History's Mysteries

[Jim_Kennedy]

Pemberbrook is probably an error, he did do 9 holes at Tumble Brook CC (Inc. in 1922, opened in 1924,) which is in W. Hartford.  

[Sven Nilsen]

Jim:

That makes a lot more sense.

Sven

[Jim_Kennedy]

An easy one to make as it followed Philmont, Phladelphia, Pittsburgh & Pittsburgh. 

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #35 - Boom Goes The Dynamite

The May 1917 edition of Golf Illustrated reported that Arthur Lockwood had used dynamite to form bunkers on two courses in Maine.

The only attribution I have for him in Maine is Northeast Harbor, which is also credited to Donald Ross (as a 9 hole renovation in 1916).

Any ideas as to the other course he would have been blasting on.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #36 - Albuquerque's First Course?

The earliest record I have for a course in Albuquerque is from 1914.  The following Dec. 1904 Golf Magazine article describes plans for a course ten years earlier than that date.

Was this first course ever built?

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #37 - Beverley Terrace


The April 22, 1921 edition of the Morning Oregonian included the following article describing a proposed course near Oakland to be done by William Watson.


Any thoughts on if this course was ever built, and if it was known by another name?

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #38 - William Robertson and Covina


Any idea as to what course is described in this Jan. 6, 1900 San Francisco Call article?

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #38 - Philip Honeyman

The following article is taken from the April 15, 1896 edition of the New York Tribune.  It describes the work of Philip Honeyman, noting his involvement with Lenox, Bluff Point (Lake Champlain), Louisville and Memphis. 

The Bluff Point work makes it sound like he laid out a new course.  I am surmising that this is the course that later became Plattsburgh CC.

The Louisville course is a total mystery.  It is possible it was the Cherokee Park course, but my records show that course as only having 9 holes.  Perhaps he was brought in for the Louisville GC course, which is attributed to Lawrence Tweedie in 1897.

My best guess on the Memphis course is that this was the Memphis GC course which dates to 1896.

[John Connolly]

Mystery #25 - CBM, Otto Kahn and New Jersey?

The first article below is taken from the Feb. 1917 edition of Golf Illustrated.  It lists a number of courses designed by Charles Blair MacDonald prior to that date, including a private course for Otto Kahn.  We know about Oheka (lka as Coldstream) on Long Island, which is credited to Seth Raynor in 1923 (with Kahn doing much of the bunker work).  So what course is the article discussing?

There's an old thread in which Steve Shaffer linked to a New York Times article from July 7, 1920 discussing the sale of Kahn's Morristown, NJ estate and his plans to move to his new Cold Spring Harbor property on Long Island.  The article notes the existence of an 18 hole course at "Cedar Court."  I've also attached a modern aerial of the location of Cedar Court.

Was this an unknown CBM design?

Did the Cold Spring Country Club along the Oheka castle used to be the Coldstream Golf Club?

[Bret Lawrence]

John,


The Coldstream Golf Club was a separate entity.  Their golf course was located on property south of the old Meadow Brook Club in Westbury.

[Bret Lawrence]

John,


Here is a screenshot of an article from SEGL archives showing the golf clubs of Western Long Island at the time.  Number 14. is Oheka Golf Club (Khan Private), Woodbury.  Number 17. is Coldstream Golf Club, Hempstead. Sorry I cut the map off, but the Seagle site is inaccesible for a cleaner version. The Khan estate is just out of the frame.


Bret

[Mark Hissey]

John,


Here is a screenshot of an article from SEGL archives showing the golf clubs of Western Long Island at the time.  Number 14. is Oheka Golf Club (Khan Private), Woodbury.  Number 17. is Coldstream Golf Club, Hempstead. Sorry I cut the map off, but the Seagle site is inaccesible for a cleaner version. The Khan estate is just out of the frame.


Bret

That's a fascinating map. What year is it from?

[Sven Nilsen]

Mark:

The map is from the Sept. 1928 edition of Golf Illustrated.  Here's a sharper image of it.

[Sven Nilsen]

Here's a July 1917 Golf Illustrated map of Metro courses for comparison.

[John Connolly]

Thanks, guys.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #39 - Diddel in Tennessee


A May 15, 1930 Cambridge City Tribune article discusses the beginning of the new Hartley Hills CC in Hagerstown, IN.  William Diddel had been hired to lay out and construct the course.


Buried within the article is a discussion of Diddel's ongoing projects, including a course in Memphis, Tennessee.  This was the first reference I'd seen to Diddel working in that state, and the only course in Memphis that corresponds to the timeline is Pine Hill GC which is noted as having opened in 1932.


So was Pine Hill a Diddel design?


[I'll post the article later, right now I'm getting the hanging cat on Photoshop.]

[JMEvensky]

Mystery #39 - Diddel in Tennessee


A May 15, 1930 Cambridge City Tribune article discusses the beginning of the new Hartley Hills CC in Hagerstown, IN.  William Diddel had been hired to lay out and construct the course.


Buried within the article is a discussion of Diddel's ongoing projects, including a course in Memphis, Tennessee.  This was the first reference I'd seen to Diddel working in that state, and the only course in Memphis that corresponds to the timeline is Pine Hill GC which is noted as having opened in 1932.


So was Pine Hill a Diddel design?


[I'll post the article later, right now I'm getting the hanging cat on Photoshop.]

PH is a municipal golf course. The Memphis Parks Commission lists it as opening in 1932 but names Kevin Tucker as architect.

[Sven Nilsen]

JM:


I'm pretty sure Tucker is still working today.  I don't think he was around in 1932.


Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #40 - Raynor in Port Washington


A Jan. 14, 1923 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article gives a brief description of Raynor's career, and notes a number of projects he had in the works at that time.  One of those is a course in Port Washington, NY.


I'm curious as to what course this may have been.  Rayner was certainly working near that locale in the early '20's (Brockville, Locust Valley, etc.), but there is no course that jumps out as being classifiable as a Port Washington location.

[Sven Nilsen]

4.  When I spent a couple of years in Silicon Valley (2000-2012) my family frequented Capitola (just south of Pasateimpo, and learned that there was a plan for a "cxhampionship" course there in the "Roaring Twenties."  Anybody know who was inolved or what happened to it?

Followup to one of Rich Goodale's questions from earlier in the thread. 

There was a plan for a course to be built in Capitola in the early '20's, and the architect involved was Herbert Fowler.

El Patio, Sept. 2, 1921 -

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #41 - Walter Hatch

The July 12, 1923 Portsmouth Daily Times touches on the activities of Ross associate Hatch.  Hatch was in town looking over the new links of the "Country Club" and made suggestions to rearrange part of the course.  From what I can gather, given the location of the course noted in the article, this was not the same course as the Elks CC in Portsmouth that Ross is noted as renovated and creating an additional 9 holes.  It begs the question if this work was being done by Hatch in his role as a Ross foreman, or if he was working on his own. 

The same question applies to the mentions of Galveston and Dallas.  There are no Ross (or Hatch) projects that I know of that coincide with the date of this article.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #42 - What saved Newport?

The Oct. 1903 edition of The Golfer discussed the waning interest in golf at Newport.  From the sounds of it, the links were on the verge of being replaced by a racetrack for the newfangled automobile.

So what resurrected the interest in golf, and kept alive a club we know consider one of the historic sites of golf in the United States?

[Matthew Petersen]

So I've long been curious about something I noticed once in an old Phoenix aerial image ...


Encanto (sometimes called Encanto Park) is a city of Phoenix (AZ) muni originally designed by William P Bell in the 30s. The first few holes of the course sit next to a man made lake that's part of a city park--it's not in play much. A big slice on #1 could get wet--that's about it. But the tee of #5 (a par 3 and the last hole along that edge of the property) sits on a little island. It's an odd feature so I went looking into old aerials at one point and fund that island tee only goes back to sometime in the 1980s. But what really surprised me was that what was there previously appears to me to be an actual island green (not so much Sawgrass style, think more like Cherry Hills). It's possible this was the green for the 5th hole, but could also have been the 7th. The earliest aerials I can find of the area only date back to the 50s. I'm curious is this island green was an original part of Bell's design or if it was something that was for some reason added later. Also curious why the city eventually did away with it.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mystery #43 - What happened to the Ross designs in Hollywood, FL?

The Feb. 24, 1923 edition of The Miami News reported Donald Ross had been hired to lay out several additional 18 hole courses in Hollywood.  I am assuming this was in addition to the 18 hole course that opened in 1924 that is credited to H. Tippett.

      

Later reports (Nov. 1925 Golf Illustrated and an Aug. 28, 1927 The Miami News article) note the two courses under construction and nearing completion.

So what became of these courses?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

[Bret Lawrence]

Mystery #3 - A New Club in Topeka

The June 1905 edition of Golf Magazine reported on a new club being formed in Topeka, with the course being laid out by Robert Fullarton.  The early guides note that the first course in the city for the Topeka GC was laid out in 1899 by Willie Dunn.  Later guides refer to the Topeka CC with a date of formation of 1905.

If you read the modern day Topeka CC website (https://www.topekacc.org/Club-Info.aspx), their version makes it sound like plans for the club started in 1899, but it wasn't until 1906 that the course was laid out by Bendelow on the newly purchased Dudley estate.

So what do we make of the article below?  Was Fullarton's work at a separate club?  Was his work at the Topeka CC, and for some reason the club went with Bendelow's plans instead?  Did the CC evolve out of the previously existing GC, which most certainly had a golf course? 

Topeka CC's mysteries continue on into the 20's, where contrary to their own history it has been noted that Langford came in to build an 18 hole course.  The Langford/Maxwell dynamic has been discussed elsewhere on this site.

Sven,


Taking us back to the first page. If Topeka Country Club or Shawnee Country Club ever want to update their history, the loc.gov website would be a great place to start. The Topeka State Journal thoroughly covered these courses throughout the early part of the century.  Topeka Golf Club was founded in 1899 and laid out on a separate piece of property than the Topeka Country Club of 1905.  Here is a layout of Topeka Golf Club-1899:

This is the story that accompanies the layout, mentioning the organization of the golf club:




The Topeka Country Club actually leased the Dudley estate for many years before purchasing it.  The land they owned was the 120 acres in Highland Park that they leased to the Shawnee Club.  When Topeka Country Club purchased 67 acres to extend their nine hole course to eighteen, they sold the Highland Park land to the Shawnee Club.  This story is from The Topeka State Journal-June 19, 1920: