The Historical Quirk found and built into Golf Courses

[V. Kmetz]

Hello,


I seem to recall a dedicated thread (recently) or two about such features, but could not locate same...


I was compiling a list of some that appear in MET area courses and wondered if any of you had examples you remember (whether from the Met area or not):


Though I'm eager to hear about any such items even in the environment of a course, I was primarily interested in those which factor (even remotely) into the plating of a hole/shot on the course.


My own preliminary list:


Hudson National - deploys the ruins of partially-built/never played Hessian Hills CC clubhouse on the 3rd/4th and 5th holes... also Prickly Pear Hill was a re-used site for Washington during the beginning and end of the Rev. War.
Brae Burn  - deploys the ruins of the (also never used) Westchester Northern railroad path appearing on the 5th, 6th, 15th and 17th.
Waccabuc - the mile marker of Ben Franklin's first postmastership on the front lawn of the clubhouse (not really a playing feature, but cool nonetheless).
Apawamis - famously Hilton's Rock off the 1st green that was decisive in the 1911 US Amateur.
Rockrimmon - the old 9th to 10th hole tram cart (apocryphally called the country's Shortest Interstate Railroad)
Bonnie Briar - legend has it that the berm in front right rough of the 1st green and 9th tee was constructed as revetment by the British troops to shelter from wind when encamped on their pursuit of Washington to the Battle of White Plains.



Of course there's items like the actual battles and encampments at Plainfield (NJ) and Cherry Valley and other such Am Rev. march sites (which are fascinating in their own right but don't often factor in the actual playing)


I wonder if you know of such things in your own experience.


cheers   vk
 

[goldj]

The 7th hole at Sunningdale makes great use of an old water tower behind the green.  I don’t have a picture but perhaps Mike Moss does.

[Joe Bausch]

The 7th hole at Sunningdale makes great use of an old water tower behind the green.  I don’t have a picture but perhaps Mike Moss does.

http://myphillygolf.com/uploads/bausch/Sunningdale/pages/page_38.html?

[V. Kmetz]

The 7th hole at Sunningdale makes great use of an old water tower behind the green.  I don’t have a picture but perhaps Mike Moss does.

I have always loved that "tower"until recent tree clearings and renovations it was much more visible as a feature of the 9th hole...I (mistakenly it seems) thought it was a "folly"...does anyone know its working history pre-Sunningdale?


At any rate, thank you for reminding... (and thanks for the pics JB)


cheers   vk

[Kevin Neary]

I recall my US History teacher saying that there was a golf course in Scotch Plains or Summit, New Jersey which was the site of a Revolutionary War Battle. I'll have to contact him to see what course it was

[V. Kmetz]

I was referring to some of those (there are several in NJ whose lands saw Am. Rev action) in the original post...one is (ironically) Battleground Golf Club, that may be the one you were thinking of.


cheers   vk

[Adam_Messix]

There is a line of confederate fortification that run through the Savannah Golf Club in Georgia.

[Brad Tufts]

I think there are some documented fortifications at East Lake (8th hole, Tour Champ #17), and also at Cape Fear CC #8/9.

Quaker Ridge had a huge old tree that was documented as a campsite for George Washington's troops, but sadly it was felled by a storm a few years ago.

Middlebury's course has a historical marker below the 11th tee with a grave.  The story goes that a Middlebury native was returning home from fighting in the Revolutionary War, and was killed by a falling tree at that very spot.

Franklin Park in Boston has ruins of the original clubhouse behind the 5th green/6th tee.

[Rick Lane]

Piping Rock is routed around two old gigantic Polo fields, which made CBM mad.   

http://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/piping-rock/

There is also an old steeplechase track, the banked turns of which cross one hole.

[MCirba]

There is a very cool ancient (i.e. 1600s) cemetery for the "Corson family", who were among the first settlers in Cape May County NJ who had been whalers on Long Island prior, that is OB on the 6th and 8th holes at Heritage Links GC in south Jersey.

[Bruce Katona]

I know this is a MET-centric post, but one of the neatest pix ever posted on GCA was a UK course routed on/around an Iron-Age Fort.

[Jason Topp]

Not sure it is historical but this barn works pretty well as a hazard on the 11th at Stoneridge:

[Rick Lane]

Port Royal in Bermuda has an old fort on one of the holes. 

Cinnamon Hill in Jamaica has a cool old aqueduct, and a bunch of graves on it.   Also (OT) has a waterfall used in a scene from a James Bond Movie (and Johnny Cash's old house abuts the property)

[Mark Fedeli]

Hudson Hills in has a revolution-era cemetery for the Tompkins family, between the 14th and 15th holes.

[Derek Holland]

Also not sure if "historical" but ruins of an old farmhouse are in the middle of 18 on Whiskey Creek.


http://www.whiskeycreekgolf.com/golfcourse

[Rick Lane]

Mr. Doaks Stonewall North has a barn right behind 18 green.  (and the Clubhouse is an old Dairy barn).    True story:   The one time I played North, my buddy went for that green in 2, faded it over by some Pine trees short and right of the green, blocked.   His only shot, which he pulled off, was to bank it off the barn.   He got up and down for birdie off that barn......Tom Were you thinking of that?? 

[Bob Montle]

Dismal River White  (Nicklaus) has a water-pump Windmill in the 5th fairway.

[V. Kmetz]

First of all, many thanks for the replies so far...keep em coming...but to address/follow-up on a few:

Quaker Ridge had a huge old tree that was documented as a campsite for George Washington's troops, but sadly it was felled by a storm a few years ago.

I was reading about this one last night BT, and a 2008 edition of the Met golfer made the claim that Rick Versure (of all people) looked into this and concluded it was apocryphal....

Hudson Hills in has a revolution-era cemetery for the Tompkins family, between the 14th and 15th holes.

Are you referencing the most recent of Westchester County publinx in Ossining? If so, that's  an interesting one because that property contains the bones of a much older course with a turbulent ownership history alternately called Sunset Hills, Kitchawan, Pine Bridges, Rising Sun (in 1937-38 when it was operated as one of the only African-American clubs I've ever heard of) and finally Sunset Knolls when my trail on it runs cold...I think it was something else after then too.


cheers    vk

[Pete_Pittock]

deleted, not in MET area

[Pete_Pittock]

deleted

[Ed Oden]

I don't think you can get any more historical than Moundbuilders in Newark, OH.  Not only is the course located on an ancient Indian archaeological site, but the mounds built by those Indians form the predominant architectural components of the course's design.

[Mark Fedeli]

Hudson Hills in has a revolution-era cemetery for the Tompkins family, between the 14th and 15th holes.

Are you referencing the most recent of Westchester County publinx in Ossining? If so, that's  an interesting one because that property contains the bones of a much older course with a turbulent ownership history alternately called Sunset Hills, Kitchawan, Pine Bridges, Rising Sun (in 1937-38 when it was operated as one of the only African-American clubs I've ever heard of) and finally Sunset Knolls when my trail on it runs cold...I think it was something else after then too.


cheers    vk

Yessir. That's the one.

[Sven Nilsen]

Governor's Island, built in and around the old fort.


There was a moat shot where a player might have to play backwards and carom the ball off of the moat wall in order to reach the green above.

[V. Kmetz]

Hi Sven,


I have two close friends who actually played what was (I think) the 6 hole course on GI...but didn't they get rid of the golf course altogether when it changed state-federal ownership some decade or two ago.


I remember one dedicated local feature (Met Golfer or NYT Sunday magazine?) to the golf course going back 20-25 years perhaps, I'd love to find that again.


Two I didn't mention previously (b/c they aren't golf course features per se) were


Leewood - the famous "Babe Ruth Tunnel" cut under the Bronx River Parkway - allegedly so the Babe could get in a morning round and get right onto the BRP from Tuckahoe to the Stadium, which otherwise would take 2+ miles local driving (N or S) to the nearest on-ramp.  The scholarly camp has always been divided on this as apochrypha or truth...but I can relate that 25 or 30 years ago, the old nightwatchman-former locker man at Leewood who went back to Ruth's time, used to regale the odd visitor about Ruth's legendary hangover revivals in the mornings at Leewood...I think his name was "Jimmy" and many was the time (allegedly) that he turned on the lights to find the Sultan of Swat in various states of dawn disgrace...One thing I never understood was how the Babe was a member at Leewood and not somewhere closer (at that time Dunwoodie in Yonkers,  5-6 miles closer and filled with Broadway types when a private course or one of the courses that existed in Pelham).


Bedford Golf and Tennis Club- I haven't revisited the story (or the course) in some time, but the old cottage-shack-farmhouse that existed nearby the 10th hole claimed to have been the oldest-still-extant clubhouse structure, predating Shinny by two years.


cheers   vk

[Doug Hodgson]

Rome GC (Acquasanta):  The club's address is on The Appian Way.  It is close to a major ancient acquaduct that is clearly visible from many holes.  One hole (maybe the 8th if I remember correctly) has a collection of moguls on the fairway, one of which the green sits on top of.  These moguls are composed of dirt piled up on top of ruins of ancient Roman homesites (you can see the ruins from certain angles).  When you putt this green you are effectively on the roof of a 2000 year old house.


Fioranello GC., Rome.  Not far from Acquasanta.  A small ancient acqaduct runs just to the right of one of the fairways.  The members I was playing with said that if you hit your ball into it it would be best not to go after it as the acquaduct is snake infested


When I was a kid in Winnipeg, Canada, there was a low-end municipal course (maybe Kildonan?) that had a segment of an old train overpass in the middle of the fairway on one of the par 3's.  You had to decide whether to hit your ball over or under it