Golf Historical Society – Page 4 – Original articles relating to the History of Golf.

Robert “Bob” Lunn at Rancho Park

In 1971, the 45th Los Angeles Open was renamed the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open.

According to course manager Si Wasserman, the Rancho Golf Course was in the middle of $300,000 worth of major improvements. Tee’s were enlarged and re-seeded; a new driving range fence was installed with sound baffles; and six new “sand traps” were added “to make an already difficult course even more challenging,” and the Rancho restaurant was renovated to be “on a par with the finest of any public facility.”

“Some 70 palm “trees” have been placed at strategic spots to improve the landscaping. Hundreds of young trees have been planted at appropriate locations to provide a beautiful background.”

San Francisco municipal golfer Robert “Bob” Lunn had missed a playoff with Billy Casper and Hale Irwin in the 1970 L.A. Open by one stroke and was ready for another chance in 1971. Coincidentally, Lunn won the USGA Public Links championship in 1963, the same “major” that Rancho had hosted for its grand opening in 1949.

Note: For all professional golf competitions at Rancho Park the nine’s were reversed.

From the 1972 Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open Press Book:

RESUME OF THE 1971 LOS ANGELES OPEN

The tradition-rich Los Angeles Open has seen surprisingly few playoffs during its 45 years. But the law of averages has begun to catch up in the last three years, each of which produced a sudden-death playoff.
In 1971, Bill Casper, who won such a decider from young Hale Irwin in 1970, lost out to husky Bob Lunn in a tense, four-hole playoff.
Lunn 25, and the veteran Casper, 39, tied at the end of the regulation 72 holes with eight-under-par 274s. Veteran Art Wall almost made it a three-way playoff but three-putted the 72nd hole to finish one shot back of Lunn and Casper.
The Lunn-Casper playoff started on the 15th hole and they battled all the way to the 18th before a decision was reached. There, Lunn put his approach shot 18 inches from the flag while Casper was on the back of the green.
Billy made a good attempt for his birdie but just failed. Lunn then rolled in the putt to take the $22,000 first prize and another big step in his career.

The 1971 Open was close and competitive all the way. Virtually unknown Bobby Greenwood led by three shots entering the final 18 but couldn’t handle the pressure and slipped to a 73, which netted him a tie for fourth place.
(From the 1972 L.A. Open Press Book.)

Lunn after making his birdie on 18 to tie playing partner Billy Casper in 1971 L.A. Open at Rancho

Here is Bob Lunn’s story by Shav Glick, from the 1972 L.A. Open program:

BOB LUNN – DEFENDING CHAMPION
At first glance Bob Lunn appears to be a big, burley fellow who could pass for the town bully in a “B” Western.
But he’s really as emotional as a puppy.
Bob’s first win on a golf course came when he was an 18-year old public links golfer from Sacramento. He won the 1963 U.S. Public Links championship on the Haggin Oaks Course in his hometown, defeating Steve Opperman, 1 up, in the finals.
“When that last little putt dropped into the cup,” said Lunn, I couldn’t keep the tears back. And l thought I was going to be sick.”
A few years later he was making $100,000, on the PGA tour, but he hadn’t lost his sentimental altitude.
Last January, after defeating defending champion Billy Casper in a sudden-death playoff for the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open here at Rancho Park, he was the same old Bob Lunn, a little older and a little bigger, but still the same.
“I’m so happy I could cry – and I probably will,” he said as he accepted a check for $22,000 from Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce officials.
Lunn’s entry into professional golf was as uneventful as his high school career when he didn’t win a tournament. In his first year, 1967, he played in 27 events and won only $1,871 in “official” money. However, he picked up a nice “unofficial” check for $ 6,660 when he teamed with another rookie Rich Martinez of San Clemente to finish second in the Haig and Haig Scotch Foursome tournament.
His success in the November Haig and Haig at La Costa carried over into 1968 when Lunn soared into the $ 100,000 bracket and, was selected by Golf Digest as the “most improved professional of the year.” Bob started off with a fourth place finish in the Andy Williams San Diego Open, worth $7,500, but he won money in only three of his first 12 tournaments. Then, in May, he won back-to-back tour victories at Memphis and Atlanta, becoming the first player in history to follow his initial tour victory with another the following week.
Buoyed with confidence from his fine sophomore year, Lunn started 1969 by winning the $ 31,000 Southern California Open at Los Coyotes. It was the start of another big year for the big fellow from Sacramento. In 1970 he earned $101,685, his second year over the hundred thousand figure.
During the Glen Campbell L.A. Open last year Lunn decided that too much of his earnings were going to his waistline. He had ballooned to 240 pounds during the holiday season and he felt a diet was necessary.
“The extra weight didn’t hurt my game in any way that l could tell,” said Lunn, “but l figured I didn’t need it. l was afraid from a health standpoint.”
Lunn lost 10 pounds during the four rounds here at Rancho and decided that, as long as he won the tournament, he would lose some more. Pretty soon it developed into an obsession and by mid-April he was down to 175 pounds.
“While I didn’t notice any appreciable change in my game, I couldn’t relax off the course,” he admitted later. His wife, a beautiful brunette named Angie, noticed the difference. “He’s too quick to snap at little things.” she confided. “He’s just not like himself .”
When things go wrong for Lunn he turns to Tom LoPresti, the man who gave him his start as a professional, backing him to the tune of $ 250 a week during the early years.
Lunn called LoPresti in Sacramento when the tour reached Atlanta and Tom, a former pro himself, flew to Georgia to help straighten him out.
“After I played one round with Bob I knew his game had gone to pot. He wasn’t consistent off the tee, he shanked some shots and he couldn’t concentrate at all on the greens. I figured he’d lost too much weight too fast and I talked him out of his diet. I convinced him to start eating again, especially foods heavy in dextrose and protein.”
Now Bob is back up close to the 200 pound mark again and hitting the ball with his high, wide and handsome swing. He finished second in the Heritage Golf Classic last month to lift his earnings to $ 82,179 for 1971.
Lunn has had little difficulty preparing himself for defense of the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open. He is one who loves to practice.
“When l’m not in a tournament I play only about 18 holes a week, but I try to get in at least two hours of practice every day,” he once said. “That’s just as much fun as playing. I love to just stand there and hit those balls.”
He hits them a long way, too. In a stretch of 21 tournaments where IBM charted every drive of every professional, Lunn averaged 268 yards. Only DeWitt Weaver, Jack Nicklaus and Marty Fleckman were longer.
Now that Bob’s weight is back up, there’s very little to distinguish him from the young fellow who started out on the tour six years ago – except his bankroll. Once Bob was asked what difference success had made to him.
“It’s funny, the other guys are letting me tell my stories now. They used to bore me with their own,” he answered.
If he can win the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open again this week he’ll have a whole lot more to talk about. No one has scored back-to-back wins in this tournament since Arnold Palmer accomplished the feat in 1966-67.
And if he does, he’ll probably cry, too.
Shav Glick, from the 1972 L.A. Open program

125 Years of Griffith Park. 107 Years of Golf

Griffith Park Zoo & Golf Links. Circa 1915

Griffith Park was donated to the city of Los Angeles by Griffith Jenkins Griffith and his wife Christina Mesmer Griffith at Christmas of 1896. This November 13 the Recreation and Parks Department are celebrating the 125th anniversary of that gift.

The first Griffith Park municipal golf course, No. 1, opened on November 1, 1914, with the support of members of the Los Angeles Country Club and the Southern California Golf Association. It was a sand green links designed by golf legend Tom Bendelow and was located under Wilson #1,2,18, and Harding #17 and 18, west of the old city water pipe.

The old links were much loved by the country club crowd. They were also the site of many a film star hitting balls between takes. Griffith Park was location #1 in the late teens! Many athletes, celebrities, and other sports stars visited Los Angeles in the winters. Babe Ruth even signed his Yankee contract while playing Municipal No. 1 in 1920.

In 1923 George C. Thomas Jr., designed new municipal, No. 2, Harding Memorial, and in 1927 the Wilson Memorial, both all-grass golf courses. Nine holes of the old sand course, which are now part of the Zoo, were kept, and grassed-over in the 1930’s, and renamed the Roosevelt Memorial Golf Course.

In the early 1930s, superintendent of golf, William Johnson, and architect William P. Bell, modernized the courses using Federal Works money, installing irrigation and building the current clubhouse by 1936. It replaced the English style field house of 1918. Both Wilson and Harding courses were used for the L.A. Opens of 1937-1939.

After the great flood of 1938, the L.A. River was channelized to protect the park from flood damage. The county road was built in the 1920s along the river bank, and their “right of way” became the battle over the 5 Freeway in the late 1950s. The golf holes along the county road were taken during construction, but the land was returned afterward, with new holes designed to replace them.

Later, Wilson lost three more holes that became the Crystal Springs picnic area. There is also an old par 3 that had been the 18th and then the 16th hole on Thomas’s Harding, located between the 1st and 17th holes, which was abandoned in the 1950s.

In the early 1960s the city of L.A. wanted a new Zoo, and decided to replace the old Roosevelt golf course. The uproar caused the construction of the new Roosevelt golf course in Vermont Canyon, which was built to replace the historic remnant of the original 1914 Municipal No. 1. Both courses were open on the same day in 1964, after which the turf grass from the old course was spread around the city’s other courses.

Griffith Park was also home to the Coolidge Memorial course, now called the Tregnan Academy, the Los Feliz driving range and Par 3 course, and the nine-hole putting course on the second floor of the Griffith Park Bath House.

Los Angeles Recreation and Parks should be very proud of their accomplishments, having turned the original 18-hole sand course into a golf system that today has twelve courses that have been funded by the receipts from Griffith Park and later Rancho Park.

Come out on the 13th of November and enjoy the beautiful gift of the park and all of the awesome facilities that we in Los Angeles are so proud to have!

Altadena Country Club – Pasadena Golf Club 1911-2021

William Watson of Pasadena, Chicago, and St. Andrews, Scotland, started designing the original Altadena Country Club in February 1911 for J. B. Coulston, president of the National Bank of Pasadena and owner of the Maryland Hotel.

Coulston headed a group of hotel men and other “capitalists,” who had sold their Pasadena Country Club to H.E. Huntington, and hoped to ease overcrowding on the Annandale and Hotel Raymond links by forming a land association and buying 134 acres of the old Allen Ranch in Altadena as a replacement. They named it the Altadena Country Club.

The new clubhouse, 6466 yard eighteen-hole sand-green golf course, and two cement tennis courts, opened on December 28, 1911. Unfortunately, a freak sandstorm in February of 1912 blew the roof off the clubhouse, sending furniture flying in all directions, and greatly damaged the golf course. The next year a three day rain storm flooded and nearly destroyed the course, sending debris into Pasadena. Urgent reconstruction of the Rubio Wash channel through the course to control flooding delayed Watson’s full restoration of the damage, so they built a temporary nine-hole course north of Mendocino Street.

The restoration work was finished at the end of 1914. Watson himself became professional in 1915, while continuing to manage the Hotel Huntington (Pasadena CC) course.

The Altadena Country Club joined the Southern California Golf Association (SCGA) in 1915, and entered SCGA Team play in 1916.

In 1920, J.B. Coulston and the California Hotel Company bought the Altadena Country Club, and planned $500,000 in improvements, with three eighteen-hole golf courses, and named it the Pasadena Golf Club.

In a break with William Watson, George O’Neil, “golf expert of Chicago,” (Toledo CC, Beverly CC), and of the Pasadena Country Club, who had laid out Annandale Golf Club with Arthur Rigby (Los Angeles CC, San Gabriel CC, Santa Anna CC, ) and Al Naylor (Hotel Green, Annandale GC, San Gabriel CC), was hired to layout the new courses. His assistant was Jack Croke, of Chicago’s Exmoor club. Croke built the new course with William P. Bell, who had previously been Caddiemaster, and then Ground Superintendent, at Annandale Golf Club.

The first nine-holes of the new Pasadena Golf Club opened on October 31, 1920, and the second nine in December. It was the first golf course in Southern California with real undulating grass greens. William P. Bell became Superintendent of Pasadena GC in 1921, and Bell and Jack Croke teamed up to rebuild the greens at Annandale in 1922, and at the new Rancho Golf Club in 1923.

The Pasadena Golf Club was taken over by the bank in 1932, renamed the Altadena Golf Club, and open to the public until 1945, when the land and buildings were sold to Westmount College. They were denied the right to build their school on the property, so they split it up and sold it, selling 60 acres of the golf course to Los Angeles County.

L.A. County reworked the remaining nine-holes of the 1920 course and the Altadena Golf Club opened for play in 1950, officially opening in 1951, and continues to be operated by L.A. County 110 years after it started.

Whittier, La Habra Heights, Hacienda Country Club’s 100th Anniversary!

The Whittier Country Club was founded in 1920 by real estate developer and ex tennis champion Alphonzo Bell. The new Quaker Colony golf course was designed in the summer of 1920 by Scotch American course architect and golf equipment supplier, William Watson of St. Andrews, Chicago, and Los Angeles, on 151 acres of land owned by Bell in the center of the 3600 acre La Habra Heights subdivision.

In December of 1920, Alphonzo Bell formed the Hacienda Land Company and the Hacienda Country Club, and was looking for a “pro” to build the Watson designed course. He asked old tennis friend Ed Tufts of the local golf association and the Los Angeles Country Club for help. Tufts and legendary golf course architect George C. Thomas Jr., visited the site and made valuable alterations to the Watson design while making a plan for a modern irrigation system.

By Christmas Bell hired visiting English professional Charles Mayo to supervise construction of the course. Mayo was the former playing partner of British Open champion George Duncan, and had been lured to the USA in the summer of 1920 by Chick Evans to be the new professional at the Edgewater Club in Chicago.

In December Mayo was in Los Angeles, managed by D. Scott Chisholm, and playing in the opening exhibition match at the Wilshire Country Club and winning the big professional tournament at Pasadena Golf Club. By February, after a trip to San Francisco for exhibition matches, Charles completed construction of the first nine holes at Hacienda. A visit to the course that month by renowned grass expert William Tucker confirmed the work was completed, but with temporary greens.

Bell then hired John S.C. Shaw as Greenkeeper, and the nearly 300 members started playing the temporary course under the professional Perry Gaile. Shaw would carry on construction of the second nine to Watson and Mayo’s plan.

The new Bermuda greens and fairways of the first nine holes were officially opened on September 19, 1921, and the Hacienda Country Club joined the Southern California Golf Association (SCGA) in November.

Aside from real estate development, Alphonzo Bell also invested heavily in oil drilling. He was in over his head in debt when he opened the Hacienda Country Club in September. Fortunately his Bell No. 1 Oil Well in Santa Fe Springs exploded into gushing flames in October and forced Bell and his family to move to the Beverly Hills Hotel in the middle of the night just days after the Hacienda opening!

Once the well was brought under control it produced 2,000 barrels a day. Liquid money!

The Hacienda club had twelve holes in play in 1922, but the opening of the full eighteen holes was not until December 22, 1923. The official eighteen-hole opening featured an exhibition match between Willie Hunter and home pro Harry Pressler, who defeated George Kerrigan and Dick Linares, 2 and 1.

Soon after, Alphonzo Bell would concentrate on his new oil bought investments, the 1,700 acre Bel-Air subdivision, and his later purchase of the Santa Monica Mountain Park Company, and had little to do with Hacienda Country Club after 1924.

The Virginia Country Club’s 100th Anniversary at Los Cerritos!

Sumner Hunt’s design for Virginia’s club house.

At Rancho Los Cerritos in Long Beach, on September 1, 1921, a day after the new Hunt & Burns clubhouse was dedicated, the new William Watson designed grass-green golf course of the Virginia Country Club opened to its members.

The club had voted to move from Los Alamitos after ten years, leaving their old Arthur Rigby designed links to become Recreation Park municipal golf course.

The Virginia Country Club of Long Beach incorporated in 1909, and like many California golf clubs, was started by land and hotel owners working together to bring people to their cities and resorts. It was Hotel Virginia manager and avid golfer Carl Stanley who led the committee to find a location for a country club and golf links. The committee chose Los Alamitos due to its large lake and forest of Blue Gum trees, plus its location on the electric train line to Huntington Beach.

After Long Beach, Stanley become the long time manager of the Hotel Del Monte, where he stayed in charge from 1915-1941, fathering the Pebble Beach golf links and other Del Monte Properties golf courses.

British P.G.A. rejects “Bounding Billy,” the beginning of the end. (1903)

It must have seemed like the beginning of the end. The forces of commerce and profit in America had been delivering a constant barrage of “improvements” designed to make golf easier to play. By 1902, the new American “patent” rubber balls from Haskell and Kempshall had come to Great Britain, and the professionals knew the “Bounding Billy,” as it was called, would change the way they played the game, not to mention the need to redesign their clubs, and cause an unacceptable attack on golf course agronomics and hole design.

Unlike in the second half of the 19th century, when the resilient, reusable and cheap, Gutta Percha “gutty” came along, the new rubber ball would create an entirely new platform for the ball to dominate the business of the traditional game, and would continue to affect every aspect of it for centuries. The golf industry had found its holy grail!

The Haskell Golf Ball Advert – March 1903

In early 1903, at the height of the new rubber ball explosion, Britain’s top golf professionals voted on whether to allow it to be used in competition.

“Bounding Billy” is not in favor with the English golf professionals. At the first annual meeting of the Professional Golfers’ Association a motion proposed by James Braid and seconded by C. R. Smith, that gutta percha balls only be used in tournaments held by the association was carried by 33 votes to 9.

Among those who spoke in favor of the “guttie” was Harry Vardon, who said that it affords a better test of the golfer’s skill than the rubber-cored ball. With the latter a player has two chances. If he tops his ball instead of lofting it, the ball may yet reach the green.

Though the decision applies only to professional events held by the association, it is believed that the members of the committee on rules of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews hold the same sentiments.

Of course it has been asserted that the manufacturers of the gutta percha ball influenced the conclusion reached by the professional golfers, and also, of course, this has been strenuously denied. Such things are always said and always denied.
(March 1903, Western Field, On the Links by Arthur Inkersley)

The Go lf Ball

The Warren G. Harding Memorial Golf Course turned 98 on August 11, 2021.

Harding Municipal Golf Course in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, opened on August 11, 1923, as Griffith Park Course No. 2. It was the first all-grass links in the park. A country club for the masses!

Name: Griffith Park Course No. 2, Warren G. Harding Memorial (renamed 1924)
Nickname: Riverside
Course: 18 Hole, all grass tees and greens.
Yards: 6423 yards
Par: 444444453 – 444435443 – 36 – 35 – 71
Open: August 11, 1923 – Postponed from August 4, due to the death of President Harding on August 3.
Green Fee: $1

Ten plus holes remain from the original 1923 layout.
Harding – 1,2,3,5,6,14,16, (4, tee, fairway – 1923 H13)
Wilson – 5,6,13 (10, tee, fairway – 1923 H10)

Architect: George C. Thomas Jr.
Construction Committee: chair. Edward B. Tufts (SCGA, CGA, LACC), Mrs. Ann Trabue (chair. Golf Advisory Board)
Assistants: Max Behr, William P. Bell
Superintendent: Carl Worthen
Professional: S.C.P.G.A. sec. J.A. “Pat” Patterson (absent – at National Open)
Park Commission: Pres., Mrs. Martha McCann, master of ceremonies
City of L.A.: Councilman Ralph Criswell (filling in for Mayor Cryer) accepted the new course from Ed Tufts.

Opening Exhibition Matches – 1 PM

Hunter, Thomas, Tufts, Johnston and Macbeth before the opening match.

The designer of the course, George C. Thomas Jr., drove the first ball in an amateur foursome. He was paired with Southern California and British Amateur champion, Willie Hunter, playing against Wilshire CC’s, Norman Macbeth and Annandale’s A.D.S. Johnston. Hunter and Thomas won the 18 hole match, 1 up.

The amateurs were followed by a foursome of professionals led by LACC’s Vic Dalberto and ex-LACC and Open champion Hutt Martin, who won their match, 3 up 2 to play, from Midwick Country Club’s Chick Fraser and Pasadena Golf Club’s Mel Smith.

The following day the course was open to the public for $1 green fee. Over 400 golfers played Course No. 2 (Harding), and 250 played the old No. 1 sand-green links.

What a gift they gave us!

The Opening of Los Angeles Country Club’s W. Herbert Fowler designed North course in 1921

It was with great anticipation that Los Angeles Country Club’s new North course at Beverly officially opened to members on Wednesday, August 10, 1921, making LA CC the first club in California to have adjoining eighteen hole golf courses. The new course had been “thrown open for practice,” in early June, and members had declared it couldn’t be improved.

The big event of the opening day was an exhibition match between green committee man, George C. Thomas Jr., who laid out the W. Herbert Fowler designed eighteen hole golf course, paired with Miss Doreen Kavanagh, Southern California and State amateur champion, playing against Southern California amateur champion and general manager of Catalina Island Company, Everett Seaver, and Northern California women’s champion, Miss Margaret Cameron.

Thomas and Kavanagh defeated Cameron and Seaver by a score of 3 up and 3 to play. Broken down, Thomas beat Seaver, 1 up, and Kavanagh beat Cameron 3 and 2, in what was called a keen match.

After the exhibition there was a dinner and dancing for 400. The day’s events were filmed.

The club’s Superintendent of Grounds for many years was Charles Cavanaugh. He and his crew did an amazing job building and rebuilding holes for both new golf courses in under a year, all while keeping 18 holes open for competition.

Alex J. Morrison, of Los Angeles Municipal, Catalina Island, and vaudeville, who had started at LACC as a caddy at Pico and Western, was appointed professional in July of 1921, replacing golf legend John Duncan Dunn and his team of British golfers. Morrison’s assistants were Vic Dalberto and Harry McNamara. Alex was soon back on stage and replaced at LACC by Alex Duncan, brother of earlier LACC professional James Duncan, and British golf legend George Duncan.

There was so much praise heaped on George C. Thomas Jr., for laying out the North course, that Herbert Fowler got more than a bit lost in the press releases. Fowler was a very busy man that summer, having completed the South and North courses for LA CC, the Ambassador-Rancho Golf Club, redesigns of Del Monte #1 and #2 (Pebble Beach), and designs for the Presidio, Olympic Club, Burlingame, Crystal Springs and others.

The North course still has 12-13 original holes laid out by Fowler that were reconstructed by William P. Bell to George C. Thomas Jr.’s redesign in 1928, when they also added five new holes. The 2010 Gil Hanse restoration was to the 1928 Fowler-Thomas-Bell version of the North, plus rebuilding the old Fowler par three 17^th (replaced in 1928), which is now an extra hole.

On August 10, 2021, we can celebrate the design brilliance of Herbert Fowler, George C. Thomas Jr., and William P. Bell, along with the restoration by Gil Hanse. Happy 100^th Birthday LA CC North!

Seven holes on Bruntsfield Links

A podcast of my reading of a description of a round of golf on the best public links in Edinburgh in the 1880s!

England, Canada, and California’s Willie Lock – Through The Green

It is a wonderful honour for me to have my short story of legendary English golf professional Willie Lock published in the British Golf Collectors Society‘s June edition of Through The Green! And for those who are still patently unaware, his name was LOCK.

While researching English golf course architect William Herbert Fowler’s work in California in the 1920’s for Derek Markham’s A Matter of Course, Willie’s name kept coming up, forcing me to investigate a lost legend in English, Canadian, and Californian golf history. Willie had caddied for Fowler at Royal Devon before starting work as an apprentice under club making legend Charles Gibson.

From Royal Devon to Ganton, to Rosedale in Toronto, Riverside (CA), Los Angeles and San Francisco, Willie Lock was instrumental in raising the art of golf professional to a new level. Lock was a master club maker, having made Ted Ray’s famous driver when he was at Ganton. One of Willie’s most famous golf courses – San Francisco Golf & Country Club – is credited to Albert Tillinghast. According to his peers and golf writers of the day, Tillinghast blessed Lock’s plans when he visited the site when the course was already two years into construction.

Willie Lock was also credited with initiating the shift of golf tournaments to Red Cross benefits during World War I, as well as serving as President of the Northern California Professional Golfers Association.