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Scott Warren

  • Karma: +0/-0
Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« on: September 27, 2011, 10:16:50 AM »
I had just taken this picture...



... and remarked to my caddie how beautiful and well-sited the clubhouse was.

Then he told me something I have never read or heard before and while I am inclined to believe him given he has looped there for more than a decade, it surprised me that -- if it is true -- it's not more well documented.

He told me the course originally began at the 10th hole (and finished at the 9th, obviously) and that the original clubhouse was a former hotel named the Shinnecock Inn. He said that the current clubhouse was built in the 1930s, after the Shinnecock Inn burned down.

Has anyone ever heard the same?

Is there any documentation that supports that story?

I would have thought such a big change in such a significant course would have been more well-known, but maybe not.

I do know the Cape green was moved around that time to make way for an entrance road, so if the clubhouse has always been where it is, I suppose another question I have is where was the entrance road prior to the Cape green being relocated?

Tyler Kearns

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2011, 10:19:58 AM »
Scott,

I'm not an authority on things NGLA, but the story you mentioned does sound familiar to me, although, I'm not sure where I heard or read about it first.

TK

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2011, 10:29:28 AM »
It's twue, it's twue.....
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

DMoriarty

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2011, 10:32:19 AM »
Scott,

Yes and no.   The original plan was to focus on the course and to use the newly built Shinnecock Inn, which was located behind the current 9th, as a clubhouse, but it burned down while the course was being built.   But I think this was to be a temporary arrangement.   The fire forced their hand and the actual clubhouse (the current one) opened in 1911.
Golf history can be quite interesting if you just let your favorite legends go and allow the truth to take you where it will.
--Tom MacWood (1958-2012)

Garland Bayley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2011, 11:45:07 AM »
Scott,

Bahto's The Evangelist of Golf is quite good. I recommend it highly to you.

Double Bogey
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

Anthony Gray

Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2011, 12:40:48 PM »


  Great pic. NGLA has many blind shots to start the round. 18 is a nice finish, but it may play better if the 9s were reversed.

  Anthony


DMoriarty

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2011, 01:43:39 PM »
A few more details.  When the course was originally planned and the land secured 1906, the idea was to start and end the course near the Shinnecock Inn (just being constructed) and use the Inn as a temporary clubhouse, thus enabling NGLA to focus on perfecting the course.  Course construction and grow-in began in 1907 but the newly built Shinnecock Inn burned to the ground in the early spring of 1908.  Work on the golf course continued in 1908 and while it was a struggle to get grass to take hold in the sandy soil (and while changes and improvements to the course may have already been underway) CBM and some of the founders began golfing over a very rough NGLA in the summer 1909 (if not before.)    Early reports indicate that, in order to temporarily resolve their clubhouse issue, NGLA arranged to share Shinnecock's clubhouse until they could get their own built.

On July 2-4, 1910 a tournament (billed as an informal gathering for the founders and associate members but later referred to as an invitational) "informally marked the opening of the course."   Tents were used in lieu of a clubhouse and play started on what is now No. 10.   John Ward, a founder, scorched the back (now the front) for a 32 in the first round of matchplay, starting the side in 2-2-4-2.

While play had begun in 1909 or before, NGLA did not "formally" open did until the clubhouse was finished, September 16, 1911.

Here is a photo of the clubhouse as it appeared in 1911 (from CBM's Statement to the Founders, 1/4/1912):



Here is a photo of the clubhouse from 1912 from an article by British golf writer Henry Leach in American Golfer.



An interesting question is whether the current location was always contemplated as the final location of the clubhouse, or whether it was decided upon only after the Inn burned down.  While I suspect the former, I don't think the information I have seen is entirely dispositive one way or another.  

[As for "the original" entry road, the 10th tee was very close to existing roads and/or roads developed in conjunction with the development of the hotel and adjacent land, so an entry road wasn't really much of an issue.   That said, prior to the shifting of the cape green road to the current clubhouse was to the LEFT of the cape hole.  The road crossed in front of the eden green (this is now the road to the maintenance shop.)]

As an aside, I recently read a rather comical critique of NGLA in the form of a 1916 letter to the editor of one of the NY papers. NGLA's major flaw?  The clubhouse was too far away from the 18th green.   The critic wrote that the green ought to be moved and anchored to the clubhouse for the viewing pleasure of the clubhouse gallery.  He recommended that this could have been accomplished either by shortening the hole or by pushing the tee back.   The critic was obviously well ahead of his time.  Were he alive to day would likely be a prominent member of cga.com.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2011, 02:04:45 PM by DMoriarty »
Golf history can be quite interesting if you just let your favorite legends go and allow the truth to take you where it will.
--Tom MacWood (1958-2012)

Mark Smolens

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #7 on: September 27, 2011, 03:45:32 PM »
"cga.com?"

DMoriarty

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2011, 03:54:27 PM »
Sorry, not cga.com.  I meant golfclubatlas.com.   The website for those who think they know better than the greatest golf course architects who ever lived.
Golf history can be quite interesting if you just let your favorite legends go and allow the truth to take you where it will.
--Tom MacWood (1958-2012)

Scott Warren

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #9 on: September 27, 2011, 05:12:58 PM »
Thanks for the info David, much appreciated and it answers my questions.

Would be interesting to know if the 1-18 order we know today was always CBM's ultimate plan.

DMoriarty

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #10 on: September 27, 2011, 06:43:03 PM »
Thanks for the info David, much appreciated and it answers my questions.

Would be interesting to know if the 1-18 order we know today was always CBM's ultimate plan.

I agree it would be interesting, but for now it will remain somewhat a mystery.  Patrick Mucci thinks it is likely that the current site was always contemplated and that we can tell because CBM left a space for the clubhouse between 1 and 18. I tend to agree but for slightly different reasons.   Even after the Inn burned there was nothing stopping them from putting the clubhouse near the current 10th, and in some ways that would have made some sense, as that location would have been much closer to the RR, roads, utilities, etc.  My guess is they would have put it there had they considered that location more deal.  In other words, I suspect that losing the Inn changed the timing, but not the ultimate plan.



Golf history can be quite interesting if you just let your favorite legends go and allow the truth to take you where it will.
--Tom MacWood (1958-2012)

Patrick_Mucci

Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #11 on: September 27, 2011, 10:09:44 PM »
David,

They didn't own the land behind # 10 until recent years.

Besides the configuration of holes # 1 and # 18 I think there's another reason.

If CBM had cited his clubhouse near # 10, the Shinnecock clubhouse would forever look down upon NGLA.

If I recall correctly, CBM was tossed out of Shinnecock, hence another reason that his ego wouldn't let the members of Shinnecock and their clubhouse look down on his clubhouse and members

We also know, from looking at old maps, circa late 1800's that a road went from Rt 27 to near the current clubhouse site.

When you add up those factors, I think it leads a prudent man to but one conclusion.

That majestic, unusual site, with incredible vistas, was always intended as his clubhouse site.

Tyler Kearns

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Did NGLA originally start at the 10th?
« Reply #12 on: October 01, 2011, 09:14:42 AM »
I had just taken this picture...



... and remarked to my caddie how beautiful and well-sited the clubhouse was.

Then he told me something I have never read or heard before and while I am inclined to believe him given he has looped there for more than a decade, it surprised me that -- if it is true -- it's not more well documented.

He told me the course originally began at the 10th hole (and finished at the 9th, obviously) and that the original clubhouse was a former hotel named the Shinnecock Inn. He said that the current clubhouse was built in the 1930s, after the Shinnecock Inn burned down.

Has anyone ever heard the same?

Is there any documentation that supports that story?

I would have thought such a big change in such a significant course would have been more well-known, but maybe not.

I do know the Cape green was moved around that time to make way for an entrance road, so if the clubhouse has always been where it is, I suppose another question I have is where was the entrance road prior to the Cape green being relocated?

Scott,

See Joe Bausch's new thread on NGLA for documented proof of NGLA starting on #10;
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,49798.0.html

Hint: Look at the scorecard published by the newspaper.

TK

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