Unexpected archaeological finds while building courses...????

[Dave McCollum]

As usual, very insightful Peter.  You wear out my feeble imagination with your posts.   

[John Foley]

Nice little course here outside of Rochester, FarView, found a Mastadon skeleton while building a pond next to the 18th hole.

[Ian Andrew]

The original dozer used for clearing trees at Westmount is between the 1st green and 2nd tee in the trees
One of the pan scrapers used to build North Bay is beside the 18th green.


But the most unusual was a box containing human ashes at St. George's.
A member decided to bury his fathers ashes under the roughed in new third green assuming it was done.
Tom came back a few days later to review the green.
He and Eric began to dramatically alter the grades where it was buried deep.
.... and guess what showed up


Lots of horseshoes, shark's teeth, sea shells, some great bottles, square clay pipe, wooden stave transfer pipes...
There's always something interesting.

[Pete_Pittock]

Talked with Dr Hwass between the feet of the Sphinx this morning. He said good question, and the answer was no, no Egyptian antiquities have been found

[Greg Hohman]

An article (which I have not read) in the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society Journal (vol. 54, 2002) is entitled "The excavation of a souterrain entrance at Loughrea Golf Course, County Galway." Perhaps someone here has "the scoop."

[Thomas Dai]

I recall being told that the big mound in the middle of the 17th at Cruden Bay is something to do with Vikings. Whether related to the Scots-Viking/Danes battle of 1012 I'm not sure.

Atb

[Kevin Robinson]

A very persistent piece of club lore at Banyan Golf Club, just East of the Turnpike in West Palm Beach, is that a dump truck somehow wound up at the bottom of the very large pond along the right side of the 17th fairway-during construction back in the late 60's. It was determined that it would be too costly/impracticable to try to remove it, so the (presumably) 2.5-ton truck was left in the hole in the ground and covered with water.


I heard this story from an assortment of members and long-time employees - so there might be something to it.

[Brad Tufts]

I recall being told that the big mound in the middle of the 17th at Cruden Bay is something to do with Vikings. Whether related to the Scots-Viking/Danes battle of 1012 I'm not sure.

Atb

I think this one has been debunked.  While the battle in 1012 happened somewhere on Cruden Bay's linksland, and period weapons have been unearthed over the centuries...I read somewhere that the mound on #17 has been poked, prodded, and scanned, but no bodies or artifacts are under/in the mound.

[Dave McCollum]

Cruden was one of first links courses I played.  Chatting with a member after playing, we discussed some of the differences between US and UK courses.  For example I said the mound on 17 would be gone in a matter of hours in the US.  He looked like I had suggested committing some heinous crime and informed me that a decision like that would require a vote of the entire membership.

[paul cowley]

I've had a few...found an Indian burial site on an unnamed course but respectfully moved the hole out of play as we had the room to do so. At Barefoot Landing we were not as fortunate because we found an Indian camp site that was square in the middle of the landing area of #18, and coincidentally it was the last of the holes we had left to build. We also had 280' between wetlands on both sides so a shift was not a possibility....and they had already started the clubhouse. We contacted the State Historic Bureau and after a lot of negotiation we were allowed to encapsulate the site (bury under 3' of soil) after intensive surveying and test holes. There were quite a bit of pottery shards...which I am quite familiar with from other sites...but these were different as they no external markings or patterns...just plain smooth surfaces, really boring. I nick-named them the K-Mart tribe.


We were fortunate to unearth the brick ruins of an antibellum brick plantation house and garden walls on the front 9...but that's another story....but I did receive a letter from a State Historian congratulating us for preserving the ruins for the people of SC. Didn't have the heart to respond...

[Robert Kimball]

Lester George told me once that they discovered some old steam tractor parts under the turf during the renovation of Cavalier Golf and Yacht Club in Virginia Beach.


Ol' Charles "Steam shovel" Banks up to his old tricks I guess.


-- Rob

[John McCarthy]

On edit:. This was an interesting story that had nothing to do with golf course architecture.


My apologies.