Moundbuilders CC Newark, OH to Close

[Chris_Blakely]

https://golfweek.usatoday.com/2024/08/01/ohio-golf-course-2000-year-old-ancient-burial-grounds/

Sad that this golf course is closing it is (currently) a very very unique golf course that plays through / around Native American earthworks with an even more interesting history.

Article is very very poor and not accurate regardless if they are just using just others quotes; the course was closed at certain times for the public to view the Native American earthworks (that's a fact).  Additionally, no mention of the fact that these works survived to this day because a golf course was original built around them and further devolvement stopped.


Appears the Moundbuilders club is purchasing the nearby Trout Club (Jack Kidwell course) to be their new club home, I wouldn't renovate for fear of what they might dig up . . .


Chris

[Tom_Doak]

Sad to hear it, and glad I went to see the course before the end times.

[Craig Sweet]

Colonization has done some horrible things and it's time for reckoning.

[Tommy Naccarato]

If indeed this is true, really sad to see this!  It’s a perfect place to show how Golf can coexist with Native American artifacts.  It honored its site.


Should we also raze the city of New York while we’re at it?!?!

[Craig Sweet]

Razing NYC?  Wouldn't hurt.

[Ryan Book]

I've gone both ways on this one. On one hand, it struck me as problematic to host a golf course on such a remarkable piece of ancient art. But, as I've thought about it, I realized that we too are inefficient in our use of space in an era where you read so much about the lack of housing in San Francisco et al. I've realized that cemeteries are needless contrivances, worth dedicating for more valuable purposes. If no one is willing to build homes on such a property, perhaps golf development's next big opportunity?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Many years ago, Killian and Nugent designed a never-built course for one of Chicago's large tracts of Catholic cemetery land.  My memory is fuzzy, but I think it was for land banking when the cemetery needed the land for its original purpose.

[Stephen Smith]

This is unfortunate.  If it was not for the golf course, these mounds would have never been maintained as they are now or appreciated. The Trout Club is just not the same type of course.  They have a good restaurant (not that you care), but the course is meh. 

[Ryan Book]

Moundbuilders' appeal seemed more novelty than anything, a sensation that wears off quickly on the less interesting "mound golf" holes. Considered in a vacuum, at least the Viking burial place at Cruden Bay seems a natural feature to construct a golf course around. Moundbuilders struck me as exagerrated mini-golf features, and had Bendelow built the mounding himself (rather than route around existing earthworks that had existed there for centuries), we'd be tutting and citing the Macdonald quote in my signature below. Hundreds years of separation does not naturalism make.


The claims that Moundbuilders CC saved the earthworks are probably accurate but let's not try to frame it as one of the founders' goals. It's not like Keisers-at-Sand Valley, where the founders saw the wonder and committed to preserving a chunk of it. Moundbuilders' founders saw landforms that would make for a curious course, not a monument.

[Chris_Blakely]

I never claimed that the golf course was built to save these mounds.  However, unlike many I have been to all of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio and taken the time to study them.  I believe the amount that has been saved is less than 10% at the Newark Earthworks site at least that is what the photo of the site says that I took after my round.  And, why is this 10% still here . . . the golf course.  For one to say the golf course had nothing to do with this site still being around is to put one's head in the sand.


As Tommy N  previously stated, this would be a great opportunity for golf to co-exist with Native American Artifacts that would have long ago been plowed under if the GC was not built around them in the first place.


Chris

[Tim Rooney]

It will be interesting what improvements will be done at the Trout Club.
Jack Kidwell told me years ago when building for the prominent Columbus Wolf family that he told the owners it was the best design he could render since it was built on bedrock and would require dynamite for a better design.

[Craig Sweet]

Coexist? The mounds were there way before the golf course.  To say they should coexist is typical colonizer thinking.

[Tom_Doak]

Coexist? The mounds were there way before the golf course.  To say they should coexist is typical colonizer thinking.

By the same logic, we should all raze our houses and go back to where our ancestors came from.  You go first.

[Sven Nilsen]

Jan. 30, 1923 Golf Illustrated -

[Sven Nilsen]

May 1928 Golf Illustrated -

[Sven Nilsen]

Jan. 1930 Golf Illustrated -

[Sven Nilsen]

Aerials -

[Steve Lang]

   Having lived over 30 years in Ohio growing up, studying, and working there, I'm always amazed that the indians had time to create their many historical sites... they were always fighting for territory to occupy, way before the white man came... wouldn't be surprised if captured indians built those earthworks in Newark and other places..  or maybe it was boring growing crops when they were being left alone for a while, with time for looking at the stars at night , no one really knows their origins, archaeology folks just name and measure the forms, check geometric orientations for all the mounds in Ohio and make up theories... 


... and when the white man came, the cycle of indian fighting, moving, fighting just continued at a different level with the new settlers involved till the indians finally lost and were eventually moved out of state...  see interesting reference at [size=78%]https://www.rrcs.org/Downloads/Ohios%20historic%20Indians%2038%20pages.pdf[/size]


played Moundbuilders once in the 70's, remember it as generic central Ohio parkland type golf, with a little history, guess the golf will just be removed

[Craig Sweet]

Tom Doak, that's a pretty thoughtless reply.  When you consider the colonizers stole Indian land and brought slaves from Africa to do the work for them, there needs to be a more thoughtful approach to the damage colonizers have done. 


How many of you in your travels to Ireland to play golf have visited Newgrange?  It was built before the Pyramids. Or how many have visited Stonehenge? 


Do you even try and understand the significance of these places?

[Chris_Blakely]

Coexist? The mounds were there way before the golf course.  To say they should coexist is typical colonizer thinking.

By the same logic, we should all raze our houses and go back to where our ancestors came from.  You go first.

Great response!!

[Richard Hetzel]

I played Moundbuilders CC (Bendelow, 1910) on Wednesday afternoon. I really enjoyed it, although it could be something special with TREE REMOVAL and renovation, better bunkering and greens. I really liked the two par threes on the back nine, of which 5 holes are placed at a lower level than the rest of the course which appears to be up on a ridge. Drought conditions here in Ohio, course was in great shape and playing fast and firm as it should. The four hours drive time was worth it to me as this place will no longer exist as a golf course in 6-7 weeks.

[Anthony Gholz]

I'm an Ohio mound builder fan.  Seen 'em all.  But along with Serpent Mound, this location is special.  The club (and Mr Bendelow) should be commended for maintaining the mounds.  Anthony

[Chris Hughes]

Coexist? The mounds were there way before the golf course.  To say they should coexist is typical colonizer thinking.

By the same logic, we should all raze our houses and go back to where our ancestors came from.  You go first.

Great response!!

2nd...

[Chris Hughes]

Tom Doak, that's a pretty thoughtless reply.  When you consider the colonizers stole Indian land and brought slaves from Africa to do the work for them, there needs to be a more thoughtful approach to the damage colonizers have done. 


How many of you in your travels to Ireland to play golf have visited Newgrange?  It was built before the Pyramids. Or how many have visited Stonehenge? 


Do you even try and understand the significance of these places?

Go pound sand pal...I mean show some respect already.

FTR, exactly whom are you suggesting should be "locked up"?

[Josh Bills]

I found a couple January 1934 aerials of Moundbuilders, figured I would add it to the discussion.  Taken by Dache McClain Reeves.