separating the two nines. Presumably the second nine was built on the land on the other side of the road, with the original holes built closer to the observatory.

What I don't know is how Naismith came to design the GW golf course. He presumably visited the GW Williams Bay retreat/institute, because of its strong ties to YMCA training, sometime in the early 1900s. Naismith was something of a sporting enthusiast (by this time, he had taken a post teaching physical education at the University of Kansas), and it wouldn't surprise me to learn he saw the emerging game of golf as one more recreational pursuit to enbrace.

I hope to learn more this summer.

The photo in the original post by Kyle is no longer viewable, so there's a chance I'm going over old news with this.

A little follow-up on Naismith and golf -

Oread Golf Club, organized in 1898, was built on the grounds of the University of Kansas in Lawrence and should probably be recognized as one of the earliest university related courses in the country.

A Dr. Naismith is noted a being a member of the Governing Committee for the course, which coincides with his stay in Lawrence from 1898 to 1907. 

This article (http://kuhistory.com/articles/a-lakes-progress/) discusses a bit of the history of the Mount Oread area, but I think they've got the sequence of dates for the creation of the golf course wrong as it is clearly noted as in existence in the 1901 Harper's Report.

Here's a photo of the course from the article:

[Bill Crane]

Springdale was founded as the Princeton Golf Club in 1895 by Alumni and local residents interested in golf.  The name was changed to Springdale G C at a later date.  I have been on the Board for the past few years and serve as Membership Chair.

The original course and the current course have served as the home venue for the Princeton University Mens and now Womens golf teams even though the club has always been a seperate institution from the University.   At some point, I think in the 40s (not certain), the land was given to the University so they would always have access to the course.  It has been suggested that the family that owned the land did so for tax reasons but that is also unconfirmed.

When we recently re-negotiated our lease with the University, and at previous negotiations, they are always surprised to learn that the club was founded as a seperate institution, not as a University entity that was spun off.  We have a very different situation from other clubs owned by Universities such as Yale, Colgate or my alma mater BUCKNELL, who also a fine old golf course the first nine of which was opened in 1936 as I recall.

My friend and fellow GCAer Malcolm McKinnon and I have recently estalished a History and Archives Committee and are starting to work on researching and recording our history.   Wayne Morrison and John Capers at Merion have been helpful in giving us some suggestions, and Wayne provided some invaluable source material.  We are basking in the glow of our link to Hugh Wilson, a relationship that ultimately lead to the club finding Wm Flynn to do the re-design of the course.  I had written some brief historical changes for our new website this year, but they were disregarded and not loaded.

Ironically, the original nine hole course was located at what is now Quarry Lane in the Witherspoon neighborhood, although the quarry has long since been filled in.  A rudimentary map indicates that course traversed the Quarry twice - an interesting influence for High Wilson.

Wm Flynnfan

[Malcolm Mckinnon]

Here are two routings of the 1895-1900 "Stockton Woods" course at Princeton.

We have quarry, swamp, pond and several ditches in play.

From 1897

[/url]
1897 by macmalc, on Flickr[/img]

From 1899

[/url]
1899 by macmalc, on Flickr[/img]