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Sven Nilsen

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GCAofTD - #13 - William Havemeyer
« on: September 11, 2012, 02:00:02 PM »
The brother of the trophy's namesake, William Havemeyer was the driving force behind the formation of Riverside Golf Club just outside of Chicago.  Thanks to Tim Cronin for bringing the familial relationship to my attention (as well as providing the dates for Havemeyer's work), as its a nice bit of early American golf trivia and goes to show just how small the world of golf was back in the early days.

Riverside itself represents the story of many similar courses built in the 1890's.  As the exposure to the game grew, the intrepid souls sought to build their own courses.  Many had the means or connections at the time to bring in an expert, but more often than not the first courses were laid out by a committee, usually a small group of founding members of a club.  Over time, whether to grow to a full 18 holes, to adapt to the length of the new ball or just to correct the flaws of the first efforts, the clubs that could brought in an architect to "modernize" the course.  For Riverside, this was William Langford in 1919.

Course list:

Riverside Golf Club (1893) - first iteration
Riverside Golf Club (1896) - new location (with J.S. Driver and Thomas Hannah)
"As much as we have learned about the history of golf architecture in the last ten plus years, I'm convinced we have only scratched the surface."  A GCA Poster

"There's the golf hole; play it any way you please." Donald Ross