MacKenzie pitch and putt in the SF area

[David Stamm]

AM wrote about building a pitch and putt course in the SF area. I don't have TD's book handy (I'm not sure if it's even mentioned in there), but was this course actually built, if so is it still around, and what is/was the name?

[Tom MacWood]

I was wondering the same thing. I have no idea.

[David Stamm]

Bump. Anyone have any info?  Tully, where are you?

[Kevin_Reilly]

Maybe start naming the pitch and putts that still exist.  Montclair in Oakland is close to Claremont but I've never heard it connected to AM. 

[Sean_Tully]

David-

Working with Neil on this and have yet to get any solid locations. I have only one possible lead and it makes sense seeing MacKenzie's feelings about golf and his relationship with the military. I was given a postcard by a friend that shows the old Letterman Hospital at the Presidio with a small pitch and putt in the foreground. No date and not sure how long it existed.

I still have a lot of newspapers to go through and expect to find a reference to it at some point.

Sean

[Tom MacWood]

At the time of his death Capuchino GC owed him money. Does anyone know what the story is there?

[Sean_Tully]

Tom-

Capuchino was a property that Hunter and MacKenzie took a look at but lost out to Max Behr with Sam Whiting acting as superintendent of construction. Union League was built across the street a couple of years later. The course is now gone, but the clubhouse is still there!. If you look through GCA there is some old threads on this.

Tully

[David Stamm]

Thanks Sean. Good luck w/ the search and keep us posted!

[Tom MacWood]

Sean
Was that before Mackenzie and Behr became close friends?

[Kalen Braley]

The one in Montclair on Park Blvd comes to mind as well.

There also used to be one in Fremont before it closed about 10 or so years ago, but I think that was pretty much all undeveloped land back then.

There is also Cypress Hills in Colma but would be doubtful of that one as well.

Buchannan Fields in Concord?

[Kevin_Reilly]

Buchanan Fields is an executive course, as is Cypress.

[David_Tepper]

Cypress Hills in Colma used to be a full-length 18-hole course, well into the 1980's.

[Mike Benham]

Cypress Hills in Colma used to be a full-length 18-hole course, well into the 1980's.

And then it became more profitable to have land for dead people then golfers ...

[David_Tepper]

Mike -

They get far fewer complaints about the conditions.

DT

[Eric_Terhorst]

Not exactly a pitch and putt, but what about Northwood?

http://www.northwoodgolf.com/golf/proto/northwoodgolf/course/course.htm

[Gib_Papazian]

Sean,

I am not sure if this is even relevant, but 40 years (or more) ago, there was a short course in South San Francisco close to El Camino. It had night lighting (not Bay Meadows) and was located (I think) near what is now Tanforan. It is possible I am having a flashback of a hallucination, but the memory is very vivid of my father and I playing it. Do you know anything about this mysterious place? I just turned 50 and my mind is like an etch-a-sketch; I fall asleep with some great ideas and memories and somebody sneaks into my room in the middle of the night and gives it a good shake.

-g

[Dan King]

Gib, I remember the same course. I didn't golf, but remember the lights when leaving SF. I think it was there less than 40 years ago.

I've been over 50 for a while now, and try to go to law school with a head like that. I think these kids have retained a few more brain cells than I have.

Cheers,
Dan King

Seabiscuit cocked an ear toward his rival, listening to him, watching him. He refused to let War Admiral pass. The battle was joined. The horses stretched out over the track. Their strides, each 21 feet in length, fell in perfect synch. They rubbed shoulders and hips, heads snapping up and reaching out together and unfolding in unison. The speed was impossible; At the mile mark a 15-year-old speed record fell under them, broken by a full second.
 --Laura Hillenbrand

[Sean_Tully]

Gib

 I have heard mention of a golf course inside of the racetrack after the war, but the other one that I had forgotten was a mention of a pitch and putt at tanofran during the internment of Japanese during WWII. SO it sounds like two different golf courses. I wonder where the first one was in relation to the track. I have not focused much on Tanofran thinking it was later than 1940, but it sounds like that is half right. We can probably take a look at some old aerials or some old literature on the racetrack to pin down the pitch and putt. It sounds like two different courses as they are referenced as a pitch and putt and golf course.

Could be interesting.

Sean

[Gib_Papazian]

Dan,

In order to obtain a bar number, there is a requirement of passing what is called the "Moral Fitness Test." Having addressed the Board of Governors twice, I can attest that you have no chance. If you cannot prove yourself an immoral, sociopathic scoundrel, you'll have to content yourself with a J.D.

As for the golf course - I also recall it was right next to the old "White Front Store" in South City, which might be a clue as to its location. I'll pick my father's brain tonight and see if I can get him to recall any particulars. If I know Tully, he already has the first and last name of every blade of grass and the architect's shoe size in his files.

Actually, having a genius like Tully at our disposal takes the fun out of speculative historical argument - mostly because he REALLY AND TRULY knows everything. All of it. He is never wrong. Ever. Having dinner with him is like attending a doctoral class at a university.        

[Joel_Stewart]

There was a pitch and putt course in Oakland that had some interesting bunkers which may be it???  It was located on Hegenberger, which is now the location of the Hilton airport hotel.  The course was probably demolished in the early 1970's.

I can't imagine the course at Montclair would be it.  I live about a mile from it and have hit balls there for 30 years yet only played the par 3 once, about 5 years ago.

[Patrick Kiser]

Cypress Hills in Colma used to be a full-length 18-hole course, well into the 1980's.

And then it became more profitable to have land for dead people then golfers ...

With some of those coming from Lincoln Park no doubt...

[Patrick Kiser]

Not to get too much off topic, but was there ever any truth to Mare Island (CA's oldest course?) having AM bones?

Never been but always wondered.

[Tom MacWood]

Most of the pitch and putt courses built in the UK were on private estates (Simpson & Fowler specialized in them) and I suspect the course in the Bay area was private too.

On a related note has it ever been confirmed that Mackenzie designed 9-hole courses for Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin? Were those pitch and putt courses?

[Rich Goodale]

.....how soon we forget Cypress Point.

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
Harold Lloyd's course was definitely designed by Billy Bell. Not Mackenzie.

As for Charlie Chaplin, I have been trying to find any evidence that he even had a course of his own, but without any real success. Mac's involvement in it, if it existed, is I believe speculative at the moment. There was also a mention that Sean Tully found that he may have designed a course for Douglas Fairbanks Sr, at the "Pickfair" property he owned with wife Mary Pickford. Fairbanks was known to Mackenzie personally - there is a photo of the two together at Pasatiempo in the Graham collection and printed in Geoff Shac's Cypress book. Perhaps Fairbanks introduced Chaplin to Mac as Chaplin's house was just down the hill from Pickfair, with Lloyd's house closeby too. Fairbanks may have had a course on his property at Rancho Santa Fe, at least it was mentioned when he brought the property, but I was never able to find any evidence that a course was built there. Its all a bit unsubstantiated.

I think though that we can certainly say he did design and build a pitch and putt course somewhere in California. There is not only the reference in "Spirit of StA", but there is another somewhere else that I can't put my finger on just know, but will if I can find it.

Patrick
As for the suggestion AM's bones were interred on Mare Island, I think that is a very far fetched rumour. I thought he was cremated and his ashes spread at Pasatiempo?
cheers Neil