[Anthony Gray]

  I love an easy opening hole. Because I rarely go to the range ( I prefer to have my negative swing thoughts after I have gotten into my round ).

  Many older courses start with an easy opener.

  Is it because players in the past did not have practice areas?

  Did players from the pre-Open era practice before their matches?

  What course had the first range?

  What course had the first putting green?

  Anthony



   

[TEPaul]

I think the first course over here that had a dedicated practice range had something to do with Donald Ross. Can't remember whether it was at Oakley in Mass or somewhere else such as Pinehurst but the first practice range was known as "Suicide Hill."

What did they generally do for preround practice back then? Obviously nothing or the ones who wanted to do a little something would commonly send their caddy out on a fairway near the start and hit the balls in their bag at him. He would field them, pick them up, bring them in and they would start the round.

[Joe Hancock]

What did they generally do for preround practice back then?

Imbibe. That's why they were the "Good ol' Days".

[TEPaul]

"Imbibe. That's why they were the "Good ol' Days"."

Joe:

You've got that right. I was reading some letters between Piper and Oakley and Alan Wilson from the late teens or early 1920s the other day and Alan had to go to Cuba for a couple of months of rest. Piper or Oakley asked him how it was down there and he said, "at least I can drink like a gentleman down here."

That didn't stop him from scouting out golf agronomy down there like his brother did everywhere he went. He told them the golf wasn't bad at the course in Cuba and he told them they had some kind of indigenous grass on the course that was pretty good so he ripped some of it up and sent it to the Dept of Agriculture in DC. They analyzed it and determined it was basically what we now call Bermuda. Probably the first time they became aware of it.
 
 
 

[Sam Morrow]

I think the first course over here that had a dedicated practice range had something to do with Donald Ross. Can't remember whether it was at Oakley in Mass or somewhere else such as Pinehurst but the first practice range was known as "Suicide Hill."

What did they generally do for preround practice back then? Obviously nothing or the ones who wanted to do a little something would commonly send their caddy out on a fairway near the start and hit the balls in their bag at him. He would field them, pick them up, bring them in and they would start the round.

They call the range at Pinehurst something like "Maniac Hill," right?

[Joe Hancock]

"Imbibe. That's why they were the "Good ol' Days"."

Joe:

You've got that right. I was reading some letters between Piper and Oakley and Alan Wilson from the late teens or early 1920s the other day and Alan had to go to Cuba for a couple of months of rest. Piper or Oakley asked him how it was down there and he said, "at least I can drink like a gentleman down here."

That didn't stop him from scouting out golf agronomy down there like his brother did everywhere he went. He told them the golf wasn't bad at the course in Cuba and he told them they had some kind of indigenous grass on the course that was pretty good so he ripped some of it up and sent it to the Dept of Agriculture in DC. They analyzed it and determined it was basically what we now call Bermuda. Probably the first time they became aware of it.

Which goes to show how and when some of the best research is done.


Joe

[Garland Bayley]

Golf Digest printed an article a while back that said that using the range before a round did not correlate to better (or different) scores. The only thing they found it correlated to was the percent who hit the first fairway.

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