2012 Alberta Golfer Magazine (100 Years of Alberta Golf)

THE ALBERTA

T H E O F F I C I A L M A G A Z I N E O F A L B E R TA G O L F

A History of Golf inAlberta CENTENNIAL COLLECTORS EDITION

1912-2012

ALBERTAGOLF.ORG

Shedding light on your

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Congratulations from Sun Life Advisors and Managers to Alberta Golf on their 100th Anniversary.

A job well done!

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A HISTORY OF GOLF IN ALBERTA

BY TYLER TRAFFORD

INSIDE 82

Hickory Shafts, Haskell Balls and Barbed Wire Greens 1885 – 1914 The early days of Alberta Golf.

Perilous course conditions and the five founding members of Alberta Golf in 1912.

Champions, Royalty and Booze 1915 – 1929

Stymies, Droughts and Artillery 1930 – 1945

From the low times of WW I to the post-war boom and the Roaring 20’s, golf was emerging as a popular sport for men and women of all social classes.

From the onset of the Great Depression to the end of WW II, no era better illustrates the resiliency and determination to survive for Alberta’s golf industry.

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2012

ALBERTA golf Director Listing Directors President Sandra Craig, Pinebrook GCC Vice President Av Beirnes, Sandpiper GC Secretary Susan MacKinnon, Willow Park GCC

The Effect of Oil on Golf Courses 1946 – 1970

OPEC, Palmer and Television 1971 – 1991

The Rise of the Weekend Warriors 1992 – 2012

Leduc #1 in 1947 transformed Alberta economically and socially.

Nowhere was this transformation more evident than on the province’s golf courses.

Globally, the rise of Arnold Palmer and televised tournaments fuelled the explosion of interest in golf. In Alberta, the rising price of oil fed our already established addiction to golf.

Golf became cool. New courses opened throughout the province, catering to both the country club set and a new phenomenon – the weekend warrior.

76

Treasurer Martin Blake, Canyon Meadows GCC Past Pres. & Provincial Council Representative Tyrone Edwards, Medicine Hat GCC Alberta Golf Association Foundation President Florin Bergh, Highlands GC Directors at Large Tiffany Gordon, Cottonwood GCC Ken Knowles, Windermere GCC Linnea Turnquist, Heritage Pointe GC Tom Zariski, Drumheller GC

Honorary Lifetime Director Babe McAvoy, Windermere GCC

Golf Canada Directors

100

Immediate Past President: Karen Rackel, Highlands GC Leslie Dunning, Earl Grey GC

Golf Canada Governors

123

Fran Marsden, Glendale GC Michael Smith, Pinebrook GCC

Alberta Golf Association #22, 11410 27 Street S.E. Calgary, Alberta T2Z 3R6 Tel: (403) 236-4616 Fax: (403) 236-2915 Toll Free: 1-888-414-4849 Email: info@albertagolf.org Website: www.albertagolf.org

34

Publisher Parcom Marketing Inc. Suite 210, 11450 - 160 Street, Edmonton, AB T5M 3Y7 Tel: (780) 424.1111 Fax: (780) 424.2884 Website: parcommarketing.com Managing Editor Brent Ellenton Design and Production Parcom Marketing Inc. THE ALBERTA GOLFER is published annually by Parcom Marketing Inc. in cooperation with Alberta Golf. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without written permission from Alberta Golf and Parcom Marketing Inc. Thank you to all those golf clubs which allowed Alberta Golf to conduct golf tournaments on their premises during 2011.

Hall of Fame and Distinguished Service Award recipients’ images created by Eldon Walls.

COVER Golfers tee off at Waterton Lakes National Park ca. 1945.

Glenbow Archives NB-54-497

ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 5

Thank you

A History of Golf in Alberta is dedicated to The Member Clubs of Alberta Golf

From five founding clubs in 1912, Alberta Golf has grown to 230 member clubs today.

The 100 years from then to now have not all been easy. Golfers, clubs, courses and Alberta Golf have experienced the ups and downs of the economy, social change and war. But our predecessors persevered and our sport today owes a debt of gratitude to those who contributed to the growth of golf in Alberta.

Alberta Golf believes it is important to acknowledge that its Member Clubs have been stalwart supporters of the organization; they contributed dues even when money was tight, offered the use of courses when tee times were at a premium and provided volunteers in sunshine and in rain.

To recognize the contributions made by the Member Clubs to golf in Alberta, we are providing archival glimpses into the struggles and victories of many of these valued friends in the hope that every member of every club can see at least a part of their individual club’s journeys reflected in those stories.

As you read, please accept Alberta Golf’s most heartfelt thanks that your club, too, persevered and the sport is better for that effort.

A special note of appreciation goes to Grant Robertson and Dunc Mills of Parcom Marketing for their long hours of graphic design and their dedication to making this issue as beautiful as the fairways of Alberta.

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MESSAGE FROM

AlbertaGolf Alberta Golf Association Centennial Anniversary It is with great pride that we celebrate 100 years of history and tradition of one of the oldest organized amateur Golf Associations in Canada. As one of our many centennial celebration activities, we are honoured to publish this commemorative edition of the 2012 Alberta Golf Magazine which has been devoted to pay tribute to the pioneers, the ambassadors and the foundation builders of the Alberta Golf Association over the last 100 years. As you read the outstanding historical articles and enjoy the even more outstanding pictures from the past you will gain an insight of the clubs, equipment, trends, fashion and notable events over the last 100 years that has shaped golf in Alberta.

On behalf of the Alberta Golf Association membership, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate our Association as it turns 100, and to also recognize and congratulate the many volunteers and staff members — past and present — who made this possible. You have served us so well.

Sandra Craig, President

Thanks to the support of our volunteers, our membership and our staff, much has been accomplished during the past 100 years. To the Board of Directors who preceded us we are grateful and thank them for their vision and dedication. Today we remain committed and pledge to continue into the next century in our mission to grow participation in the game and passion for the sport while upholding the integrity and traditions of the game.

In closing we encourage all of our membership to participate in the celebration of our 100th anniversary by having a centennial tournament during the 2012 golf season. Encourage your competitors to dress in the fashion of the era of when your club joined the Alberta Golf Association or the fashion of 1912, maybe play with hickory sticks golf clubs and at the end of the day make a toast to the wonderful game of golf and our outstanding association and to the success of another century which I have no doubt that it will be.

Cheers and Happy Golfing!

Sandra Craig President

Front row, left to right: Donald Stewart, Assistant Executive Director Membership Services; Anna Karpova, Administrative Assistant; Eric Rogers, Accountant.

Back row, left to right: Brent Ellenton, Executive Director/CEO; Jack Lane, Championships Manager; Matt Rollins, Assistant Executive Director, Sport Development.

ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 7

MESSAGE FROM

Golf Canada Alberta Golf Association Centennial Anniversary On behalf of Golf Canada, governed by the Royal Canadian Golf Association, it is my pleasure to express congratulations to the membership and executive of the Alberta Golf Association upon celebrating the association’s centennial anniversary.

Throughout the association’s storied history, the golfers, courses, administrators and volunteers that proudly represent Alberta Golf have given back to our greatest sport in so many ways. Representing close to 58,000 members at 230 member clubs throughout the province, the association has produced many of Canadian golf’s greatest ambassadors whose contributions both on and off the course have been outstanding.

Scott Simmons

Golf Canada is especially appreciative of the longstanding partnership we share with Alberta Golf in all areas of Long Term Player Development including the grassroots participation and excellence programs that are introducing new participants and developing the future heroes of our sport. Alberta’s investment into player development has long been reflected in the quality of its athletes and provincial competitions.

Reaching a centennial milestone speaks to the success and growth of golf in this country over the past century. It is individuals like those that proudly represent Alberta Golf, who honour golf’s traditions and foster the development of the game, that have helped our sport reach the level of respect and prominence that it now holds in Canada.

Congratulations to the Alberta Golf Association on reaching its 100th anniversary.

May the association’s second century of golf be as memorable as its first.

Sincerely,

Scott Simmons Executive Director & CEO Golf Canada

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Hickory Shafts, Haskell Balls and Barbed Wire Greens

The Early Days The Edmonton Country Club The Collector Proud to be Old

Hickory Shafts, Haskell Balls and Barbed Wire Greens Alberta’s early courses were perilous. Golfers needed endurance and courage to withstand the test of rugged terrains, wandering livestock and land evictions. f you golfed in early Alberta, most likely you only played after work Saturday afternoons and your course would have been a series of holes stepped off in a cattle pasture just outside town.

You would have been an oddity. Few in Alberta, with a population of less than 75,000 in 1901, would have heard of a mashie, niblick or bogey. Of those who did golf, most had a British Isles accent: Irish, Scottish or English.

You and your men friends would have golfed in the clothes you wore to work: wool pants, white shirt, tie, tweed jacket and matching cloth cap. Women wore long, cumbersome and fitted jackets … not designed for a golf swing!

Barbed Wire Greens You needed a good set of spiked boots because the fairways would send you through the prairie coulees and ravines, and across streams. As well, you might need extra traction to chase the cattle and horses off the greens unless you and your friends had followed the example of the Calgary golfers and ringed your greens with barbed wire.

Your clubs would have been acquired individually, not as a set, and you would have carried the eight basics: driver, brassie, mid iron, mashie, mashie niblick, niblick, jigger and putter.

Gutta Percha Balls One or two of your friends might still be playing with the older gutta percha balls, a solid ball formed from the latex sap of a Malaysian tree. Possibly the ball had been hammered or nicked to give it a better flight.

Up-to-date golfers would be playing with the latest invention, the Haskell ball with a rubber core, wound with a rubber filament and covered with gutta percha.

This ball gave users a great distance and accuracy advantage over the gutta percha players and probably led to the eternal discussions about new technology ruining the game.

1890: Tomato Juice Cans For Holes By 1890, members of the North West Mounted Police had a few holes laid out beside their barracks, adding golf to their sporting activities of coyote hunting, polo and marksmanship. (Source: Sport in Early Calgary, William M. McLennan.)

In Lethbridge that year, druggist J.D. Higinbotham, and banker F. Godwin received four sets of clubs and a rule book from friends passing through the town.

They studied the rules and built a four hole course using tomato juice cans for holes. (Source: Lethbridge Herald: July 11, 1935.)

The officers at Fort Macleod, believing they had the responsibility for bringing civilization to Alberta (then called the Northwest Territories), would be the first to institutionalize golf by establishing the first club, The Macleod Golf Club, in 1895.

The first tee would be a worn patch of ground cleared of the rocks that In Edmonton and Calgary, would damage your driver. the lawyers, accountants There might be a box beside Druggist John D. Higinbotham laid out a and businessmen naturally you, the origin of today’s tee Lethbridge course in 1890 with tomato juice understood the social value box, from which you’d take a cans for holes. Glenbow Archives NA-2464-1. of formalizing their golfing pinch of sand to mold a friendships as clubs. They followed the lead of the cone-shaped tee. You might even carry a mold to NWMP officers and established The Edmonton shape the sand into a tee.

Country Club in 1896 and The Calgary Golf and Country Club in 1897.

Alberta’s First Golfers: 1885 Golf was first played in Alberta in two southern Alberta’s newly formed clubs often shared towns, Lethbridge and Fort Macleod. In 1885, two membership and facilities with other outdoor sport years after the first CPR railway tracks were laid enthusiasts making tennis, archery and coyote hunting in Alberta, the Irish brothers David and Albert all part of the ‘country club’ experience and bringing Browning lined up their red-painted ‘guttys’ and together a big crowd for Saturday afternoon tea. drove them with hickory clubs into the prairie rough near Fort Macleod. (Source: The Albertan April 16, 1929.)

The 1912 Calgary St Andrews Course with a barren Calgary landscape in the background.

Photo Credit: White Family.

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Calgary St Andrews clubhouse ca. 1914.

Photo Credit: White Family.

A club’s biggest investment would have been a small clubhouse that could be dragged further into the prairie when landowners evicted the golfers. Golfers in Calgary, for example, first played by the CPR tracks in the mid-1890’s south of what is the city’s downtown today. Like nomads, they re-formed and relocated at least five times on courses with picturesque names like “Buffalo Wallow” before buying land in 1909 and opening the Calgary Golf and Country Club course for play in 1911.

The wandering paths of Alberta’s early nomadic golf courses and organizations is perhaps hardest to follow in Lethbridge where everything from new jails to railway spurs forced numerous course relocations.

By 1907, druggist J.D. Higginbotham was part of a group that built a nine hole course for the Lethbridge Golf Club. For reasons unknown, in 1911 a group of members also formed the competing Lethbridge Country Club but continued to share the nine hole course. The Lethbridge Golf Club would become the Henderson Lake Golf Club in 1961.

The Lethbridge Country Club players didn’t build their own course until the mid 1920’s when they bought land at the bottom of Slaughterhouse Coulee on the banks of the Oldman river.

Edmonton Country Club clubhouse 1898. Glenbow Archives NA-1244-3.

Club. He also owned a real estate company and, most important to the future of the local golfers, was the CPR land representative for the area.

Through William Toole, the Calgary GCC was able to buy its land, described as “bare pasture, unfenced,” on the banks of the Elbow River for $100/acre, to be paid back over ten years.

Calgary St. Andrews Another prestigious club, Calgary St. Andrews Golf Club, was not so decisive in its land dealings. The members wound up golfing on a dry patch of sheep pasture south of where the University of Calgary is today while they negotiated unsuccessfully for river land. The Club opened in 1912 and closed its course on that barren hillside in 1927. Most members would join the Calgary GCC.

The Edmonton Golf Club The informal formation of the Lethbridge Country Club in 1911 (it was not registered until 1913) coincided with Alberta’s first real estate boom, one that the province’s golf clubs bought into eagerly.

Edmonton and Calgary, in particular, were in a real estate frenzy as worldwide advertisements for homesteaders by the Canadian Government brought trainloads of newcomers to town every day.

Calgary’s population went from 4000 to over 40,000 between 1901 and 1911.

The Edmonton Golf Club played on vacant or leased land from 1896 to 1911, before buying on the banks of the North Saskatchewan.

By then, the golf clubs’ officers were established businessmen of noted social standing and making a fortune in land deals. Irish-born William Toole, for example, was an influential member of Calgary’s most prestigious business and social organizations, including the 57-member Calgary Golf and Country

The 1908 championships, for example, were held on a Calgary course decorated with a marquee and flagpole, and supposedly held under the auspices of the Alberta Golf Association. As the AGA was not formed until 1912, it can only be assumed that whoever held the provincial tournament felt entitled to use the name.

Until 1912 the early provincial golf championships were, like the clubs themselves, informal events attracting whatever friendly competitors were able to show up on the day. The records are long lost and only newspaper articles provide glimpses of the events.

The 1908 men’s and ladies championships – the first reported – also included long driving, approach, putting, mixed and handicap competitions. Six men from Edmonton played, bringing the men’s entries to 19, according to William M. McLennan whose book Sport in Early Calgary summarizes many of these newspaper articles. W. Shaw of Calgary won the approach and long driving competition (270 yards). Charlie Hague, of the Calgary GCC won the men’s title after the 35th hole, and Miss Brown of Edmonton won the ladies.

In 1912, with the real estate boom predicted to last forever, five Alberta Clubs: Lethbridge Country Club; Fort Macleod Golf Club; Calgary Golf and Country Club; Calgary’s St. Andrews Golf Club and the Edmonton Country Club – formalized provincial golf by incorporating The Alberta Golf Association as a society.

Calgary and Edmonton traded rights to hold the provincial championships in 1912 and 1913.

The provincial competitions came to an end when Britain’s ultimatum to Germany was ignored and Canada entered World War I in 1914.

Good times for Alberta’s golfers would not return until after the war ended in 1918.

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THE ALBERTA GOLF ASSOCIATION

The Early Days The founders of the Alberta Golf Association may have been enthusiastic sportsmen with a particular love of golf, but when it came to record maintenance they were duffers; allowing their founding constitution documents to slip unceremoniously into the sand trap of oblivion. oday, the early records of the Alberta Golf Association are nowhere to be found. Their pre1930’s accounts of meetings, finances, and membership are balls lost in the rough of yesterday’s friendships and competitions.

What we know about the Association’s founding can only be interpreted from faded newspaper and magazine snippets easily overlooked on yesterday’s sports pages dominated by the headlines for more popular sports such as baseball, horse racing, shooting, cricket and polo.

Because the Association was formed primarily to host the provincial golf championships, the Association’s internal activities were hardly

considered news items. Most often, notes about the Association were run in the social columns featuring the tea parties that often accompanied a gathering of golfers.

The first hint of a provincial organization is from September 21, 1897 when the Winnipeg Free Press reported: “The amateur golf championship of Southern Alberta will be contested for at (Fort) Macleod on Monday and Tuesday Sept. 27th and 28th.”

It wasn’t until 1908 that the first provincial champion was declared: Charlie Hague of the hosting Calgary Golf and Country Club. The championship then alternated annually between the Edmonton Country Club and the Calgary GCC.

Like many athletic ladies of the day, Miss Janet Sparrow (left), the 1913 Alberta golf champion, wore the same loose-fitting dresses for all sports including tennis.

Glenbow Archives NA-1504-9.

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Clubs Become Formalized by Land Ownership By 1911, Alberta golf had changed dramatically when the Edmonton and Calgary clubs became landowners and were formally organized. The leading members of the clubs were, generally speaking, financially successful and astute businessmen and, naturally enough, they expected their clubs – in which they had invested money to buy land – to be organized as responsibly as their businesses.

Golf moved from the social pages to the sports pages of the Calgary newspapers when tournaments began to attract crowds and participants province-wide.

The 1911 Dinner at the New Clubhouse

The Five Founding Clubs

To celebrate the opening in 1911 of its new course and $50,000 clubhouse, the Calgary GCC hosted a tournament that drew golfers for individual and team matches from all over the province, many of whom were intent on forming a provincial golfing organization.

Officially, the founding clubs of the Alberta Golf Association were: The Lethbridge Country Club, The (Fort) Macleod Golf Club, Calgary St. Andrews Golf Club, The Edmonton Country Club and The Calgary Golf and Country Club.

Probably for the first time, a golf tournament made the Sports Page headline of the Calgary Daily Herald - Golf Tournament Opens – and in the October 6 1911 article was a revealing sentence: “The (Calgary GCC) board is giving a dinner at the new club house tonight to outside golfers. It is their intention to organize a new Alberta Golf Association.”

This dinner would become the founding event for the modern Alberta Golf Association. Soon after that dinner the Association was officially formed with bylaws that, while the original documents are long lost, are referred to in current by-laws.

The 1912 executive of the Alberta Golf Association was: President A. McMahon of Calgary; Vice President Dr. Cobbett of Edmonton and SecretaryTreasurer T. Gillespie of Granum. (Source: Sport in Early Calgary, William M. McLennan.)

Interestingly, The Lethbridge Country Club was not registered as a club until 1913, a year after the Alberta Golf Association’s formation.

It is not hard to imagine the reluctance of a new association secretary to store boxes of old ledgers and minute books. Very likely, only the most recent boxes were kept and the rest discarded.

As well, clubhouses made poor vaults. The Edmonton CC, one of the most likely places where records would have been kept, and the Calgary GCC tore their clubhouses down in the 1950’s to build modern ones. In the basement of the old Calgary GCC clubhouse, members found an entire storage room that had been walled-in. Who knows today what records might have been stored there?

Records were also probably forgotten during the war years when the tournaments were cancelled and, in practical terms, the Association had no business to conduct.

Basement Storage Walled-In An explanation for the loss of the early records might be that, until the 1970’s, the Association never had a permanent home; the records would have been lugged yearly between the clubs or homes of the Association’s officers charged with their keeping.

In reality, the loss of the early records is of little consequence when compared to what has been retained: 100 years of dedication to golf in Alberta.

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The Edmonton Country Club Established 1896

An historic course that exemplifies Alberta’s perseverance and golfing spirit. ife couldn’t be looking finer. It is a sharp blue September afternoon at the Edmonton Country Club.

Despite a slight bite in the wind and a few leaves yellowing on the poplars beside the North Saskatchewan River, golfers today are teeing off in short sleeves.

But such is the way of golf in Alberta: a struggle to overcome unforeseen challenges with the sure prospect of bright summer days ahead. Without doubt, the Edmonton Country Club is proof that Alberta golf has an indomitable spirit.

This moment of golfing tranquillity is especially memorable as the course, once on the city’s barren outskirts, is now an oasis of rolling green within a prairie metropolis of over one million.

As a founding club in the 1912 formation of the Alberta Golf Association, the Edmonton Country Club (first formed as the Edmonton Golf Club) had been in operation since 1896 (town population 1700), making it the second club formed in the province.

Fort Macleod was first, in 1895.

Three Clubhouses Burned

Evicted From Their Course

Yet … it wasn’t always so idyllic at this historic club. Since its inception in 1896, the club has fought its way through three financial restructurings and name changes, and has lost three clubhouses to fire – one intentional, one accidental and one just a rumour.

The club’s first course, laid out in 1896, was five, illdefined and often perilous holes on Hudson’s Bay Company land below the North Saskatchewan River escarpment, beginning near where the Legislature buildings are today. The first hole ran down the hill just missing an old graveyard at the bottom. The course then crossed rutted wagon tracks before working its way uphill again to finish at the clubhouse, the former residence of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s factor (headman).

There have been two forced relocations, armed robberies, murder-suicides, bigamist weddings, Supreme Court challenges to shareholder rights, course redesigns including moving nine holes from the river valley to the prairie above, and even three Lady Godivas riding naked through the property.

The Edmonton Country Club, 1913.

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When Alberta became a province in 1905 and Edmonton was chosen as the capital, one of the new government’s first steps was to acquire land from the Hudson’s Bay Company and serve an eviction notice on the golfers. The golfers relocated west of their old course to what is now the site of the Victoria Park course.

In 1906, following a smallpox outbreak in which the clubhouse was commandeered as an isolation hospital, government officials burned it to the ground.

Then the city bought the remaining land from the Hudson’s Bay Company and, once more, the golfers were told to look for another place to play. (Victoria Park would become Canada’s first municipal course.)

This frequent uprooting of courses was inevitable in the days when clubs rented or squatted on open pasture. To buy land for a golf course seemed unnecessary with so much vacant landscape available as fairways. But, with the rapid expansion of the population, real estate became increasingly valuable and the golfers, many of them businessmen, eventually realized that it was time to invest in their own land if they were to continue playing.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALBERTA GOLF ON

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Edmonton Country Club E XC E L L E N C E S I N C E 1 8 9 6

Alberta’s oldest golf club and a charter member of Alberta Golf.

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The club closed the lower nine to cut back on maintenance and, as a demonstration of golfing despondency, only three members attended the annual meeting.

On the way to the train station after the match, Hagen slipped Dunc $50 when he heard the pro had not been paid a share of the purse.

The Club’s Depression-Era Benefactor 1919 brought two well-remembered days to the club’s history. On one, after a prohibition-era tournament, the members located two cases of Irish whiskey. “There was a fight in every corner and a — in every bunker,” one member reported of the celebrations. On a more traditional note, H.R.H. The Prince of Wales visited the club, signed the guest book as Edward P, ate his lunch, and golfed.

At the Ladies’ Insistence Early Edmonton golfers wore office attire in keeping with the gentlemanly nature of their game, ca. 1913.

Edmonton Country Club .

426 acres at $100/acre In 1911 the club purchased 426 acres – at $100/acre – eight miles upstream of Edmonton on the North Saskatchewan River. Through some clever land swaps with farmers and real estate developers hoping to cash in on future ‘Country Club lots’ the club eventually owned enough playable land to build an 18 hole, 6360 yard, par 73 course that was open in time for the 1913 Alberta Golf Association provincial championships.

Two months after the course opened, the new clubhouse burned down, ironically one day after the club’s water well had been drilled. Slightly embarrassed, the members rebuilt.

By the 1920’s, when golf enthusiasm and prosperity had been revived and the sport was enjoying a world-wide boom, the club had recovered from near-bankruptcy and was restructured as the Edmonton Golf & Country Club. Solvent, the members could afford to build a footbridge spanning 290 feet across the ravine by the 18th, and gravel the road to the club, ‘mostly at the insistence of the ladies,’ as members recall.

The club hired Dunc Sutherland as its professional and manager in 1920 who, in addition to a being a noted teacher, was a respected player. When the flamboyant Walter Hagen, Jr. – fresh from his victories in the 1924 and 1925 PGA Championships and the 1924 British Open – drank and golfed his way across Western Canada beating everyone who dared to show up for a match, he played Dunc at Edmonton.

The Depression of the 1930’s brought the club to its financial knees again but was bankrolled at its most desperate moment by a wealthy member, Col. James Ramsey.

Ramsey bought out the majority of the last-hope debentures offered by the Club in 1934, enabling it to not only to stay in operation but also to move the bottom nine holes onto the top bank. In today’s dollar value, Ramsey put up close to $1 million, a debt which he forgave in his will, except for a minor amount.

“Pop” Brinkworth, the club’s dynamo ground superintendent, designed and built the new nine holes and was credited by the RCGA for constructing “the best par three’s of any course in Canada.”

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Then came WWII. From financially flush, the club like many others went onto life-support for the most part of the war as reduced memberships, rationing of gas and liquor, cancellation of tournaments, and a dwindling public interest in golf made even the most determined golfer wonder if life would ever be wonderful again.

1942 brought Pat Fletcher to the club where he doubled as the pro and club president until after the war when he moved to Saskatoon. Fletcher would become the last Canadian (1954) to win the Canadian Open.

Nine of the holes were on the river flats and nine on top of the bank giving the members a serious cardiac workout: it was strictly sweat and willpower that enabled golfers to conquer the punishing climbs up the banks and through the deep ravines that drained top land creeks into the river.

The road from Edmonton to the club was notoriously treacherous and muddy in wet weather, a very convenient situation for the married men who were forced to spend a weekend at the club playing cards and drinking until horses could pull the vehicles onto city-maintained roads.

Your Pay: Take Two Cows Then came WWI, 1914-1918, and with it falling agriculture prices and cancelled memberships. The club did everything it could to hang on, even combining the role of club pro with greenkeeper and then settling his wages by paying out ‘two cows’ instead of cash.

Edmonton CC players loosened up their attire rules for tournaments and left their jackets in the clubhouse, ca. 1913.

Edmonton Country Club .

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“I ended up being sick for three weeks, and the most frightening part was not knowing if it would keep getting worse.”

– Coreen, Bow Island, AB West Nile virus survivor

West Nile virus remains a health concern for all Albertans. Those over the age of 50 are at greater risk of becoming seriously ill when infected with West Nile virus.

Your best protection is insect repellent with DEET. Used as directed, DEET has an excellent safety record.

Products with lemon eucalyptus oil are effective for shorter periods of time.

Wear long-sleeved shirts and pants at dusk and dawn when mosquitoes are most active.

For more information about protecting yourself, visit fightthebite.info or call Health Link Alberta in Edmonton call 780-408-LINK (5465); in Calgary call 403-943-LINK (5465); outside the Edmonton and Calgary local calling areas, call toll-free 1-866-408-LINK (5465).

Edmonton Country Club 18th Hole.

Forced to reorganize once again, the club emerged in the mid-1940’s as The Edmonton Country Club, partially financed by the sale of land and new memberships. Never again would the club slip into insolvency.

Stanley Thompson Renovates The Course Stanley Thompson, acknowledged today as one of golf’s greatest course architects with notable courses such as the Banff Springs and Jasper to his credit, brought his distinctive ideas to the club beginning in 1944.

“The course has been brought up to championship standard, and has been lengthened to 6,660 yards, making it a real test of golf.”

Knickers, White Shoes And Stockings

And, as regards the less-illustrious but juicy club tales of murder-suicides, bank robbers, and bigamists … they are all true, documented and stored in the club’s archives for disclosure to history sleuths and other interested parties.

Along with Alberta’s leading amateur Henry Martell, who had previously won the Open nine times and was the winner of the 1946 Canadian Open, the tournament featured an exhibition by the South African “Master Shotmaker” Bobby Locke who wore, as always, his knickers, white shoes and stockings.

Besides being fortunate to have a course alongside a picturesque river valley with the changing terrain elevations that make golf a challenge, the club is also fortunate to have an atmosphere of camaraderie founded on more than a century of traditions.

The Rumoured Clubhouse Fire

18 Historic Holes

The redesign of the 18th Hole across the ravine would become one of his signature works, and one which he incorporated with a photograph in his international advertisements. “Mother Nature has provided a perfect setting for this par three eighteenth,” Stanley Thompson wrote.

Probably because of the two earlier clubhouse fires, today’s members have generally accepted that their existing clubhouse, built in 1956, rose from the ashes of a fire. Not true: the 1913 clubhouse was demolished when the oil-era prosperity of the 1950’s demanded a change.

The redesign was almost fully completed in 1947 as the club noted in the program for the AGA Open held there that year.

The Oilers and Charitable Golf

To commemorate many of the club’s legendary members and occurrences, each hole has been assigned an historic designation, ranging from “The Brink” which honours Pop Brinkworth’s contribution to the new nine of 1934; and the “Grizzly” named to honour the gold prospector who in the winter of 1898 holed up on the bank of the river by the site of the Club’s present course.

In recent years the club’s hallways have heard the footsteps of numerous renowned athletes and golfers: from the soft-spiked ladies competing in the 1996 LPGA du Maurier Classic to the heavier treads of the Edmonton Oilers led by Wayne Gretzky and his teammates who began a tradition of charitable fundraising through golf at the ECC.

So, in the end perhaps it is not only the club’s perseverance that has enabled it to withstand the challenges of golfing in Alberta … it is also the club’s determination to maintain the traditions that demonstrate the determined spirit of Alberta’s golfers.

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Edmonton pro Bert Gee brought this brassie from Scotland in 1909.

The Collector hen Ron Lyons was growing up in a post-WWII Edmonton neighbourhood, he didn’t know anybody who golfed. Then, 20 years ago he and his real estate partner reclaimed an old gravel pit on the North Saskatchewan and began building The Legends Golf and Country Club.

Today Ron knows and has played with thousands of golfers but, amongst that multitude, there are only a handful who share his passion for a round played with authentic hickory shafted clubs.

To decorate The Legends clubhouse, Ron began buying golf memorabilia, and, before he knew it, he had a serious addiction. Today his collection of balls, clubs, tees, books, and assorted course equipment takes up the lower floor of his home, and he has donated hickory clubs and displays to numerous tournaments and organizations.

The First Canadian Hickory Championships “First I started collecting the hickory clubs, then I started playing with them,” he says, describing his path to hosting the first Canadian Open Hickory Championships in 2005.

The championship drew 50 Canadian entries, 11 American and one British. Sherwood Park’s Ross Kenny defeated Randy Jensen of Omaha on the final day of the three-day tournament which included team events.

The popularity of hickory play using pre-1935 clubs has grown steadily throughout the world in the past decades. Today, Ron is often called upon to help host tournaments in which players compete with hickory over entire courses, or just one or two holes of each round.

Ron, a lively and extremely engaging speaker, is able to talk for an entire morning as he explains the significance of each item in his collection.

Teeing Up On Sand Mounds Within minutes he transports you back to the day when players teed up on mounds of sand – he has the most complete collection of sand moulds known today – and club pros spent their winters reshafting broken clubs with old growth hickory.

With near reverence he lays out his favourites, many with features that would make them illegal for play today. Some have adjustable heads that change their pitch, and others have experimental grooving.

“Bobby Jones preferred his irons to hold a little rust,” he notes.

Most of the province’s first pros came from the British Isles where clubmaking was an art passed from generation to generation, Ron explains.

“The Alberta pros imported those heads, especially the Scottish ones, and rarely bought the American mass-produced ones that they considered to be of lower quality.”

As Ron’s enthusiasm grows in the telling of the stories from the hickory era it is not hard to imagine him standing on the first tee at the Victoria course dressed in plus fours. His bramble-patterned Haskell ball is teetering on a mound of sand. He begins his backswing and, for one brief moment, Bert Gee’s stamp flashes in the sun.

Now, that’s a golfing thrill!

Stamped With Symbols And Names Like heirloom silver identified by a silvermaker’s hallmark, the old heads are individually stamped with symbols and names that authenticate their origins.

Early Alberta pros, until the rise in popularity of steel shafted clubs in the 1930’s, would buy heads from Scotland, add their own stamp, and then attach the shafts and grips in their shops.

Early Alberta Pros Today, these heads have a special significance to Ron and other collectors because they carry the names of well-known Alberta pros of the hickory era such as Bert Gee who, from 1919 to 1949, was the pro at Edmonton’s Victoria Golf Course.

Ron Lyon’s ever-expanding collection includes everything from tee sand moulds to hickory clubs with heads that would be outlawed today to horse shoe boots intended to lessen the impact by maintenance animals on golf course turf.

Shaun and Renee Photographers

and Country gends Golf rned The Le on players ry focusing Ron Lyons tu sto t. hi lf go rine to d equipmen sh an a to in Club

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(Left) The North-West Mounted Police brought law and order to the west … and golf, organizing Alberta’s first club in 1895.

Glenbow Archives NB-644-2.

Proud to be Old Alberta’s First Clubs and Courses The First Golf Club

The Oldest Private Course Still in Play

The Red Coats stationed at Fort Macleod golfed in the early 1890’s, but preferred the more genteel sports of polo, coyote hunting and marksmanship. It would be a decade before enough Red Coats caught onto the new game and organized Alberta’s first golf club – The Macleod Golf Club – in 1895. This club folded during WWI when fighting men served overseas.

The Calgary Golf and Country Club’s course, opened in 1911 beside the Elbow River, is the oldest private course in Alberta still in play. Like many other clubs in the province, the Calgary GCC squatted on vacant land on the edge of a town until forced to move further out and, ultimately, buy its own land.

By comparison, the first golf club in Canada, and in North America, was the Royal Montreal founded in 1873.

The Oldest Private Club The Edmonton Country Club is Alberta’s oldest private club, formed in 1896. The Calgary Golf and Country Club is second, formed in 1897, although it could claim the title as the oldest if it could be swayed to alter its pedigree to include a predecessor club – The Calgary Golf Club formed in 1895.

The Edmonton Golf and Country Club opened their course in 1912.

Alberta – and Canada’s – First Municipal Course The Victoria Golf Course in Edmonton is Alberta and Canada’s oldest municipal course. A descendent of the Edmonton County Club’s 1896 course, the Victoria became a municipal course in 1912 when the city took over the land the golfers had been renting from the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Victoria Golf Course is Canada's oldest municipal course. Play began in 1896, before the City of Edmonton was founded.

Calgary didn’t have a municipal course until the city opened the Shaganappi Point Golf Course for play in 1916 on what used to be a cemetery … rumoured to be under the eighth fairway.

The Historic Fort Macleod Golf Course Alberta’s First Golf Club While capturing whiskey traders, horse thieves and murderers may have been the priority of the NWMP force stationed at Fort Macleod in the 1890’s, golf inevitably worked its way into the Red Coats’ routines.

Although the first troops who arrived in 1874 weren’t able to carry their clubs on horseback across the prairie, when the railway arrived in Alberta in 1883 it is likely that the troops, many of them golfers of British Isles descent, ordered their mashies and niblicks freighted west and by 1890 were reported to be playing near their barracks.

The First Course West Of Winnipeg However rudimentary the course may have been, it is believed to be the first built west of Winnipeg.

While records of the holes’ locations and number are not available, it is likely that today’s public course is in the same vicinity.

While the course may have been rudimentary, Fort Macleod is credited with being the site of the first organized golf club in Alberta, established in 1895 by officers of the NWMP.

Rifle Ranges, Buffalo Wallows and Unmarked Graves Today, golfers on the nine-hole Fort Macleod course continue to pick up shells on fairways that once doubled as rifle ranges, and players caught in the rough might be flying their iron shots over the unmarked graves of three men hanged in the fort.

One of the best excuses on the course today is that a golfer, while making a shot, heard a ‘spirit.’

Further along, golfers play over the old buffalo wallows made by the great herds where they rolled and scratched.

In the old days, players carried ‘rutters’ in their bag; these narrow faced clubs were ideal for knocking a ball out of the tracks left by the wagons that hauled trade goods along the Calgary Trail. These tracks are still visible today on the first fairway.

The Royal Fort Macleod Golf Course

The Prince of Wales and his entourage played a round in 1924 at Fort Macleod giving the nine holes a royal ambience. Photo Credit: Photo Credit: Fort Macleod Golf Club.

The Fort Macleod Club couldn’t survive the transient nature of police work and was disbanded during WWI. Since then, several golf organizations have come and gone and, today, Fort Macleod is a public course.

For monarch-minded golfers, there is always the hope that the course will someday be renamed “The Royal Fort Macleod Golf Course” in honour of the round Prince Edward played there in 1924. cont’d on page 24

ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 21

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Once the symbol of early Calgary residential opulence, the Bowness Golf Club sputtered during the real estate collapse of 1914 and finally closed in the 1960’s.

Glenbow Archives NA-644-2.

Cont’d from page 21

Bowness Golf and Country Club Alberta’s First Residential Golf Course In 1912 a wealthy British developer, John Hextall, planned Alberta’s first residential golf course near Bowness, on a former ranch on Calgary’s western edge, with bowling greens, tennis courts, a golf course and a first class clubhouse freely available to residents.

The Alberta real estate boom ended before the Bowness Estate homes could be sold and Hextall had to find a buyer for his clubhouse and course.

Recognizing the value of the course, designed by American H.S. Colt for $25,000, community members bought the facilities and formed the Bowness Golf and Country Club.

POINT OF INTEREST

The Loyal Caddies Mary Queen of Scots, an enthusiastic golfer of the 1500’s, began her sporting adventures at a Paris school where the local ‘cadets’ carried her clubs, engendering today’s term “caddy.”

Mary’s other favourite sport on the fairways involved romantic interludes with the suspected murderer of her husband, Lord Darnley, for which her cousin, Elizabeth I, had her beheaded.

The club prospered and held many provincial tournaments but failed to survive the golfing downturn during World War II. It was sold to the Calgary Brewing and Malting Company who ran it as a public course until the 1960’s when the land was sold for development.

Like his royal predecessors, The Prince of Wales (centre) travelled with his own caddy (left) and aide (right). Banff 1923. Glenbow Archives NA-5652-24.

As the course had no water system and no money to install irrigation, the course was always played on sand greens.

Before the course closed down, the Trans-Canada Highway divided it in half. Later, the south half became the lower slopes of a ski hill and eventually Canada Olympic Park. Hextall’s beautiful Tudorstyled clubhouse was converted to dormitories for the 1988 Olympic athletes. It burned down in 1997.

In Alberta until the end of the Depression, caddies were originally men in need of ready cash.

Boys, and the occasional girl, took over during WWII and clubs organized them into A and B categories.

Standard pay was between 25 and 50 cents per round plus tips. (Word spread quickly when a player didn’t tip.)

“Clubbing,” the caddy’s recommendation of the suitable club for a golfer’s next stroke, was an important part of earning a tip.

Caddies were often given the opportunity to play and even receive instruction from the better players and pros. Many post-war caddies went on to become well-respected players.

The introduction of power carts in the 1950’s marked the end of the days when the starter on the first tee would shout “A” to the caddyshack and a boy would drop his game of cards or coin tossing and run to earn 50 cents.

POINT OF INTEREST

Lethbridge’s Golfing Teacher Lunchtime Driving Practice With golf still a relatively new sport in postWWI Alberta, Alice Birch, a Lethbridge principal with a reputation for mild eccentricities, frequently practised her swing during recess and lunch hour.

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From the Galbraith School yard she drove the balls into the wide fields where schoolboys chased them down. (Source: Legacy of Lethbridge Women, 2005, Lethbridge Historical Society.)

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Like the Alberta Golf Association, we’re just getting started.

Two of golf’s most established institutions reached major milestones this year. The Alberta Golf Association turned 100 and Club Car celebrated more than 50 years in business. While we both have rich histories, fueled by a commitment to our hometown and an innovative spirit, we’re also confident the best is yet to come. 1.800.ClubCar clubcar.com

©2012 Club Car, Inc. All rights reserved.

Champions, Royalty and Booze

Developing a Province of Champions Golf, Railways and The Rocky Mountains Jack Cuthbert The Prince of Wales Enjoys Alberta Charlie Hague Earl Grey Golf Club Memories Willingdon Cup Play

Champions, Royalty and Booze While WWI (1914-1918) may have been a low time for Alberta clubs’ finances as they faced prohibition, cancelled tournaments and reduced memberships, the post-war return of the soldiers from the European battlefields marked the beginning of golf’s emergence as a popular sport for men and women of all social classes.

White Shirts and Plus Fours he golfers who played through the transitions of post-WWI Alberta may have entered the 1920’s with less concern about social standards and more concern for the phasing out of their hickory shafts and favourite, if occasionally exploding, Haskell balls – replaced by steel shafts and the North American ball standards. Gone, too, were the tweed jackets and stout hobnailed boots, replaced by white shirts, plus fours and spiked golf shoes.

The Fort Macleod Golf Club was Alberta’s most noted golf casualty of WWI, disappearing from the record book no doubt because the military men of the town had been sent overseas.

Clubs around the province saw their wartime membership and dues decline, but many offered enlisted men the opportunity to maintain their memberships without dues during the war.

The Calgary Golf and Country Club, in arrears on payments to the CPR for the land they had purchased during the real estate boom, struck a new deal in which the CPR received memberships in lieu of the mortgage. The manager of the Palliser Hotel, a CPR property, was given a membership and allowed to introduce golfing guests to the club.

Calgary golfers on the 18th Hole of the Municipal (Shaganappi) Course, ca. 1923.

Glenbow Archives NA-1604-60.

The wartime era proved to be a great social leveller and the returning soldiers came home to a province where wages were rising, women were wearing shapely, shorter skirts – a woman had been elected to the legislature – Model T Fords were replacing horses, and everybody wanted to golf … and have a few drinks after their game.

Alberta closed its popular saloons in 1915, prompted in large part by a fundamentalist rural Alberta led by the United Farmers of Alberta. The legislation proved almost impossible to enforce but remained the law until 1923.

Golfers, like everybody else, circumvented prohibition by forging ‘prescriptions’ for liquor, mail-ordering shipments from outside the province, and supporting the backcountry stills. On the verandas and in the dining rooms of the golf clubs, then still mostly aligned with the urban centres, there was rarely a shortage of liquor but it rankled the golfers that their post-game activity was illegal.

Shortly after prohibition ended, clubs advised members that beer was available for 25 cents a bottle.

Alberta Leads the Nation in New Clubs The popularity of post-war golf in Alberta can be seen in the number of new clubs, particularly in rural areas, that turned prairie into courses. From Coronation (1919) to Vulcan (1923), rural Albertans formed clubs and built courses at a nation-leading rate that led the Canadian Golfer Magazine to report that the number of clubs in Alberta from 1919 to 1927 had increased by seven times, from 9 to 65.

Nationally, the rate was less than five times.

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Urban Golf Urban golf developed on a much grander scale, with clubs such as Earl Grey in Calgary opening for play in 1919. Like its predecessor clubs in Calgary, Earl Grey had a nomadic existence. Major Duncan Stuart, a city lawyer, organized a group of people interested in playing golf and founded the club in 1919. The original course, which consisted of five holes, was located on land leased from the C.P.R. south of and adjacent to the Earl Grey Public School in the Mount Royal district. Due to the demand for residential building lots, the course was moved to a new location in south Mount Royal. Within two years, the Club was again forced to look for a new location, and in 1932, a twenty-year lease was negotiated with the City of Calgary for the present site.

Edmonton golfers joined the national trend of hiring well-known architects to design courses, and opened the now ‘Royal’ Mayfair Golf and Country Club (1922) designed by aspiring architect Stanley Thompson.

Resort Golf Resort golf, then primarily played on the nine hole course (1911) at the CPR’s Banff Springs Hotel, expanded to 18 holes (1923) under architect Donald Ross’s direction.

The CNR competed with its railway rival’s Banff development by hiring Stanley Thompson in the early 1920’s to design a course at Jasper. The Jasper Park Lodge course, completed in 1926, set a new standard for Rocky Mountains golf.

Alberta Golfers Go National Inevitably, as golf developed in Alberta, the always prickly relationship between western Canadian golfers and the RCGA had to be resolved. The prickliness arose because the rules of Canadian amateur championships did not allow for the payment of travel expenses to players. Western players were thereby placed at a disadvantage in attending the championships.

Despite this disadvantage, at least two Albertans showed the easterners the calibre of Alberta golfers at the Canadian Amateurs. In 1920, Tom Gillespie was the runner-up, and Charlie Hague, a Calgary banker, was the 1921 runner-up.

The formation of the Western Canadian Golf Association in the 1920’s led to two rivalling competitions for the true national championships, the RCGA-sponsored events and the WCGA’s events.

Well-dressed ladies compete in the Canadian Manufacturers Association tournament, Edmonton, Alberta, 1931.

Glenbow Archives ND-3-5784f.

Alberta Leads with Municipal Courses While Alberta’s private clubs and resort courses initially attracted socially established and affluent players, the advent of the municipal courses attracted thousands of new golfers to the sport. Of the three municipal courses in Canada at the end of the war, two were in Alberta.

Edmonton had the honour of opening the first municipal course in Canada: The Victoria Golf Course originally played on by the Edmonton Golf Club in 1896. The course, taken over by the city in 1912, opened for play in 1914.

The Willingdon Cup Brings the West and East Together

While there was some debate in the city about the virtues of private versus public courses, nobody doubted Calgarians’ enthusiasm for the game, as one reporter noted: “It is no strange sight to see people playing along the prairie or any section of land near the city where there is room enough to drive a ball.”

The solution to what was becoming an impasse was the Willingdon Cup competition which resumed the Canadian tradition of interprovincial team matches.

By bringing the top players from each province to the site for the Canadian championships, dominion golf harmony was restored, or at least put onto a sound footing.

Besides outdoor golf, Albertans also fell in love with golf diversions such as mini-golf and clock golf, games that could be played on lawns, backyards or in indoor facilites. The DA-NITE Golf Course could be played at Calgary’s Memorial Hall with a par of 42 over 18 holes.

As a result of the new arrangements, the first Canadian Amateur in the west was played in 1929 at Jasper Park Lodge, the year of the Stock Market Crash that would mark the onset of the Great Depression.

The difficulties of operating a course on public lands were reported in the Edmonton Journal shortly after play began. Non-golfers, the paper reported, were to be prohibited from driving motor vehicles or from riding horses on the greens and fairways. Nor was cricket, tennis, football or baseball to be played on the course.

Calgary’s Shaganappi municipal course, once the local cemetery, opened in 1916 with 18 holes and a clubhouse. The course burned in 1917 and the Banff Professional W. Thompson was called in to re-plan the layout.

From a modest start of 2,153 players teeing off in 1916, the course would attract over 15,000 by 1920.

Calgary: Golf Crazy By 1921, golf was acknowledged as a popular sport for all Albertans, but nowhere in the province was it more popular than in Calgary, declared to be “Golf Crazy” by the Calgary Daily Herald.

Provincial Team Champions 1920. Calgary St. Andrews Club: back row, l to r, H. Black, H.M. Stratton, J. R. Hutcheon; front row, A. C. McWilliams, T. Watson, T.C. Morrison.

ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 29

THE ALBERTA GOLF ASSOCIATION

Developing a Province of Champions The Alberta Golf Association began as a warm weather organization, preparing over the summer for provincial tournaments held on the Labour Day weekend and then closing its doors for the winter. These tournaments would eventually be important proving grounds for individuals preparing for national events. nlike Eastern Canadian golfers who could play in numerous events in the Toronto, Montreal, and eastern USA regions, Alberta’s early competitive golfers had only local tournaments in which to test their abilities: the provincial championships and the Calgary and Edmonton city championships.

True Amateur Attitudes Nevertheless, by the 1920’s Alberta’s tournaments were able to yield at least two golfers who could challenge the best the East had to offer: Charlie Hague and Tom Gillespie.

Hardly locker room names today, Hague and Gillespie were typical post-WWI golfers in Alberta.

They were modest men who kept their golfing

success out of the limelight, epitomizing the true amateur attitudes of the day.

Hague won four provincial titles between 1908 and the start of WWI. Despite the emergence of the younger, four time winner J. Munro Hunter from Edmonton after the war, Hague would have likely added more titles to his records if Alberta’s events hadn’t been cancelled during the war years of 1914-1918.

Tom Gillespie’s pre-war record is lost although his name occurs frequently; like asides in a golfer’s diary, “the well-known T. Gillespie” is noted as transferring from club to club in southern Alberta.

His biography would have only one line about his golfing development. “He learned to play in Scotland.”

The tremendous growth in Alberta’s golfing community following the War attracted players and spectators to the provincial events in numbers never seen before.

Much of the attention can be attributed to the showing of Tom Gillespie and Charlie Hague at the Canadian Amateurs in 1920 and 1921 respectively.

Tom Gillespie rocked the eastern golfing public in 1920 as the runner-up in the Canadian Amateur.

Gillespie and Hague had entered the event at The Beaconsfield Club in Montreal as unknowns amongst favourites such as George S. Lyon, William Thompson, and Stanley Thompson.

The Canadian Golfer was quick to extol his abilities.“ ‘Hague of Calgary’ like his teammate Gillespie has made a name for himself in Canadian golfing annals.”

“Players Of Championship Calibre” In praising Hague and Gillespie, The Canadian Golfer acknowledged the high level of play in Alberta and particularly Calgary saying the city could put ten men on a course who would be liable to “take the measure of any city in Canada.”

In Alberta, a contributor to The Canadian Golfer gave credence to the belief that the Alberta Championships now deserved national recognition.

“The East is beginning to believe that we have players of championship calibre here.”

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Douglas Lougheed, the athletic son of Sir James Lougheed, won the 1924 Amateur. (Sir James was also the grandfather of the Alberta premier, Peter Lougheed.)

Amateurs, not professionals, were the featured golfers of the era and this social and golfing distinction can be observed in the secondary mentions that the Open events received in golf reports. In fact, it wasn’t until 1932 that the Alberta Golf Association chronicled the Open results.

Little Recognition for Ladies or Juniors Similarly, the Ladies received scant attention from the Association. The reporter for the Canadian Golfer gave five pages to the 1920 Alberta men’s events, and two paragraphs to the Ladies.

Carson McWilliams and his brothers were perennial favourites in Alberta tournaments. Carson won the 1923 Alberta Amateur and Open. Photo Credit: White Family.

What had been reported as a “good crowd” of hundreds turned into “a gallery of some 1000” when the popular Carson McWilliams of Calgary’s Earl Grey Club played Gillespie in a semi-final round of the 1924 Provincial Amateur.

This event held special appeal to the gallery as McWilliams was defending his 1923 double crown: the Amateur and the Open title.

It would not be until 1938 that the Alberta Golf Association regularly chronicled the Alberta Junior Boys Championship.

The Alberta Ladies Join the CLGU Recognition for the Alberta Ladies came under their own initiative when, in 1928, they became the last province to join the Canadian Ladies Golf Union (CLGU), and giving the CLGU the final link in their coast to coast organization.

Irene Horne Captures Headlines Almost immediately, The Canadian Golfer began

The Fashions of Golf ca. 1920’s. Photo Credit: White Family.

running stories over several pages about ‘The Alberta Ladies Annual Championship.’ One of the first featured Irene Horne whom the magazine referred to in the older nomenclature as ‘Mrs. Roy Horne.’

Irene Horne would do even more for the Alberta Ladies than Hague and Gillespie did for the men.

Only taking up golf in 1926, she would win five major titles by 1930 and then, to her own surprise, won the Canadian Ladies Closed Championship despite playing with a new putter after she was told her own was barred from competitions.

“Mrs. Horne borrowed another (of the standard type) and went out and won the title,” The Canadian Golfer wrote in admiration.

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Golf, Railways and The Rocky Mountains “A rampart of mighty Mount Rundle is on the right; the swollen waters of the combined Bow and Spray Rivers intervene between us and Tunnel Mountain on the left.”

Dan Matheson, Banff Springs Golf Club Member Canadian Golfer magazine, August 1916 ailway executives in the early 1900’s may not have been golfers but they were amongst the first to recognize the tourism value of golf, especially when courses could be built in the renowned Rocky Mountains of Alberta.

The Canadian Pacific Railway, cash-poor in 1888 after driving The Last Spike, was eager to generate revenue from the land it had obtained as part of its deal with the Canadian government to build a coastto-coast railway.

In a moment of marketing genius, and long before promoters had coined the term ‘World Class Destination Resort,’ in 1911 the CPR opened a 9 hole golf course – elevation 4500 feet – beside its new Banff Springs Hotel in the hopes that golf would bring in wealthy tourists seeking an outdoor activity less robust than mountain climbing.

50 Cents Per Round This course, known today as The Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course, immediately attracted moneyed travelers who could afford to stay at the hotel and pay the nominal 50 cents per round, and another 25 cents to rent ‘sticks.’ The local golfers, members of the Banff Springs Golf Club formed in 1911, paid annual dues of $15.00 for men and $5.00 for ladies.

The course architect and professional was W. Bill Thomson, a Scottish immigrant who, within a year, had the square sand greens converted to grass and the fairways watered.

Celebrities like Bing Crosby attracted new golfers to the sport and, in this case, the Jasper Park Lodge resort where he made several films. Jasper Yellowhead Museum Archives - JYMA 994.45.136.5

Stanley Thompson at Jasper Golf and tourism enthusiasm waned with the onset of WWI (1914-1918) and the CPR turned the course over to the Canadian government who, despite the tightness of money, agreed to add another 9 holes to be designed by Donald Ross, the famed Scotsman who is still considered one of the most influential course architects of all time.

When golf and tourism recovered in the mid-1920’s the Canadian National Railway (CNR), the CPR’s alwaysthreatening competitor, hired Stanley Thompson to design a tourism-based course for their Jasper Park Lodge resort. Today the course is known as The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge Golf Club.

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After the Jasper course – elevation 3400 feet – opened in 1925, all of Canada was talking about its marvellous setting and challenges, so much so that the RCGA offered to hold the 1929 Canadian Amateur there.

Stanley Thompson at Banff The CPR responded to this marketing challenge by negotiating with the government to resume management of the Banff course, and hiring Stanley Thompson to redesign the course and bring it up to championship standard. This course opened in 1928.

Inter-Railway Rivalry For Tourists

Meanwhile, at Waterton Park in the southern portion of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, local golfers had built a small course that, like its more famous counterparts, had the potential to attract tourists.

The inter-railway rivalry for tourists, and especially golfers, can be seen in the high profile advertisements the competitors ran in The Canadian Golfer during the 1930’s and 1940’s, each boasting to offer golfers the most rewarding experiences.

Waterton’s landmark hotel, The Prince of Wales, was completed in 1927 by the American-owned Great Northern Railway, to attract guests from facing the Prohibition-problemed resorts south of the border.

Competition for publicity amongst Alberta’s early golf resorts brought out members of the Stoney First Nations in their regalia to pose on the Banff Springs course ca. 1920. Glenbow Archives NA-5234-7.

Jasper offered golfers: “… a setting of mountains, serene, majestic … flecked with eternal snows and crowned with giant glaciers. Each succeeding hole presents new vistas.”

The one-upmanship between the courses during golf’s post -WWII resurgence became focused on the celebrities the courses attracted, notably Hollywood stars such as Bing Crosby who favoured Jasper and Marilyn Monroe who posed for publicity shots on the Banff course.

“A golf course that’s a mile high! Keep your eye on the ball. There you go … right over a rollicking river… three sets of tees give everyone a sporting chance.” (Banff’s elevation is actually 4537 feet.)

Today the two courses under the Fairmont umbrella continue to compete for top billing in the Canadian course rankings with each other … and with modern, high altitude courses at Canmore – elevation 4500 feet – and at Kananskis Country– elevation 5500 feet.

Caught in the crossfire between two major advertisers, The Canadian Golfer ran stories and

(Sources: Golf in Canada, J. Barclay; Golf On The Roof of The World, E.J.Hart).

Banff countered with exuberance:

Stanley Thompson at Waterton The Great Northern Railway wisely hired Stanley Thompson to design a course at Waterton – elevation 4232 feet – that was completed as 18 holes by 1931. The course, however, was soon taken over by the Canadian government and run by the Park administration. It would never be a serious competitor to the Banff and Jasper courses.

feature articles highlighting the courses with equal fanfare, such as this reconciliatory headline in 1934: “Where Smart Golfers Will Be Seen in the West.”

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Jack Cuthbert “Jack Cuthbert, the winner of the (Saskatchewan) championship, is deserving of every congratulation. He is the ‘classiest’ golfer in these parts.”

Canadian Golfer, September 1919 ity the unsuspecting junior who showed up at the first tee with his shirt untucked, or the older player who lost his temper on the green when strict disciplinarian Club Pro Jack Cuthbert was nearby.

As a top-ranked Western Canadian amateur until 1931, Jack Cuthbert was known as the polite champion with a straight drive down the fairway, a slight fade to his irons, and an ability, if given just the slightest piece of a green, to place and keep the ball there.

As the Calgary Golf and Country Club professional from 1931 to 1963, Jack Cuthbert was known as the dignified authority on all golfing matters, a leader who would willingly take time to straighten out a slice, a caddy, or assist a promising young golfer. His brusque manner, many learned later, concealed a generous heart.

“My father had a good Scottish education,” his daughter Joan Wylie (married to Bob Wylie, Jack’s assistant pro in the 1950’s) recalls. “He could tell someone off in great long words.”

The juniors lived in fear of Jack, especially after he banished several of them from the Calgary Golf and Country Club course for several weeks over clothing infractions.

Born in 1894, just before the first clubs opened in Alberta, Cuthbert began his golf career as a nineyear-old and soon developed the skills that would lead to a roomful of trophies. But his consistently wellmannered deportment and strict adherence to the rules of the game earned him a reputation for sportsmanship which will outlast anything engraved on silver.

Everything Should Be Done Correctly “He believed everything should be done correctly: that meant being on time, dressing correctly … everything,” continued Joan.

Jack’s always impeccable dress reflected a meticulous approach to golf and he exercised his extensive vocabulary on those who failed to respect what he called the “spirit of the game.”

Jack came to Canada from Nairn, Scotland, at the age of 17 with his knowledge of golf and golf etiquette firmly entrenched in his soul by his father.

The first time Jack lost his temper on the course, his father sent him home with the warning “If you ever do this again I’ll throw your clubs away – forever!”

“That was the end of it for my father. He learned selfcontrol,” Joan says.

Cuthbert arrived in Canada in 1911 and initially worked for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Winnipeg, but it was obvious from the start that golf was where his interest lay. By 1924 he had won nearly every western provincial championship and by 1927 had won the Western Canadian Amateur twice and the Open once.

Cuthbert’s knowledge of and devotion to golf, a sport which was growing rapidly in popularity, soon benefited a larger community when, in the middle 1920’s, he wrote a golfing column for the Winnipeg Free Press.

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Charmed by Cuthbert’s personality, The Canadian Golfer, the leading golf magazine of the era, followed his amateur career closely and often inserted notes that featured Cuthbert’s sense of sportsmanship. The magazine recognized the important contribution Cuthbert was making to the sport when it added a succinct observation to their commentary of his 1925 victory in the Manitoba Amateur. “He not only plays sound golf,” the magazine advised readers, “ but he is also a sound golf writer.”

After a brief spell in business in Edmonton, Cuthbert was selected in 1931, from a field of 35 applicants, as the professional at the Calgary Golf and Country Club where he stayed for the remainder of his career.

Cuthbert was always a slight figure and never weighed more than 135 pounds. However, members recall that he seemed to virtually loom over the club he cherished, an impression likely caused by the tremendous sense of presence he carried on and off the course.

Cuthbert was as adept at picking youthful talent as he was at picking his shots. Two Cuthbert protégés, Paddy Arnold and Bill Tait, were the finest players the club had produced, as Cuthbert told friends in later years. These two players brought many provincial championships to the club and always mentioned their gratitude to him as they progressed in their golfing careers.

The number, quality and diversity of friends that Cuthbert attracted is astounding, especially considering that in his era travel and communication were certainly more difficult than they are today.

In addition to being a friend and regular competitor with Canadian greats such as Stan Leonard (his onetime assistant), Jack was invariably invited to play exhibitions with international players such as Gene Sarazen and Walter Hagen. In the 1950’s, when the Calgary Stampede brought Hollywood’s golfer/entertainers such as Bob Hope to town, they always wanted to play a round with Jack Cuthbert.

From Gene Sarazen and Bobby Locke, to Bing Crosby and Jack Benny, those who loved golf knew instinctively that the slight athlete from Scotland was much more than just a first rate competitor, professional and teacher - he was a man in whom the spirit of golf resided.

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The Prince of Wales Enjoys Alberta Dancing and golf top his personal agenda A duffer to begin, The Prince of Wales posed amiably beside the 7th tee at Banff in 1923 but disliked being photographed in action.

Glenbow Archives NA-5652-31

haring similar tastes for fine clothes, cigars and alcohol with his friend Walter Hagen, the flamboyant multiple PGA, US Open and British Open winner, Edward, the Prince of Wales, found more time for golfing and dancing on his Royal visits to Alberta than his entourage anticipated.

In 1919 the Prince toured Canada to celebrate the end of WWI and found Alberta much to his liking. He golfed, bought a ranch and, while drinking with his friends, almost burned down The Calgary Ranchmen’s Club where “we all stumbled painfully in an Indian war dance.”

He returned several times in the 1920’s with his golf game improved and his royal stuffiness forgotten once his princely duties were satisfied.

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OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Charlie Hague “He has all the attributes of a really great golfer …he has made a name for himself in Canadian golfing annals.”

The Canadian Golfer Magazine 1921 n the eastern-dominated Canadian golf world of the early 1900’s, an Alberta golfer of Charlie Hague’s high calibre would have remained an unknown outside the province.

Alberta’s First Provincial Champion 1908 Hague was Alberta’s first provincial champion (1908) and won the title again in 1910 and 1912. Most likely he was in his twenties when he won the provincial titles which would make him close to 40 when he surprised the easterners as a finalist in the 1921 Canadian Amateur.

Little is known about Charlie Hague’s personal life other than he was a Calgary banker with American connections – which explains occasional references to his numerous championships on the American west coast alongside his provincial, city and club championships.

Prior to the inauguration of the Willingdon Cup in 1927, western golfers couldn’t accept financial compensation for travel when competing in national championships. These golfers chose to stay home where a tournament could be played on a week-end versus the ten days it took to travel and play in the East.

In his last match before the finals, the gallery was openly cheering for him.

But, in 1921, “Hague of Calgary” showed all of Canada that the Western provinces had some seriously competitive golfers.

The finals between Charlie Hague and 23-year-old Frank Thompson of Toronto were touted as a match between East and West with the East heavily favoured. Hague, everybody believed, would crack before his younger opponent as they played off on a sweltering day accompanied by unusually thick swarms of mosquitoes.

The Canadian Amateur that year was held in Winnipeg, a political concession by the majority of golfers who came from the larger urban centres such as Toronto and Montreal.

Entering without fanfare, Hague slowly gained the admiration of the competitors and spectators as he fought back repeatedly to win in the early rounds.

“If there is any golfer in Canada who can come from behind and snatch a victory from seeming defeat it is Hague of Calgary,” The Canadian Golfer reported.

From the start it looked like the East would win “in a runaway.” Down by five holes after 12, Hague “in the pluckiest manner” pulled himself together to end the morning round only down two.

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Charlie Hague, fourth from the left, and his golfing pals on the steps of the Calgary GCC, 1918. Note the hobnailed boots several men were wearing indicative of the rugged course conditions. Glenbow Archives NA-4879-12.

A dead stymie on the 38th hole By the end of the second 18, Hague had pulled even and the match went into extra holes. The 37th was halved and then, on the 38th, Thompson laid Hague “a dead stymie” to win. “To lose such a Homeric struggle was virtually a victory,” The Canadian Golfer reported.

In acknowledging Hague’s display of skill, the magazine contained a glowing tribute: “He has all the attributes of a really a great golfer. …he is well deserving of Championship honours. Hague of Calgary … has made a name for himself in Canadian golfing annals.”

In another refreshing comment, the magazine acknowledged that Charlie Hague had shown Canada that the golfers in the west could no longer be ignored.

“It is to be sincerely hoped that in company with many Western cracks he will make a point to be at the 1922 Championship in Hamilton.”

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FROM

THE

CLUB’S

ARCHIVES

Earl Grey Golf Club Memories Compiled by Club Historians Reg and Sylvia Harrill Humble Beginnings

Early Grey Tea, Football and Golf

n the early years at the modest ninehole Mount Royal location, Duncan Stewart (our founder in 1919) pretty well ran everything singlehandedly, and course maintenance was not a high priority. A twelve-year-old boy was given the job of matting the sand greens three times a week. There was no need to cut the grass on the first three fairways, because the sparse grass was pounded into the ground by children attending the local Earl Grey school.

A new picture now hangs in the entrance lobby of the clubhouse with a bronze plaque underneath it giving some explanation of the gentleman in Edwardian dress.

The man is Albert Henry George, fourth Earl Grey, and our club bears his name.

The big leap forward came in 1933 when the club relocated to its present site next to the reservoir created by the new Glenmore dam and opened a full eighteen holes for a par of 70 over 6043 yards. As noted

by The Calgary Herald:

Few people know much about him, outside of the connection with the Grey Cup which he presented to the Canadian Football League. Some confuse him with a blend of tea. He was in some ways a remarkable figure with an interesting history and ahead of his time in the way he discharged his duty as Governor General a hundred years ago.

“The fairways are receiving the attention of additional labour, the workmen at present concentrating on the aprons of the greens. When this work is completed the greens will receive their new coating of Manchester sand and oil.”

As a bonus, mats were installed on the tees. In 1934 a heavy roller was used for ten days to even the fairways. The next big improvement came in 1937 when irrigation was installed. Another quote from the paper said:

part in renovating and redecorating the ladies locker room. Paint and supplies were delivered, a studio lounge was recovered, plate glass and a mirror donated for the dressing table, scarce fabric made available for curtains in the locker and dining rooms – with all of the work being undertaken by a team of volunteers.

The Spitfire Fund The impetus for The Spitfire Fund appears to have originated from the Canadian Ladies Golf Union Central Committee to which body the money collected was eventually sent to support the war effort. Earl Grey Ladies organized regular bridge games and donations varying from one dollar to five dollars were received weekly throughout the season; raffles were run; and contributions made through tournaments or matches together with odd change from a “Spitfire Box.” Considering that coffee was ten cents a cup during those days and that there were only about 25 lady members at that time, one can see that the eventual total raised at Earl Grey of $156.56 was quite an achievement. Today the equivalent for those 1,565 coffees would amount to over $3,000.

Gasoline Rationing

In April 1942 a special meeting of the Ladies Section was held by 23 members to discuss the transportation difficulties being experienced due to gasoline rationing. The membership was divided into three zones – Elbow In 1933 Earl Grey relocated from its 1919 location and by 1937 the members “Earl Grey course is a picture worth had a green, tree-lined, par 70 course beside Glenmore Dam. Park, Rideau; Central; and North Hill seeing. In contrast to the dried up – with a convenient meeting place arranged for each fairways lined with huge cracks in 1936, the course is Earl Grey was a typical product of the English upper area and telephone committees set up to allow golfers green and spongy and the grass is becoming thicker class. Born in 1851, he was educated at Harrow (as to arrange a ride each Tuesday. Remembering that in each week. Members are looking forward to the day was Winston Churchill) and then went on to Trinity the 1940’s there were only two bridges across the Bow when they will be pitching to grass greens.”

College, Cambridge, where he studied history and law.

River – Centre Street and the Louise Bridge at 10th He made his mark in Ottawa as a very active and Street – and that the Marda Loop was the end of the G.O.L.F. popular Governor General. tram or bus line, it is easy to see the need to car pool (Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden) and conserve gas usage in getting to the golf course While many golf clubs had gender membership After his term as Governor General ended, Lord Grey restrictions in the early days, most have now changed. returned to England, where he became president of the which was well beyond the city limits. What would Until 1989 Earl Grey did not accept females as Royal Colonial Institute (now the Royal Commonwealth those ladies say now if they could see the lines of cars streaming down Crowchild and Glenmore Trails! shareholders, though they could join as “Lady Elect”. At Society) in London. He died at his family residence in the Annual General Meeting in 1988 this was changed 1917.

VE Day Celebrations at Earl Grey with the female intermediates who had previously not On Tuesday May 15th 1945, a week after VE day, qualified for membership being offered shareholder Running a Club in Wartime twenty-one ladies sat down to the opening lunch of the status and the field opened for all women to join in With the absence in the armed forces of many of the golf season at tables gaily decorated with spring their own right. younger workforce, members were called upon to do a lot of the essential jobs around the club. While the men flowers and victory flags. The war in Europe was over. did much of the work on the course, the ladies did their

40 | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | ALBERTAGOLF.ORG

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Willingdon Cup Play Lord and Lady Willingdon donated the prestigious trophy that has been awarded to the nation’s best provincial men’s teams since 1927. The tournament began when amateur status precluded any financial reimbursements, and the western provinces wanted to fund their best amateur players attending the Canadian Amateur Championships held in eastern Canada.

Lord and Lady Willingdon (left and centre) at the Mayfair golf course in Edmonton, 1930. Lord Willingdon was Governor-General of Canada from 1926 to 1931 and presented Canada’s provincial golfers with their cup in 1927. Glenbow Archives ND-3-5136b

To accomplish this, the golfers were sponsored as a team and then were able to play in the Amateur following the Willingdon Cup matches.

Alberta entered teams beginning in 1928 but didn’t win until 1960 when Bob Wylie, Keith Alexander, Neil Green and Eddie Schwartz brought the trophy home. To date, Alberta has won the Willingdon Cup 12 times. Keith Alexander shares the record with Nick Weslock (Ontario) for most appearances, each earning the honour 26 times.

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ROYAL MAYFAIR GOLF CLUB CEL EBRAT IN G

Y E A R S 1922-2012

The Royal Mayfair Golf Club would like to congratulate Alberta Golf on their 100th anniversary. The members of Royal Mayfair have benefitted greatly from the many programs offered by Alberta Golf over the years and we look forward to continuing that strong relationship in the years to come.

Royal Mayfair has its own milestone this year, celebrating our 90th Anniversary. Designed by world renowned course architect Stanley Thompson, the course opened on May 27, 1922. Royal Mayfair has hosted several major events over the years including the Canadian Open in 1958, Arnold Palmer’s first win as a professional, and the 2007 CN Canadian Women’s Open on the LPGA Tour.

Our facilities are second to none in Edmonton.

Golf course vistas and spectacular views of downtown dominate the scenery from our banquet rooms. We can host events up to 180 people for weddings, birthdays, conferences or other special occasions.

Visit www.mayfairevents.ca to see the full array of ourDining and Catering options.

Memberships are available.

You’re invited.

Proud host of the 2013 CN Canadian Women’s Open

Only minutes from downtown. The finest playing conditions and the ultimate in first tee access. For complete membership information, please contact: Wade Hudyma – General Manager Royal Mayfair Golf Club Edmonton, AB 780.432.0066, ext. 225 | mayfair.ca

Stymies Droughts and Artillery

The Stymie Serving All Clubs and Golfers The Architects of Alberta’s Golf Courses The Great Golf Exhibitions Paddy Arnold Glenn Gray Henry Martell Irene Horne J. Munro Hunter Highlands Golf Club Memories The Science of Grass Duane Barr

Stymies, Droughts and Artillery The resiliency of Alberta golf is no better illustrated than by its determination to survive during the 16 years between the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 and the end of World War II in 1945. ll of Alberta’s larger, urban-related clubs survived those 16 hard years although several had their backs to the wall in the mid-1930’s. The Edmonton Country Club, for example, was bailed out by its wealthy member Major James Ramsey who not only covered the club’s operating expenses but funded a major course expansion under the supervision of Stanley Thompson.

Drought forced many southern Alberta farming communities to forgo golf, but most of Alberta’s golfers showed a determination to beat the drought and, in many cases, improve their courses by bringing in course architects of Thompson’s calibre and hiring experts on course maintenance.

As a show of determination not to back down in the early days of the Depression, The Highlands Golf Club had continued preparing its course since its incorporation in 1928 and in May 1931 opened with 18 holes. In Calgary, The Earl Grey Golf Club (1911) in 1932 leased a new location and opened a member-designed 18 hole course with sand greens the next year.

Dr. Bill Broadfoot, Plant Patholgist and AGA Secretary Treasurer Advises Alberta Courses The Alberta Golf Association was fortunate to have Dr. Bill Broadfoot as its Secretary Treasurer during some of the driest years of the Depression. Dr. Broadfoot, a plant pathologist with the Dominion of Canada, was considered one of the leading authorities on course maintenance in Alberta. He studied course conditions in Alberta and, in turn, offered clubs practical advice such as building snow fences to reduce winterkill on the greens.

Most urban clubs, by then, had grass greens and had replaced their rubber tee mats with raised grass earthworks.

For golfers, of particular help was the widespread adoption of iron shafted clubs, a standard ball and the Reddy Tees invented in the 1920’s to replace sand mounds.

Left, Miss Peggy Armour, winner of the 1931 Alberta Ladies’ Amateur Championship and Mrs. H. W. Lowe at Royal Mayfair Golf Club, Edmonton, Alberta, 1931.

Glenbow Archives ND-3-5805.

Watering was still limited to the greens; horse drawn mowing equipment was being replaced by motorised equipment which did less damage to the turf.

Despite the Depression and World War II, the club reports, “The Hughenden Golf Association remained active and the golf course was used through the 1930’s and 1940’s.”

The natural prairie dryness exacerbated by the droughts of the 1930’s made the fairways even more challenging. As one player said, “Every time you hit an iron shot you got a cloud of dust in the face.”

It wasn’t until the early 1990’s - after the course was changed so two holes were no longer played across Highway 13 - that all the sand greens were replaced with grass greens.

Typical of most clubs, the Calgary Golf and Country Club had, by 1935, only one fairway ploughed and seeded to grass. The rest were virgin prairie to which the club applied loam and horse manure in the spring and fall – much to the discomfort of members who complained about “that awful smell.”

Today, the club thrives just as it did through the hard years: A member said, “Although we do raise a lot of money through memberships, green fees and the clubhouse, we would not be able to function without the many volunteers hours put in by golfers and nongolfers in the area.”

While a decline in membership hurt urbanrelated clubs, it was rural clubs that were most placed in jeopardy. An accurate count of the membership numbers is not available today because, as The Canadian Golfer briefly noted in the 1930’s, “There are many small clubs in the west, some with only a score of members.” However, there were 56 clubs open in Alberta in 1931, of which six were in Calgary and five in Edmonton.

A Rural Survivor: Hughenden Of the rural survivors, The Hughenden Club in the heart of less-drought stricken central Alberta’s farmland had a typical membership of 44 in the 1920’s. Formed in 1914 and run by volunteers, the club golfed on land owned by the CPR. In 1929 the CPR wanted the land back and the club moved onto land owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company where they laid out a nine hole course.

Tournament competition attracted large galleries.

Glenbow Archives NA-1604-29.

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All clubs were eligible, except those in Calgary and Edmonton, and were divided into 16 districts. The two to eight clubs in each district played elimination matches to determine the players for the finals, held in either Calgary or Edmonton.

Resort Golf becomes High Stakes and High Visibility The CPR’s Banff Springs course (1911) gained prestige in 1924 when it asked for and was given a “Dignified Silver Cup” by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, a gift that was featured on the front cover of the 1925 Canadian Golfer. By the 1930’s, play for this cup by members of the Banff Springs Golf Club and guests of the Banff Springs Hotel put Banff on the world golfing map. The tournament was always listed, for example, in American Golfer events. After 60 years of play, the tournament faded away.

2nd Annual Alberta Police Golf Tournament. Bowness Golf Course - September 1935. Glenbow Archives NA-2749-21.

Inspired by the Famous Golfers Possibly the spreading fame of golfers and tournaments encouraged clubs and members to rally on through this difficult time. Just as the movie stars of the time – John Wayne, Katherine Hepburn and the Three Stooges – offered millions of viewers a respite from financial pressure, the new golf stars inspired everyday golfers to keep swinging.

Gene Sarazen, for example, would become the highest paid sportsman in the world during the 1930’s as millions attended his numerous exhibition matches, including one at Banff played in 1936 with Helen Hicks.

The Beginning Of A New Generation The dominance of Ada Mackenzie in national ladies golf ended in the early 1930’s with a new generation emerging, and none so quickly as Calgary’s Regal Golf Club heroine Irene Horne. (The Regal is now the Calgary Elks Lodge and Golf Club.) Only four years after she took up golf under the direction of Roy Horne her husband and Regal Pro, Irene was declared the leading lady player in Alberta by The Canadian Golfer who reported her taking the 1930 provincial title, and hitting a 250 yard, two feet five inch drive on her way to win the Edmonton City Championships.

“Can anyone bring forward a drive to match this?” the magazine asked.

With numerous city and provincial titles to her credit, Irene returned to The Canadian Golfer’s attention by unexpectedly winning the 1935 Canadian Closed with a round that included setting a new amateur course record.

Stepping off the 17th green, 3 and 1, she politely asked, “My goodness, am I the champion?”

Stan Leonard Stacks Drill Pipe Then Takes A Plane Ride Professional golfers rarely survived on their summer earnings. Stan Leonard, who would later achieve national fame, was the assistant to the Calgary GCC’s Jack Cuthbert for two years in the late 1930’s.

In the winter he stacked drill pipe at Turner Valley for a club member and practised on a course he built outside Longview.

“I played between the rocks, sage brush, gopher holes, and whatever… and it did not remind you of the Augusta National.”

Members of the Calgary GCC passed the hat in 1940 and sent Stan on a plane ride to his first PGA victory.

Rural Rivalry for The Herald Cup The AGA took a lead in bringing rural golfers to the urban courses during the 1930’s by establishing programs for rural golfers to play courses with grass greens.

The popularity of this was proven by the intense competition that arose in the Alberta Country Districts matches.

The Country Districts matches began in the mid-1920’s but it wasn’t until the 1930’s that the tournament trophy, The Herald Cup, became a sought after status symbol, something that would continue well into the 1950’s.

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Jasper Park Lodge, not to be outdone, organized The Totem Pole Tournament in 1926. This men’s and ladies tournament would become by the early 1930’s, according to The Canadian Golfer, “the most successful tournament of its kind ever held in this part of the country.”

The Eaton Foursome Competition for the Eaton Rosebowl began in 1936 and attracted ‘droves of spectators,’ The Canadian Golfer said in 1937 and added that the competition was improving golf in Alberta. The magazine was correct, because the Rosebowl would soon become a highly prized trophy dominated by Henry and Burns Martell: Henry would attain national glory and was The Canadian Golfer of the year in 1939.

The importance of these high profile tournaments as well as the numerous local championships during the Depression cannot be overlooked as they provided a highly visible, Alberta-based profile to golf that encouraged existing golfers to continue and newcomers to take up the sport.

Tournaments Cancelled During WWII Nearly all national, provincial and local tournaments were cancelled during WWII, as a gesture of support and because so many golfers took up arms in one way or another. As happened during WWI, many Alberta clubs provided memberships at little or no cost to men overseas in the hopes they would return and take up full memberships later.

POINT OF INTEREST

The Stymie When "stymies" were in effect, golf balls on the green were not marked and lifted in singles match play unless the two balls were within six inches of each other. A "stymie" occurred when another ball was directly in the putting line of your ball. Since that ball was not lifted (unless it was within 6 inches of your ball), you'd have to putt over or around it. Scorecards were made six inches long for this purpose.

There were two types of stymie: the 'dead stymie' where the path to the hole was completely blocked, and the 'half stymie' where there was some possibility of getting the ball to the hole without hitting the other ball.

The RCGA eliminated the stymie rule in 1952.

Stymied in 1913. Photo Credit: Edmonton Country Club.

From golf’s golden age of the 1920’s, through the Depression and WWII, golf barely lost ground in Alberta as volunteers took up the improvements the clubs couldn’t pay for, and heros like Henry Martell drew young athletes into the sport.

By the end of the war, golf in Alberta was ready for an upswing, but nobody could have guessed what discovery would propel golf once again into the forefront of provincial sport.

Tournament Dates 2012

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ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 49

THE ALBERTA GOLF ASSOCIATION

Serving All Clubs and Golfers Under the leadership of its secretary-treasurer, Dr. Bill Broadfoot, the Association expands its mandate from holding provincial championships to providing practical assistance to Alberta clubs during the Depression and World War II. he droughts and the financial hard times of the Depression eventually wore on the Alberta Golf Association and by the mid-1930’s, just when some of Alberta’s best players such as Stew Vickers, Duane Barr and Henry Martell were making names for themselves, the Association went through a restructuring.

Broadfoot Locates A Horse-Drawn Mower for Ponoka

Secretary-Treasurer and Dominion of Canada Plant Pathologist stationed at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

Bill Broadfoot, as he was popularly known, golfed at the Royal Mayfair Club, and served as the Association’s Secretary-Treasurer to 1945.

In calling for a 1935 meeting of club participants from throughout Alberta, the Association’s President, A.W. Mathews, said “much can be accomplished by a real live golf organization in Alberta and by a spirit of cooperation between the various clubs.”

As Secretary-Treasurer after the 1935 reorganization was completed, Bill Broadfoot recorded all the Association’s business and, aside from his duties as a Plant Pathologist, was in charge of collecting Association dues while war and economic hard times led to a membership decline from 31 clubs in 1938 to 23 in 1943.

The meeting led to a new set of Association by-laws and, for the first time, a semblance of record keeping. The hands-on leader chosen for the new era was Dr. William C. Broadfoot, Association

His sense of understanding and desire to be helpful on behalf of the Association was displayed in numerous instances and certainly preserved a core membership.

A Semblance of Record-Keeping

For example, in 1944 the struggling Ponoka Club, who had let their membership lapse, asked his help in buying a horse drawn mower so “we might be able to obtain more members, it was the condition of the grass on the fairways that made play so difficult last year.”

Bill Broadfoot responded with news of a horse drawn mower for sale at the University, telling the club, “You may have to haggle a bit on the price with Mr. West, but I am sure you will be able to make a deal with him.”

Possibly many other Secretary-Treasurers might have been able to be as diplomatic as Broadfoot, but for sure nobody else in Alberta had his knowledge of golf course turf, and he shared it unstintingly.

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Pioneering Advice on Turf and Snow Mould

Reviving the Country Districts Tournaments

In letters and brochures sent to everybody concerned, from local clubs to the RCGA, he advised on the improvements to turf possible through modern methods, including the pioneering of snow mould treatments and winter kill on greens.

The Association recognized the important role it could play in unifying the rural and urban golf clubs of Alberta during difficult times and, in a move that brought it immediate goodwill, revived the extremely popular Alberta Country Districts Championships.

Following the 1935 AGA reorganization, the rural clubs especially were tough to persuade to rejoin.

Many of them struggled to meet even the annual $2.50 membership fee, and were questioned by their membership about the validity of an organization that apparently was only interested in golf’s tournament players.

Formed as a separate association in 1925, the Country Districts Association had divided Alberta into 16 districts of three to eight clubs each that played off for 16 individual places at the Calgary Herald Championship held on the only grass greens in southern Alberta: The Calgary Golf and Country Club.

1937- Reluctant to Unite with the RCGA Making the sale of memberships in the AGA even harder, the Association had agreed in 1937, on a trial basis, to become affiliated with the RCGA. Member clubs of the AGA then automatically became members of the RCGA, and a portion of their AGA fees were passed on to golf’s national governing body.

Prior to 1937, James Barclay writes in “Golf in Canada,” “about twice as many clubs joined provincial associations as joined the RCGA.” In the West and the Maritimes, he explains, “the RCGA was perceived as serving an elite in Quebec and Ontario.”

The winner went on to play in the Prince of Wales tournament in Banff and in the Provincial Championships.

Even The Canadian Golfer, which rarely noted such localized events, congratulated the country golfers on the competition adding, “Good work and go for it.”

The Depression ended the country golfers’ good work until 1937 when the Alberta Golf Association stepped up and sponsored the Championship - to be played just prior to the Provincial Championships - to assure the four finalists would be funded to play in the Provincials and “settle the question of supremacy.”

A letter from The Vulcan Golf Club summed up the response from the rural clubs:

“It was agreed to become affiliated with your Association and we now enclose the necessary fee of $2.50.

“Our Membership men and women averages about forty; we have not quite as many paid up members this year money being so scarce; but those we have are very enthusiastic.

“We note that you are re-organizing the Country Districts Annual Tournament. This is a good move.”

By 1942 the Country Districts tournament was so popular that an Open counterpart was under consideration at the Annual Meeting. Demonstrative of the Association’s expanding role, the 1942 Annual Meeting (Bank Balance $100.00) also included discussions on course rating.

But, of prime importance, was the Association’s decision to cancel the Amateur until the war ended. The Open was considered to be of such importance to the province’s professionals that it was decided to allow it to continue.

The Red Cross Tournaments In lieu of the Amateur, the Association agreed to participate in a series of Red Cross Tournaments being held across Canada during the war.

On shaky but well-intended foundations, the Alberta Golf Association provided important leadership during almost 20 years of Depression and War.

Realistic Solutions for Your Course

UDDICOMBE GOLF design & construction

DESIGN D E S I G N s CCONSTRUCTION O N S T R U C T I O N s RRENOVATIONS ENOVATIONS ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 51

The Architects of Alberta’s Golf Courses With only horse-drawn equipment to move earth, the early architects of Alberta’s golf courses preferred to retain as much of the natural landscape as possible in their course designs.

ortunately for these pre-diesel power architects, the river valleys of Alberta – from the North Saskatchewan to the Bow River by Banff – provided all the variations in elevation and physical challenges golfers could expect to handle.

Pacing Off Holes The informality of Alberta’s first courses reflected their temporary nature. The Calgary Golf and Country Club was the first to buy land, in 1909, for a permanent course. Until then Alberta clubs leased, rented or squatted on the pastures where they played and were unwilling to invest more than the minimum to layout tees and greens, knowing they would soon have to relocate.

Tom Bendelow, Alberta’s First Course Architect Calgary hired the Scottish architect Tom Bendelow, known as “The Johnny Appleseed of Golf Courses,” in 1910 to lay out 18 holes along the sloping banks of the river. This course opened in 1911.

Bendelow, employed by the Spalding companies as Director Of Golf Course Development, crisscrossed North America staking new courses as golf’s popularity grew. For a few hundred dollars, in a day or two Bendelow could drive in enough stakes for a club to lay out tees, bunkers and greens that followed the natural terrain. His low fees were, in fact, subsidized by Spalding who hoped to sell a new club all the equipment it needed to open the course.

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The Bendelow design usually included the popular cross bunkers: ditch-like obstacles that ran the width of the course intended to punish golfers who lacked driving ability.

Willie Park Jr. In 1922, the Calgary club hired Willie Park Jr. to redesign the course as golf course architecture entered its “Golden Age.” Park, a Scottish champion, golf author and club maker, would be described many years later by course historians Geoffrey Cornish and Ronald Whitten as “perhaps the first true genius of golf course architecture.” In 20052007, after decades of modernizing the layout, the Club restored the course based on the original Willie Park Jr. intention.

Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course - designed by Stanley Thompson.

Edmonton - Best Par Threes The Edmonton Country Club in 1911 paid $125 to L.G. White, an American of unknown reputation, to “lay out their links,” according to the club’s history, “The Early Years.” White stayed on the club’s payroll at $80 per month during the construction and seeding phases.

As is typical of the course evolution that matches changes in golf equipment and golfer expectations, The Edmonton Country Club hired Stanley Thompson in 1944 to redesign the entire course. In doing so he created the club’s spectacular 18th Hole that spans a ravine.

H.S. Colt’s 1912 Fee: $25,000 This course, opened in 1912, was played on two levels, nine holes on the top bank and nine holes on the river flats.

The lower nine holes were moved to the top of the river bank in the 1930’s and were designed by “Pop” Brinkworth, the club’s dynamo superintendent credited by the RCGA for constructing “the best par three’s of any course in Canada.”

The Bowness Club, on the west side of Calgary, brought in the famed American H.S. Colt who had a Canadian reputation based on his 1912 design of the Toronto Golf Club. The Bowness land developer paid Colt $25,000, just before a disastrous drop in the real estate market forced the project into near bankruptcy. The course survived on sand greens until the 1960’s before it closed.

Stanley Thompson promotes the work he did on the Edmonton Country Club course.

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Blackhawk Golf Club- designed by Rod Whitman.

The Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course The Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course is the Alberta course that best reflects the adaptations made by architects over the years to accommodate a difficult terrain and the development of golf technology.

Originally built by the Canadian Pacific Railway as an attraction for their Banff Springs Hotel, the first nine-hole course opened in 1911 and was designed by the Scottish pro William E. (Bill) Thomson.

“Banff Springs Golf”, a well-documented book on the course by Banff historian E.J. Hart, describes the fairways on the Bow River flats as mown, natural montane grass with cross bunkers and square sand greens.

Ross design although the course soon became a must-visit for international golfing tourists and competitors.

The CPR took over the course again in 1927, during the height of the pre-Depression golf fever, and hired Stanley Thompson to design a course that would rival its chief competitor, the CNR course at Jasper Park Lodge, also designed by Thompson and completed in 1926.

The ‘Heroic’ Course Between 1911, the year the original Banff course opened, and 1927, the typical golfer had switched from hickory to steel-shafted golf clubs and was hitting new types of balls capable of much further distance. As well, golfers had begun to expect the fairways to be watered, and mowed by tractors.

The Federal Government took over the course in 1919 and hired Donald Ross to create a challenging 18-hole layout. Ross, Scottish, of course, and, like Willie Park Jr. a golfer of international fame, worked from a full topographical survey – something to which earlier course designers would not have had access.

According to E.J. Hart, Thompson’s goal at Banff was “to build a course of the ‘heroic’ style where players of different abilities could challenge their way to the green.”

Lack of funds stopped the full implementation of the

Thompson’s ‘heroic’ course, Hart points out,

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combined the old Scottish strategic courses where a premium was placed on free swinging distance shots with few traps, with the ‘penal’ courses that placed emphasis on accuracy.

“… it cost money to work with rock.”

At Banff where Thompson faced the massive job of moving tons of rock and bringing in topsoil, he not only had to overcome natural challenges but also financial ones.

When asked by The Canadian Golfer what the course would cost, Thompson would only reply, “… it cost money to work with rock.”

Thompson’s work remained more than satisfactory into the 1990’s. With Parks Canada approval, another nine holes were added in 1989, designed by Geoffrey Cornish and Bill Robinson. Cornish had worked as a young man with Stanley Thompson on the course.

In 1997, architects Les Furber and Jim Eremko of Golf Design Services of Canmore were given the

RedTail Landing Golf Club- designed by Puddicombe Golf.

assignment of restoring the original Stanley Thompson 18 holes in a manner that recreated Thompson’s intent.

picturesque challenges that are attracting families and communities to golf; and our multiple Alberta Amateur winner Harold Pasechnik whose precise thinking and precise playing are reflected in designs that combine strategy, skill and strength.

From tee boxes to greens, the architects restored what they could based on the equipment and skill of 1920’s golfers and made adjustments to create challenges for today’s golfers.

The gallery of architects working in the province today includes at least a dozen or more names familiar to most Albertans such as Gary Browning, Jeff Mingay, Bill Newis and Rod Whitman.

Today’s Course Architecture While restorations of the ‘Classics’ such as the Banff course reflect a growing trend in golf course architecture to return to the strategies and playability of yesterday, modern architecture in Alberta reflects the diversity of golfers and the Province’s demographics.

Perhaps, one hundred years from now, golfers will be speaking with the same reverence of these architects as they speak today of Stanley Thompson and Willie Park Jr.

Today, we see imported architects like Jack Nicklaus who offer Albertans the US Open style, powerhungry fairways.

But, most important, we see architects like the province’s Puddicombe family bringing us the Sid Puddicombe an Alberta architect with international credentials, at work in Japan.

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The Great Golf Exhibitions

The Big Names Tour Alberta Before revenue from televised golf events began to trickle down to the players, many of golf ’s big names supplemented their income by travelling from club to club to play exhibition matches.

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Keith Alexander and Bob Wylie (l to r) teamed up to beat Stan Leonard and Gary Player in a 1960 exhibition match.

rom the mid-1920’s to the late 1940’s tours by internationally recognised stars such as Walter Hagen, Bobby Locke, Joe Kirkwood, Gene Sarazen and Helen Hicks brought out hundreds of spectators at Alberta clubs anxious to see the marvellous swings they’d only been able to read about in the sports pages.

Typically, the touring professional was paid a guarantee by the club plus a percentage of the admission charges and was expected to play the club’s professional and top amateurs.

Edmonton’s Premier Golfing Event For example, the 1925 match between Edmonton Country Club professional Dunc Sutherland and Walter Hagen was considered “Edmonton’s premier golfing event of the 1920’s.”

Hagen was just coming off a string of victories including the 1924 and 1925 PGA Championships and the 1924 British Open, and was expected to trounce all his opponents, including Sutherland.

Sutherland and Hagen: Even After 16 Playing before a crowd of 800, Sutherland was even in match play after 16 when Hagen complimented him on not hitting a single slice all day. Sutherland responded by hitting his first slice and losing the match.

Sutherland, it turned out, was the Alberta club professional who came the closest to beating Hagen, who also played at Calgary and Medicine Hat as part of eight Western Canada exhibitions.

On the way to the train station after the match, Hagen asked Sutherland how much he had been paid for the exhibition. When Sutherland replied “Nothing,” Hagen slipped him $50.00.

Hagen, believed to be the first athlete to earn a million dollars, is acknowledged as the forerunner of today’s golf professionals; as Gene Sarazen remarked, “It was Walter who made professional golf what it is."

In recent years, Blackhawk Golf Club has brought in several of the world’s best players including Tom Watson, Fred Couples, Craig Stadler, Peter Jacobsen and … of course … Arnold Palmer.

Walter Hagen Jr., 1925, with his elbow on the car door, (L) relaxes with the Edmonton County Club officials and dignitaries prior to his exhibition match with Club Pro Dunc Sutherland, standing second from left.

Glenbow Archives NC-6-11700a.

For Jacobsen and Palmer’s 2008 charity fundraiser, 36 Edmontonians played a hole each with the golfing idols.

Joe Kirkwood, the world famous trick golf shot artist, brought his humour and remarkable skills from Australia to Henderson Lake in late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Photo Credit: Henderson Lake Golf Club

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OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Paddy Arnold “The biggest heartbreak of the year.”

The Calgary Herald, 1950 Paddy won six provincial championships, three before the war and three afterwards. She played on six provincial teams, was her club champion from 1938 to 1950, the city champion five times and won tournaments at Banff and Jasper.

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Glenn Gray

Paddy Arnold's weak eyesight had always been her vulnerability; she wore very thick glasses to play. After initially working with her, Cuthbert was unsure of her potential.

"I remember that I didn't think she'd ever be a golfer because of her eyesight. I was sure she wouldn't be able to judge distances accurately. But I've never been more wrong.

"She came along so fast that it left you dizzy. Without any qualification, I can say she was the finest pupil I've ever had. She was the most apt and the most conscientious. She'd work hours on a shot, practicing a long iron and pitching over a bunker."

In 1950 Paddy Arnold's domination came to an end when she suffered a detached retina during her defence of the Alberta championship, an accident that occurred when she dove into a swimming pool. This, Calgary Herald sports columnist Hec MacLean wrote, was "the biggest heartbreak of the year."

rom 1938 to 1950 Paddy Arnold was virtually unbeatable in Alberta ladies golf. Although her supremacy on a provincial level was never truly matched on a national level due to the wartime discontinuance in tournament play, there were very few who doubted her ability to provide a competitive challenge at that level.

A natural athlete with incredible poise and determination, Paddy Arnold's golf skills were only one aspect of her many interests. She only started golf after having established a reputation in tennis, badminton and horsemanship.

She considered Jack Cuthbert, a multiple Western Canadian champion and Calgary Golf and Country Club professional, as the person most influential in developing her skills.

"She was one of the finest in the Dominion, make no mistake about that. She was just reaching her peak when the tournaments were called off," Jack maintained.

Although she was still able to play non-competitive matches, Paddy Arnold's career was over and, despite operations and the care of specialists, Albertans were never again able to watch the dominant woman golfer of the era compete.

Paddy worked at The Calgary Herald for 20 years as secretary to the publisher and, on her modest salary, kept up her athletic endeavours. Many CGCC members today remember her borrowing a small amount of money to pay for her eye surgery and how she scrupulously repaid every cent although many of them would have been quite willing to forego the repayment.

Realizing that her competitive days were over, Paddy, nevertheless, kept track of the game's progress and noted the changes in style as the upcoming players reached the forefront.

"We were taught to sweep through the ball," she said in the mid-1950's. "There was no idea of really going for it. We were after style, not power. Now the girls are taught to be powerhitters. Look at Rae Milligan and Betty Stanhope-Cole. They play the game much better than we used to."

58 | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | ALBERTAGOLF.ORG

In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, longball hitter Glenn Gray was one of Alberta’s leading amateurs, making the Alberta Willingdon Cup team seven times.

As a 14-year-old, he received his first national exposure when he traveled alone across Canada by train to represent Alberta in the Canadian Junior and Juvenile Championship at the St. Bruno Golf Club in Montreal.

Glenn began his dominance of junior golf at age 15 by winning the 1941 Alberta Junior Championship and won it the next two years as well. He followed those victories with Alberta Amateur titles in 1949 and 1952, and represented Alberta on seven Willingdon Cup teams.

Glenn’s passion for golf extended beyond that of just being a player. He dedicated himself to leading junior golf programs while a member at the Royal Mayfair Golf and Country Club and as a board member of the Alberta Golf Association, of which he was elected president in 1968. Many of the junior interprovincial and international tournaments that are still played today in a variety of forms were pioneered by Gray.

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A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Henry Martell “A great golfer playing at the wrong time.”

Clyde Martell, Henry’s son. enry Martell’s best golfing years coincided with the Great Depression of the 1930’s and World War II, 1939 – 1945 when golf tournament prize money had dwindled to almost nothing.

During the lean years between 1936 and 1947 inclusive, Henry Martell worked, raised a family and still managed to win nine Alberta Amateur Championships and might have won two more if the events weren’t cancelled for two years during the war.

In addition, between winning the 1935 Edmonton City Amateur when he was 22, to the the 1971 CPGA Senior when he was 59, Henry also won four Alberta and Saskatchewan Opens, the Canadian Amateur and two CPGA Championships.

He also posted some astounding lifetime statistics provided by his son Clyde: • A clean sweep in 1936 of the Edmonton and Alberta Open and Amateur titles • Winning the 1944 Alberta Open by 23 strokes • Shooting 8 birdies in a row • Shooting a 65 at age 66 to become Canada’s youngest golfer to shoot his age When asked why his gifted father never tried playing as a touring professional, Clyde’s reply reflects his father’s pragmatic attitude: “Sponsors willing to provide backing were hard to find. Golfers couldn’t even afford to pay their expenses from prizes in those days. They were living in their cars.”

Henry and his three athletic brothers (Burns, Herman and Emil), the sons of a Polish blacksmith, grew up knowing that if they wanted to play sports, they had to pay their own way. They worked paper routes and whatever else they could do to afford sports. They spent their spare time at the local YMCA playing basketball, table tennis, and even managed to get a start as tennis players. Henry, for example, won the city junior tennis championships twice. The brothers were competitive with each other at every sport, but especially golf.

“They could all shoot their age when they were older,” Clyde says. “They all had tremendous hand to - eye coordination.”

As a young man Henry considered his athletic choices carefully before choosing golf over tennis or basketball. Golf, he reasoned, was the only sport where you saw old players competing and that made it the right choice for a young man thinking ahead.

From a start playing on a makeshift course with an old iron he and his friends found, Henry at age 18 began developing his smooth golf swing over the winter by swinging between attic rafters and driving balls into a tarp.

Always the entrepreneur, Henry introduced golf carts early on to the Highlands Golf Club. Henry (right) with his golfing friend Jim Harper. Photo Credit: Highlands Golf Club.

Married and starting a family when he won the Canadian Amateur in 1939, Henry had to make a choice: get a job or continue the almost futile struggle to make golf pay during the War. The choice must have been difficult for Henry as he was named “Canada’s Golfer of the Year” by The Canadian Golfer magazine.

The Martell brothers had all worked during the Depression in the GWG clothing factory in Edmonton. Henry had hoped to become a teacher and passed the one year course but the only positions available were in remote northern towns such as Fort Chipewyan.

However, because he was well-known as a golfer, Henry was offered a job by the golfing chief of the Edmonton Police, Reg Jennings. Henry accepted, thankful that he would have a steady income.

The Golfing Policeman Henry’s classic, self-taught swing, Clyde says, would eventually be known throughout North America by professionals such as Bobby Locke, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, and Babe Zaharias who played exhibitions with Henry.

Henry Martell’s classic, self-taught swing was envied by professionals throughout North America.

Photo Credit: Highlands Golf Club.

66 | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | ALBERTAGOLF.ORG

Henry served with the Edmonton Police for nine years and, as he continued to make headlines in the sports section, he became known as ‘The Golfing Policeman.’

After the war ended and golf began to make a resurgence, Henry became the head professional at the Highlands Golf Club where he would stay from 1948 until his retirement in 1979.

Henry Martell with his protégé Betty Stanhope-Cole (L) and Canadian Champion Marlene Stewart Streit.

Photo Credit: Highlands Golf Club.

“A Heart of Gold” In his later years Henry developed a reputation for being gruff and impatient, but few knew that he was living in almost constant pain.

If Henry had a weak spot, it was his knees. He had 11 operations on them without long-term relief.

“He was eating aspirins like crazy when he did the CBC series – and his swing was perfect,” Clyde says.

Ray Milne, who took over the pro shop when Henry retired, worked with him starting as a club cleaner in 1962. For Ray, Henry was a father figure respected as much for his life lessons as his golf game.

“I know he was sometimes short with people because of the pain in his knees,” Ray says, “but he had a heart of gold. Henry was a second father to me.

“To work with a man like Henry was more than I could ever hope for. He taught me anything I wanted to learn. The more I asked, the more he gave.

“Here was somebody who could work as hard as he did, golf only six months a year and still accomplish all his feats … I don’t think anybody will ever equal that.”

While Ray can – and loves to – tell hundreds of stories about Henry’s golf accomplishments, there is an unusual story he believes sums up Henry’s straightforward attitude and determination.

At a time when passersby could stroll along the edge of the Highlands course by the river, Henry hit a new ball near the river and saw a boy dart out of the woods, grab the ball and start running away.

A Couple of Sets of Clubs

“Go take lessons from Henry Martell.”

As the club pro, Henry was expected to provide the shop inventory and teach lessons, without financial backing from the club.

Henry turned his natural aptitude for golf towards teaching and immediately became recognized as the man to go to when you were having trouble.

Henry yanked a club from his bag – it turned out to be his favorite Calamity Jane putter – and chased the boy.

“It was tough starting out,” Clyde remembers. “He had a couple of sets of clubs to sell and some balls.

Everything he had went into building up the shop.

We couldn’t even afford a car.”

“Go take lessons from Henry Martell,” Sam Snead told an Edmonton golfer having swing problems.

Jackie Burke, a World Golf Hall of Fame member, offered Henry a teaching position in Houston.

“It brought out the policeman in Henry,” Ray says with a laugh.

Henry, it turned out, was an astute businessman. He expanded his business every way possible and didn’t mind working hard to save money. He and his brother, Herman, built an addition to the shop and began a lucrative year-round club repair business that brought them customers from shops all over the Edmonton area.

While there are untold golfers in Alberta today, of all abilities, who give Henry credit for improvement to their game, none is more notable than Betty StanhopeCole who joined the Highlands as a teenager and went on, with Henry’s guidance, to join him in the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. (See article page 110)

“He spent all his time at the Highlands. He would open his shop at 6 and close it at 11. But it wasn’t until the 1960’s that he started to have some money.”

In addition to his regular teaching, Henry participated in the television-based golf instruction series sponsored by CBC and hosted by Ernie Afaganis: Tee to Green. He also participated in the Par 27 televised events, winning it four times.

After running almost 600 yards with knees long past repair, Henry caught up to the boy and tripped him with the putter – which broke.

Henry pulled the boy to his feet, admonished him more than severely, and returned to his game. With his broken putter and recovered ball in hand, Henry told his partner: “I’ll guarantee that kid will never steal another golf ball.”

ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 67

OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Irene Horne “My goodness, am I the champion?”

Irene Horne asks on the 17th green of the 1935 Canadian Closed Championship Only four years after Irene Horne took up golf, The Canadian Golfer magazine declared her to be Alberta’s leading lady golfer.

Irene began golfing in 1926 under the direction of Roy Horne, her husband and an Alberta golf professional.

The next year she won the Edmonton City Championship and was runner-up in the provincial championship. She also won the provincial handicap event and the long drive competition with a tee shot of 238 yards. She then went on to win the Central Alberta Championship in Red Deer.

By 1930, The Canadian Golfer would write: “Mrs. Irene Horne … had a wonderful season having won no less than five (Alberta) major titles.” She also won the long drive competition in the provincial championships.

“Mrs. Horne of Edmonton, but formerly of Calgary and Regina … once again demonstrated that she is the leading lady player of Alberta.

“Mrs. Horne has many Western Championships to her credit and it is a pity that she does not enter for the Canadian Ladies Open and Closed Championships … she would go far.”

Irene continued to dominate Alberta golf, winning six provincial titles between 1929 and 1937, despite illness that kept her out of at least one championship.

Her driving was always her strength, as The Canadian Golfer noted after she “laced out a drive of 250 yards, two feet five inches” to win the 1932 Edmonton City long drive competition.

“Can anyone bring forward in Canada, a drive to equal or exceed this one by the ranking woman player of the prairies?”

Irene Horne, Alberta’s leading lady of golf in the early 1930’s. Photo Credit: Golf Canada.

Irene returned to The Canadian Golfer’s attention by unexpectedly winning the 1935 Canadian Closed with a round that included setting a new ladies course record.

Other than her golf record, little is known about Irene.

However, Joan Wylie, daughter of the 1920’s multiple championship winner Jack Cuthbert, recalls that: “She was a tiger! She wanted to win all the time.

She was very good and very competitive.”

Most impressive was that she won using a borrowed putter after her own was declared illegal just before play, although she had used it in other tournaments.

Stepping off the 17th green, 3 and 1, she politely asked, “My goodness, am I really the champion?”

Irene’s reign at the top ended in 1938 when Jack Cuthbert’s young protégé Paddy Arnold captured the provincial title and didn’t relinquish it until 1950.

“Those two had some very good battles,” Joan recalls.

68 | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | ALBERTAGOLF.ORG

OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

J.Munro Hunter “Mr. J Munro Hunter again demonstrates he is a great golfer.”

The Canadian Golfer, 1920.

“The annual championships of the Province of Alberta were held over the course of the Calgary Golf and Country Club September 3rd to the 7th, and for the fourth time that great driver and fine golfer, J. Munro Hunter, of Edmonton, won the championship.”

In their complimentary discussion of Munro Hunter’s golfing ability, the magazine omitted to explain that Hunter’s string of wins was interrupted by the four WWI years when play was cancelled.

Like many others whose records were interrupted by wartime tournament cancellations, Hunter’s abilities were never fully tested and so his career includes the inevitable asterisks rather than results.

The six foot, five inch Scottish immigrant was a partner in an Edmonton sporting goods store, Simpson & Hunter, and the pride of the Edmonton Country Club on whose course he won the club’s inaugural tournament and the 1913 provincial championships.

He joined the now defunct St. Andrew’s club in Calgary as its professional after winning the 1920 provincial championships, taking advantage of the postwar resurgence in golf.

Hunter was considered the longest hitter in Canada, as noted in Barclay’s Golf In Canada that quoted this anecdote from Tommy Morrison, Hunter’s fellow Alberta professional:“Gene Sarazen watched Hunter drive three balls in a long driving competition and then said, “I just put my three balls back in my bag.”

Munro Hunter (r) and Herb Black were perennial Alberta course combatants.

Although they differed in size, Herb always played with exceptionally long clubs and proved to be an equal on many occasions. Photo Credit: Calgary GCC.

Highlands Golf Club One of Edmonton’s finest golf addresses since 1929.

Only minutes from downtown in the beautiful North Saskatchewan River Valley.

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ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 69

FROM

THE

CLUB’S

ARCHIVES

Highlands Golf Club Memories

By Ted Smith, Highlands Golf Club Historian

Ted Smith, The Highlands Golf Club volunteer historian, was invaluable in providing material used in this magazine. We pressed this modest individual hard to describe his duties and he reluctantly submitted the following article which we hope will adequately represent the contributions made by the many club historians around Alberta: Ed. Note. he volunteer position of Club Historian could be an onerous job if one didn’t enjoy knowing who and what has gone on before that provides us with what we have today. Rather than being a dedicated collector of present day information that will one day be our club history I have focused on passing on the stories of the past through photographs, written and verbal presentations of the clubs history.

Being in existence just over 80 years, the Highlands Golf Club has a unique history to present to club members, staff, surrounding communities and general interest groups. In the seven years since our 75th anniversary we have made application and had two city parks that border the club named after Henry Martell and Betty Stanhope-Cole both long time and celebrated members of Highlands. Support from the club members, staff, community organizations, elected officials, city committees and private companies allowed us to make these parks a reality and bring Henry and Betty’s accomplishments into the community through visual signage and plaques.

Researching and writing articles for publications in news letters, community papers along with providing information to select media both local and national has allowed the club to tell a little of the Highlands Golf Club history and maybe has helped members and community neighbors appreciate what has gone on over the past 80 years to provide a wonderful golf course, club house and organization that we enjoy so much today.

The Highlands clubhouse ca. 1930s. Photo Credit: Highlands Golf Club.

They had a Dream In the 1920’s a group of Highlands district residents had a dream… they wanted to develop a golf course in east Edmonton. They approached the City fathers and inquired about purchasing some of the bottom land below Highlands. A price of $2,000 was asked by the city… a sizable sum for these residents who tried but could not raise the money.

They went back to the city and inquired about leasing the land.

Arrangements were made and the first lease was for a term of 21 years with a 20 year option to renew. Under the terms of the lease the club was required to spend $20,000 to construct the course and build a clubhouse.

The Lost Bulldozer Construction started on the west nine holes in the spring of 1929. The course was built around the Premier Coal Mine. The working shafts extended to the river and east to below the area in front of us today. Mine operations ceased in 1932 after a major fire and then the flooding of the shafts. Effects of the mining operations are still evident today with the possibility of shaft cave-ins and changing undulations on some of the fairways and greens.

70 | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | ALBERTAGOLF.ORG

These shafts have continued to be a construction hazard: the city lost a bulldozer just east of the clubhouse, rumored to be quicksand but likely mine shafts that gave way. Other openings have occurred on various fairways and each year the fairway undulations on hole 13 change significantly.

The first nine holes were completed in the fall of 1929 and opened in the spring of 1930. Horses rather than power equipment pulled plows and were also used to pull the mowers once the grass grew.

Two man saws cut down trees and much work was done by hand. A government make work project at the time assisted in providing laborers to help with the construction.

The first pro appointed was Harry Shaw. Juniors were allowed to play for free if they spent an hour digging dandelions on the course. The equipment list included horses, hay, feed and manpower, the total greens budget was in the amount of $6,696 for the season.

Horses pulling mowers left imprints and you played the ball where it lay.

Glen Wilson’s homemade cart zipped between the course and his house on Ada Boulevard.

Photo Credit: Highlands Golf Club.

washing machine motor. Glen was tall so the cab on the cart was high and that made it a little top heavy.

It occasionally tipped over on a side hill, and playing partners and staff would take time to right it so the game could continue. The cart had to be rebuilt several times but it always got Mr. Wilson back and forth to his Ada Boulevard home.

A Brush with Death In the late 80’s the Highlands had its near brush with death. Mayor Lawrence Decore and the city councilors, one being Jan Reimer, were reluctant to extend the lease. After several heated meetings the lease was extended and long range plans were begun.

Suicide Hill

In the mid 30’s the four Martell brothers left the Prince Rupert and Victoria Golf Clubs and joined Highlands. The brothers went on to bring significant recognition to the golf club, the communities and the city with their many golfing achievements. The park across the street from the exit to Highlands was dedicated in 2004 and is named after Henry Martell and the plaque lists his many golfing achievements.

The leveled area where the park is now was a ravine running down to the valley and spanned with a wooden bridge.

Bobby Locke sets Course Record After WWII, the golf pro was Alex Olynk. Henry Martell, or the “golfing policeman,” as he was known was still winning major amateur championships. Henry became the golf pro in 1948 and one of the big events at Highlands was an exhibition match played by Henry, Stan Leonard, Dave Dixon and the world renowned South African, Bobby Locke.

Highlands Golf Club

Martell Park

Our lease with the city asks us to allow community members to use the golf course when the course is closed for the season so they can toboggan, cross country ski or walk in the valley. The hill beside the freeway used to be known as Suicide Hill as toboggans rocketed down the hill and onto the course.

Now snow boarders build their jumps, young families slide on the hills and cross country skiers use the grounds each winter enjoying this beautiful river valley.

Bobby was well known for his plus fours and terrific putting skills. During this exhibition Locke set an unofficial course record of 65, his first time on the course.

Carts and Slacks Traditions began changing on courses in the 1950’s.

Pull carts were making their debut and at the 1953 city ladies championship the lady golfers were allowed, for the first time, to wear slacks on the golf course.

In 1963 power carts were starting to be used for the first time. Henry Martell had two for rent and by 1967 his fleet had grown to six. Members were allowed to buy their own carts and pay a fee for storage and maintenance. Glen Wilson, owned a most unique one. He built it himself, using a gas

Sand tees and rough turf challenged the Highland’s early but enthusiastic golfers. Photo Credit: Highlands Golf Club.

ALBERTAGOLF.ORG | T H E A L B E R TA G O L F E R C E N T E N N I A L I S S U E | 71

THE ALBERTA GOLF ASSOCIATION

The Science of Grass Transforming ‘Short Pasture’ with Bluegrass, Bents and Fescues Spend a morning talking grass with Prof. Garry McCullough, Alberta’s unofficial “Mr. Turfgrass,” and you’ll find yourself viewing golf courses from a new perspective.

Starting his career on the Banff Springs course with his father, Casper McCullough, then the course superintendent, Garry went on to become a Plant Science Instructor at Olds College and a director of Alberta Golf.

Alberta has a unique climate that is hard on grass especially when that grass is mowed short, he says.

The grass is walked on by golfers, dried out by the summer sun, and then covered by snow in winter but occasionally exposed and even thawed by chinooks.

To maintain grass under these conditions requires special knowledge and years of experience. Just as important, the grass has to be chosen specifically to withstand Alberta’s various climatic zones. What grows in Medicine Hat won’t necessarily survive in Grand Prairie.

Banff: A Kentucky Bluegrass Cultivar For example, few golfers would realize - other than grassknowledgeable specialists like Garry – that the grass first planted on the fairways of the Kananaskis courses is called “Banff” and is a cultivar developed from a patch of Kentucky Bluegrass that had shown remarkable survival traits on the Banff Springs course.

Alberta’s Turfgrass Visionaries Alberta Golf has been fortunate to have in its ranks several pioneers of turfgrass like Prof. Garry McCullough who have contributed to the excellent playing conditions that provincial golfers enjoy today.

Early golf course superintendents used tractor-pulled gang mowers. Today’s grounds crews have the latest in high tech triplex mowers to improve course conditions.

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Beginning in the 1940’s with Dr. Bill Broadfoot, the Alberta Golf Association’s Secretary-Treasurer and the Dominion of Canada Plant Pathologist stationed at the University of Alberta, these turfgrass visionaries have provided course superintendents with Alberta-specific advice on everything from mowing techniques to treating snow mould on greens.

Dr. Jack LeBeau, Chair of Alberta Golf’s Greens Section In the late 1960’s, when many courses were still what Garry describes as “short pastures” the Association formed a Greens Section chaired by Dr. Jack LeBeau, the Plant Pathologist for Agriculture stationed at Lethbridge. Besides offering advice, LeBeau organized the first AGA Turf School, held in 1971 at the Mayfair Golf & Country Club.

This two-day school, moved permanently to Olds College in 1973, brought out participants from all over the province and gave superintendents an introduction to the knowledge of men such as Sid Puddicombe and Prof. Hugh Knowles.

The Prairie Turfgrass Research Centre Today, Olds College is the home of the Prairie Turfgrass Research Centre (PTRC), founded in 1988 and sponsored in part by Alberta Golf.

PTRC conducts research that focuses on maintaining turfgrass in Alberta’s cold and dry climate. With an environmentally -conscious approach to turfgrass management now considered essential, PTRC also studies pesticide and water management practices which produce results for healthy turfgrass while minimizing the effect on the environment.

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Duane Barr The Depression years of the 1930’s were difficult years for Alberta’s competitive golfers as the practical necessities of the era, not golf, were their priority.

Duane Barr began his golf career as a caddy in the early years of the Depression and his first victory was at a “caddy’s” tournament in 1933. He reached his peak early and left the competitive part of the game behind him at the relatively young age of thirty-five.

Even so, this Earl Grey member of more than fifty years left his mark indelibly in the record books as he won the Club Championship and the Calgary City Open each six times and the Calgary Amateur five times. He capped his career by winning the Alberta Amateur and was an Alberta Willingdon Cup team member an impressive five times.

Although he did not reach the national stage, Duane Barr was an important role model for the next generation of Alberta golfers who went on to success at city, provincial and national levels. Hall of Fame members Keith Alexander, Doug Silverberg and Bob Wylie noted that as junior golfers they were greatly influenced by Barr’s demeanor and high standards.

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B L A C K H AW K G O L F C L U B

You don’t need to be old to be a classic.

Congratulations to Alberta Golf on a Century of Support and Promoting Golf in Alberta.

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The Effect of Oil on Golf Courses

The Calgary Golf and Country Club Keith Alexander Bob Wylie Diane Williams Buddy Loftus Rae Milligan (Simpson) Bill Tait Doug Silverberg Ernie Afaganis Yellowknife Golf Club The Murdered Golf Pro: Frank Willey Pat Fletcher Charlie Scott: Mr. Golf Nanton Golf Club Windermere Golf and Country Club

The Effect of Oil on Golf Courses

The discovery in 1947 of a major oil field at Leduc would transform Alberta financially and socially. Nowhere was this transformation more evident than on the province’s golf courses.

Residential Golf Courses Using an American concept of tying a golf course to a new subdivision, Calgary home builder Keith Construction created Willow Park Golf and Country Club in 1964, the city’s first, modern-era residential golf course. Home purchasers in the community automatically received a membership at the 18-hole club.

In Edmonton, members of the Edmonton Oilmen’s Recreation Club formed the Derrick Club in 1957 which opened with an 18 hole course designed by Pop Brinkworth who, two decades, earlier had redesigned nine holes at the Edmonton Country Club.

The clubhouse included an eight-sheet curling rink, outdoor swimming pool, a bowling alley, a badminton court, large banquet facilities, a small exercise room, and offices.

As the club’s historian, Irene King, points out, although the course was built on the south-west outskirts of Edmonton in 1959, it is engulfed today by the city.

The Oilmen’s Golf Tournament in Banff represented the rising affluence and influence of the oil industry in Alberta since the tournament’s inception in 1951. Glenbow Archives NA-5674-24.

mperial Oil drilled 133 dry holes before making Alberta’s most important oil discovery, Leduc Number One, in February 1947.

Almost immediately, money and American oilmen began pouring into Alberta and, by 1970, the province that was once identified as the home of farmers and cowboys would be Canada’s urbanised, consumer-driven headquarters for the oil industry.

This, the first sustained oil boom in the province, brought the post-war farmhands out of their wheatfields and into the oilfields and cities where they began to earn wages that their parents had never dreamed possible.

Affluent Albertans Take Up Golf The sudden rise in affluence of home-grown Albertans and recent arrivals from Canada’s eastern provinces and American oilmen coincided with an American emergence of golf as a popular sport played by almost every social class.

With American celebrities such as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Jack Benny not only playing golf, but also rubbing shoulders with Alberta’s golf pros and businessmen at Banff and Jasper it was no wonder that post-war Albertans took to the sport with an enthusiasm not seen since the 1920’s.

American leisure activities, from sports to Disneyland, became big business as the new consumers and their baby boom children had, for the first time, not only free time but extra money to spend on activities once considered beyond their reach.

By the end of the 1960’s Calgary and Edmonton with populations close to 400,000, were the fastestgrowing cities in Canada. To meet the housing demand, new suburbs soon surrounded the land owned by the former ‘country’ clubs built on the frontier perimeters of Alberta’s cities and towns.

From almost begging for new members to join, these older clubs soon had waiting lists.

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New American-Based Expectations Not only were Americans bringing their golf expectations to Alberta in the 1960’s, Albertans were travelling to the southern states in the winter and returning to home courses in the spring with demands that the fairways and greens meet the American standards.

The caddies that had always been part of golf’s heritage were disappearing from Alberta’s courses by the late 1950’s, replaced by pull carts. These were soon replaced by the American phenomenon of power carts, despite the protests of traditionalists.

For course superintendents, the power carts introduced new problems to course maintenance, from compaction to increased wear on high traffic areas. While those problems were resolved, the course superintendents faced a much bigger visual problem: how to create in dry Alberta the lush, green courses members had played on over the winter in the States.

The solution was lots of water and lots of fertilizer and lots of fall preparations to reduce winter kill.

A view of Henderson Lake golfers following the Annual Southern Alberta Tournament in 1950. Originally part of the World War II R.C.A.F. Complex at Kenyon Field, the clubhouse in the background served the club from 1947 to 1964.

Especially for Alberta clubs, the American-driven expectations created one major problem that they continue to struggle with today. That problem arose when Arnold Palmer, winner of the Canadian Open in his rookie season, 1955, reached hero status and television networks began broadcasting major tournaments as the post-war generation became golfers.

The Older, Strategic Courses Became Passé Just as Canadians responded to advertisements for “muscle” cars such as Ford’s Mustang in record numbers, local golfers began to crave the made-fortelevision fairway vistas over which they watched PGA golfers hit almost miraculous, long drives.

Alberta golfers wanted what they saw on television and the older, strategic courses became passé.

Instead of playing around the bunkers that protected the greens, players in the late 1960’s were hitting right over the bunkers forcing clubs and architects to lengthen and redesign courses.

Author Geoffrey Cornish (The Architects of Golf 1993) describes the courses built at the end of the 1960’s as featuring broad sweeping fairways, large undulating greens, and long tees.

This is in sharp contrast to Willow Park’s 1965 course, as described by SCORE in 2010: “Narrow fairways flanked by an abundance of trees place a premium on well-controlled tee shots. With doglegs on nine of the holes, water hazards on seven holes, out of bounds around the perimeter, and more than 100 bunkers, big hitters cannot overpower the course.”

While the modifications to add length to courses proved popular into the next decades, many designs are being reconsidered today as they created courses far too difficult for the average player who would be, in fact, the financial mainstay of Alberta golf.

Alberta’s Golden Years While Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player were dominating professional golf, a threesome of Alberta men brought amateur golf provincially and nationally to unexpected prominence.

In the 1930’s and 1940’s, Alberta’s male amateurs featured players of the calibre of Henry Martell and Glenn Gray, but it wasn’t until the 1950’s that the province produced a generation of golfers that would put Alberta on the national and international stage.

Oilman George McMahon sold this million dollar Calgary home to be converted into the clubhouse of the Canyon Meadows Golf Course when he retired to the Bahamas, ca. 1967. Glenbow Archives NA-2864-1191L-1.

“Alberta’s golden years started in the mid-1950’s,” author James Barclay writes in Golf In Canada. Bob Wylie, Keith Alexander and Doug Silverberg emerged in the 1950’s as Alberta’s stars, Barclay notes. By the 1960’s they would form the core of four Willingdon Cup winning teams and, in 1965, Alexander and Silverberg would play on the only Canadian team to win The America’s Cup.

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The enigmatic Moe Norman won the 1955 Canadian Amateur held at the Calgary GCC in a six and half hour final over Lyle Crawford.

Glenbow Archives NA-5600-8302b.

Betty Stanhope-Cole’s 1957 win in the Canadian Junior Girls Championship propelled this Edmonton prospect into a renowned national and international golfer who, by the mid-1970’s, would be ranked as Canada’s top woman.

Alberta’s oil prosperity during the 1950’s and 1960’s may have seemed almost too good to be true, especially to those in less fortunate provinces. For those who believed that Albertans would sooner or later have to pay the price for their apparently wild spending, the biggest boom in Alberta was yet to come: the OPEC sponsored oil crisis of the 1970’s that drove the price of oil from about $5/barrel to almost $40.

The Calgary Golf and Country Club

When news of the 1947 oil discovery at Leduc drew American oilmen to Alberta, the Calgary GCC intercepted them on their way north by offering special club memberships and encouraging them to establish their companies in Calgary. merican oilmen from Louisiana to California rushed north to Alberta in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s bringing with them drilling rigs, money and experience in developing oil plays.

Calgarians had already tasted the wonders of an oil and gas boom in the 1920’s when discoveries at Turner Valley turned the small town south of Calgary into Hell’s Half Acre, so it was only natural that they wanted to keep the Americans in “The Cowtown.”

The business-minded golfers at the Calgary Golf and Country Club, in particular, welcomed the Americans with open arms and introduced them to their club, then the heart of Calgary’s social scene.

Besides being a friendly community, the golfers said, Calgary had the warmest climate in Alberta, thanks to the Chinook winds which - unfortunately for Edmontonians - did not travel north.

The Americans usually stayed at the CPR’s Palliser Hotel, known then as ‘The Paralyzser,’ where the Calgary GCC had a long-standing relationship. The club members discretely suggested that the hotel manager place golf invitations in the rooms of the oilmen. Before long, the oilmen gave up any plans to move closer to Leduc. They felt at home in Calgary and began moving their families and bank accounts to the city.

The relationship between the oilmen and the club was cemented in 1948 when a former club president, Gordon Love, proposed the club offer the oilmen and their wives special memberships – before a club in Edmonton got the idea.

Gordon Love was a shrewd and powerful businessman.

He owned CFCN –The Voice of the Prairies – and put his shrewd instincts to work as the president of an impressive list of business and social organizations: the Calgary GCC, the Calgary Stampede, the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade, and was influential in the Petroleum Club and Ranchmen’s Club.

‘American Oil Company’ Memberships Starting in 1948 the drawling southerners could buy discounted ‘American Oil Company’ memberships at the Calgary GCC with annual dues of $150 for men and $50 for ladies. By 1951 the popularity of the memberships forced the club to discontinue them and asked the Americans to sign on as traditional members. Almost all did and today the club’s membership includes dozens of second and third generation American descendents.

The oil business conducted at the club soon attracted Calgarians from support industries ranging from insurance agencies to investment houses making the club the prosperous and popular place where deals were sealed with handshakes between fellow golfers.

Typical of the newcomers were the Brinkerhoffs who founded Brinkerhoff Drilling, beginning with one rig in 1947. Operating from a room at the Palliser, Bob Brinkerhoff had 22 rigs working in Alberta within 30 months.

The isolated Calgary GCC newly built clubhouse and the road to the Elbow River where the groundskeeper watered horses to pull the mowers, ca. 1914. Photo Credit: Calgary GCC.

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The club’s unwritten rule of the day was that, no matter how many times the steward was asked to check, “There is never anybody in the Snake Room.”

The debate over paying for the renovations eventually led to the entire board resigning. Gordon Love stepped in as temporary president and, by 1958, the members agreed that a new clubhouse was a better solution.

To pay for the construction the Board simply asked members to contribute toward a fund of 15-year, no interest notes repayable in instalments. The fund was filled in ‘no time.’

The influence of oil money on the clubhouse was mirrored by improvements to the course which by 1955 was ready for the Canadian Amateur and Willingdon Cup.

Wylie, Alexander and Silverberg The club’s powerful presence quickly attracted a cadre of top-ranked amateurs to its membership in the 1950’s and 1960’s, notably Bob Wylie, Keith Alexander and Doug Silverberg.

Four of the five 1963 Alberta Willingdon Cup members belonged to the Calgary GCC. The fifth, Joe Ferguson, joined later that year. (l to r) Davey Jones non-playing captain, Keith Alexander, Joe Ferguson, Doug Silverberg, and John Poyen. Photo Credit: Calgary GCC.

“One of the first things I did was join the Calgary GCC and play golf,” he later recalled.

Bob Brinkerhoff became a founding director of the Oilmen’s golf tournament and, today, the next generations of the family live in Calgary and golf at the Calgary GCC. (Bob Brinkerhoff, Jr., won the 2009 senior men’s Calgary GCC championship.)

The Snake Room According to former Calgary GCC and AGA president Bill Tait, the melding of the old and the new at the club was not always easy. In 1952 the newcomers lobbied the club’s board for renovations to the clubhouse built in 1911. The old clubhouse had an easy informality that the older members liked. For instance, the drinking was done in the Snake Room, the traditional hideaway left over from the days of Prohibition and supplied with liquor stored in a member’s locker.

Illustrative of these three men’s dominance of Alberta golf is that the RCGA confirmed in 1997 that “No other club in Canada had three members of the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame actively playing at the same time.”

Keith Alexander summed up the competitive level that the three brought to the Calgary GCC when he commented: “It got to be that sometimes the hardest tournament to win was the Calgary GCC Championship!”

Source: The Calgary Golf and Country Club 1897 – 1997, by Tyler Trafford

By the 1950’s the city was growing around the Calgary GCC, trees were replacing prairie, and pullcarts were replacing caddies. Photo Credit: Calgary GCC.

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A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Keith Alexander “…one of the few accomplished Canadian golfers who take their love of the sport from the course to the boardroom with the same zeal and commitment.”

The Alberta Golf Hall of Fame

A True Renaissance Man he public record on Keith Alexander reads like the story of a true Renaissance Man: a well-educated, diverse thinker excelling in a number of fields. From Golf Canada Hall of Fame inductee to MLA, Keith Alexander’s remarkable abilities range from the athletic to the intellectual.

The son of a plaster contractor in Vulcan Alberta, Keith was an all-round high school athlete who golfed occasionally. He only took up golf seriously at the age of 20 when his father exchanged an outstanding bill for ten lessons in 1950 at Martin Allred’s indoor golf school in Calgary.

Keith Alexander won all the 1960 major events in city, provincial and national competitons, including the Canadian Amateur.

Photo Credit: Calgary GCC.

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Allred, who also taught Hall of Fame inductee Bob Wylie, spent a winter with Keith and the results are in the record book. In 1960, Keith won all the major city and provincial events and capped the year by winning the Canadian Amateur. Most notably, he would go on to six Alberta Amateur Championships, participate on 16 international teams, and become a Canadian Golf Hall of Fame member.

In 1957, married and with a son, he borrowed the money to join the Calgary Golf and Country Club because, he says, in those days “That’s where the best players were congregating.” Those players included Doug Silverberg, Bob Wylie, and Joe Ferguson.

“We really fought for those positions.”

“I gave up all other sports,” Keith recalls, “for tournament golf.”

Keith credits the competitive atmosphere at the Calgary GCC with improving the level of everybody’s game to the point where positions on international teams became the prize.

Phi Beta Kappa

“We really fought for those positions.”

One of the first Canadians to develop his game in an American university program, Keith quickly displayed proof that he had the talent to become an international golf competitor, and the scholastic ability to match.

Keith also used his talents to benefit other golfers through his commitment to the Alberta Golf Association from 1968 to 1982; he served as president in 1977.

Attending on a scholarship, he captained the University of Colorado’s golf team for three years and won its first individual title while compiling a comparable record in the classroom where he received four citations for academic excellence and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the national scholastic fraternity.

At one time, he considered joining the ministry but was not completely sure it was the right direction to take his life. He continued golfing and balanced the sport with a dedication to his family, his community and his career which included printing and publishing, investment banking and a stint as an MLA.

While all his worldly successes have been rewarding for Keith, the most revealing sign of his Renaissance Man diversity is in the strength he derives from his spirituality.

He retired in 1992 and golfed “with only modest success” on the Seniors Tour.

A Full Circle Most important to Keith, however, is maintaining his lifelong spiritual commitment which includes participation in Links Players, an international Christian golfers group.

“Life has always been much more than golf. I have a belief in the spiritual nature of Man which transcends everyday events and gives life its fuller meaning.”

“I grew up in a strongly Christian home that believed in doing things as the Scripture says – whatever you do, do it with all your might.”

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A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Bob Wylie “The affable Wylie attacked senior golf with the same intensity he showed throughout his career, winning four consecutive (of his record seven) Canadian Senior Golf Championships from 1985 to 1988.”

The Alberta Golf Hall of Fame

Bob Wylie as a young professional at the Regal Golf Course in Calgary, 1953.

Glenbow Archives NA-5600-6238a.

“He stands up and drives it right down the middle,” one of Bob Wylie’s competitors noted during play for the 1995 Canadian Senior Men’s Championship held in part on Victoria’s tight Gorge Vale Golf Course.

Bob, then age 65, would win that championship to surpass Nick Westlock’s record of six senior titles.

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Bob Wylie, the senior, never lost his competitive nature.

hile Bob’s seven Senior Championships are a record, they are absolutely astounding when it is noted that, in the year prior to his first senior victory, Bob represented Canada on the World Amateur Team with teammates as young as 19.

On Canadian courses from coast to coast, Bob Wylie, born in 1929, has always been regarded as not only an outstanding golfer but also as a genuinely good guy.

Mention his name in any clubhouse and everybody has something positive to say.

Meeting him is a pleasure and an education in modesty. His blue eyes are lit with genuine charm.

He’s soft-spoken and seems almost taken aback when people show an interest in his golf, although he has gotten a little used to the attention since his 1995 induction into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame and its Alberta counterpart in 2005.

A natural athlete, Bob could have chosen to pursue any one of the handful of sports he played in his Calgary high school. Bob’s younger brother, Harvey, played for the Calgary Stampeders and another brother, Cliff, played hockey.

While there are also numerous individual titles in his collection, including five Alberta Amateurs, two Alberta Opens and the 1960 Mexican Amateur, it is the international matches that Bob counts as his highlights.

Hired as the assistant to Jack Cuthbert at the Calgary Golf and Country Club in 1954, Bob began giving lessons and found his game improving because of the lessons.

“I began playing better. I knew what I wanted to do.”

“My biggest thrill,” he told The Calgary Herald in 1969, “comes each time I am named to an international team and I’m playing for Canada. It sounds corny, but it’s true. I get choked up standing there during the opening ceremonies when they play our national anthem. I think the other boys would tell you the same.”

Bob tried to qualify in American tournaments over the winters. Without much financial return for his efforts after four years, he returned to Calgary and applied for reinstatement as an amateur.

“I don’t know what went wrong,” he says. “I think I got ‘too zinged up’ by everything.”

“You have to like what you’re doing.”

Struggling to break 80 Bob played all the schools sports, from football to baseball, but it wasn’t until friends in his last year of school introduced him to golf that he found the one that he liked enough to challenge him all his life.

Struggling to break 80 and knowing “everyone in town could lick me,” Bob enrolled at Martin Allred’s indoor golf school. “I hit balls all winter,” he recalls, “and in the spring Martin still wouldn’t let me on a course.”

Allred, who also developed Keith Alexander’s swing, had a unique system involving a shortened club shaft, a chain and weights. As complicated as Allred’s system appeared, the end result was that in his first summer of competitive golf, Bob won the city amateur championship (1949).

Over the next 60 years, Bob’s swing would take him all over the world and he would win bookcases full of trophies and medals. He would compete on 14 Willingdon Cup teams, 11 interprovincial senior teams, two Americas Cup teams, and four World Amateur teams.

Looking back, Bob hints that his success in golf is based on something much simpler than his swing or his athletic ability, as critical as they are.

At Least Four Course Records While waiting to regain his amateur standing, Bob was offered a sales job with a construction company specializing in gas plants.

“I like golf,” he says. “I play golf because I really like it. I had to like it to play it. Otherwise I would have chosen another sport. I could have played hockey, or football or baseball. But I didn’t.

“First, you’re going to have to play golf with me today,” his new boss told him.

“You have to like what you’re doing.”

On that round, Bob shot a new course record of 61 that still stands today. During the 1960’s he would hold at least four course records including a 68 at the Royal Sydney Golf and Country Club in Australia.

At first, this sounds too simple an explanation for Bob’s unparalleled record, especially when considered in the context of modern, motivational coaching and training. While always ready to take lessons to improve, Bob has always been motivated to practice and play simply because he ‘likes golf.’

Bob understands this today, but early in his career he hoped that golf would also be a way for him to earn a living. He turned professional in 1953 as the pro at the Regal Club in Calgary (now the Calgary Elks Lodge and Golf Club) and showed a profit for the year of less than $500.

With a steady paycheck and time for all the golf he could play, Bob found that, once again, he ‘liked golf.’

On February 26, 1963 – a date he will never forget – he married Joan Cuthbert who he still refers to as “a great kid,” and settled into a wonderful life with her and her children who he adopted.

“He was a pretty nice looking guy. And he had a great smile,” Joan says. cont’d on page 86

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Cont’d from page 85

“I couldn’t putt.”

“Everything went swimmingly,” Bob recalls until “I lost all of the 1970’s. I couldn’t putt.”

The record books attest to Bob’s putting problems: he can’t claim one significant win or team participation between 1969 and 1982.

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Diane Williams

Buddy Loftus

Diane Williams of Calgary has compiled an unrivaled amateur golf record since the early 1990’s. She has won city, provincial, national and international individual titles while also earning multiple provincial team positions.

Buddy Loftus began his career as a youthful prodigy roaming courses in Edmonton, playing the old Prince Rupert Course, where his parents managed the concession. By 1947, at the age of 17, Buddy had already won three Edmonton and two Alberta Junior championships.

The problem wasn’t really the putting. The problem was alcohol. “Bob is really a shy person,” Joan explains. “Drinking helped that.”

In 1980 Bob’s boss called him in and told him he was taking away his car, his credit cards – everything – until Bob got things sorted out. That was the bottom of Bob’s world: he couldn’t putt, and he couldn’t work.

“A guy sent me to a psychologist’s office,” Bob says.

“I spent two hours with him. I haven’t had a drink since.”

At age 51, Bob got his job back. “I went to my boss and said ‘I can work if you can trust me.’”

“It took him three years.”

Getting his golf game back was more difficult. “It took him three years,” Joan says.

Bob can still recall the day he thought “I can putt again.” It was as if golf was giving him a chance to make up for the years that had slipped away. “I began to play as well as I had in the 1950’s and 60’s.” By 1982 he was on a Willingdon Cup team and, age 54, he competed in Hong Kong for Canada on the 1984 World Amateur Team.

Not winning a Canadian title had always been one of Bob’s regrets. “I had had many chances in the Canadian Amateurs, but I never won. I made the semi’s and the quarter finals but I always seemed to go to pot.”

However, he did have one last chance at a national title – the Canadian Seniors.

“I was determined to win a national title.”

“When I turned 55 I told myself ‘I’m not going to blow this.’ I was determined I was going to win a national title. I was fortunate. I ended up winning seven of them.”

Her calm demeanor and professional approach to the game smoothly paved the way for her to becoming a non-playing team captain for two Canadian World Amateur Teams.

Beyond her playing and coaching career, Diane has also taken the time to give back to the game by volunteering her services to the Canadian Ladies’ Golf Association and then Golf Canada Player Development Committees for 13 years as well as serving as a Calgary Ladies’ Golf Association executive member for 25 years!

Today Bob continues to practice year round with the same enthusiasm he started with 60 years ago. On Saturdays, he helps a group on the other side of the city with their golf and coaches a young student.

That’s how much Bob Wylie, 83, likes golf … and how much golf likes Bob Wylie.

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In 1948, Buddy made the Alberta Willingdon Cup team.

He also went on to win the Alberta Open defeating highly talented players of the day such as Henry Martell of Edmonton and a young Walter McElroy, of Vancouver.

Buddy turned pro when he was just 19 years of age and went to work for Henry Martell at the Edmonton Highlands Golf Club. He would then put aside a career as a touring golf professional to be close to his family.

By 1963 he became the head golf professional at the Calgary Golf and Country Club and served in that position for 13 years before retiring to B.C. Amongst his notable accomplishments are three Alberta Open Championships.

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Rae Milligan (Simpson) “ The attractive brunette … whose skill is surpassed only by her personality.”

Calgary Herald Columnist, Johnny Hopkins 1956 hen Rae was nine her father, Frank Milligan, the superintendent at the CNR’s Jasper Park Lodge, cut down a brassie and sent her out to drive, pitch and putt. The next year he added a twoiron and then a three-iron.

Known for her long drives that even surpassed Marlene Stewart Streit’s, Hopkins noted, she couldn’t match Marlene from 50 yards in. “There she’s weak, if such a game as hers can be described as faulty in any department.”

In acknowledging her shortcomings, Rae added that at the 1955 Ontario Open she felt her game coming together, especially her putting. “It was a great feeling. I knew the ball was going in before I hit it.”

Not anticipating the great golfing career ahead of her, Rae was remarkably unenthusiastic about the sport until she was a teenager.

Rae’s quirky swing was not all that Betty Stanhope-Cole recalls about Rae. “She was a competitor!”

“Nothing could have mattered less,” she laughed as she described her early golf years to Calgary Herald Columnist Johnny Hopkins.

As well, “Rae did a lot for Alberta Ladies golf. She gave the rest of us the confidence that we could be as good as the players ‘down East.’

“I can remember my folks saying, ‘Why not go out and play some golf, Rae,’ They never really pressured me into it but one way or another they’d manage to get me onto the golf course.”

Badminton Her First Choice Badminton interested her more than golf and it was only when she told her parents that badminton was considered a wrist-strengthener that they showed any enthusiasm for it.

From Jasper the family moved east to Minake, another CNR golfing lodge, and there Rae slowly developed her swing under her father’s instruction, often playing against the boys. She played her first tournament at age 14 in a small Wisconsin tourist event. She entered again the next year and won. Soon after, her father had to relent to pressure from his friends and agree that his daughter could enter a CLGU event in Winnipeg. She lost in the first round.

Returning to Alberta she entered the 1951 Alberta Junior and Ladies Amateur championships at the Edmonton Country Club but was told she couldn’t play in both. The youngster chose to play the Ladies.

The 1957 Alberta Ladies Team. (l to r) Rae Milligan, Audrey Dyke, Betty Stanhope-Cole, and Rae’s nemesis Mary Gay.

But … “She soon established that nothing this good had come along for some time … she chopped the field down to where only Mrs. Snell was left … the Milligan dynasty has begun.”

She won the Junior in 1953 and 1954 – after the ALGA had agreed she could also enter the Ladies – and won seven Provincial Ladies Amateur titles beginning in 1951.

Her 1956 Amateur victory followed her surprise defeat of Marlene Stewart Streit in the 1955 Ontario Ladies Amateur, a win that made up somewhat for her own defeat by Mary Gay – who Rae referred to as her personal nemesis – in the 1956 Ontario Amateur and CLGU events.

Following her 1956 win at Edmonton, Rae told Hopkins she would enter the Canadian, adding with typical humour, “At least Mary Gay isn’t going to be there.”

Practically Overlooked By The Media Rae’s entry was practically overlooked by the media and other golfers, Hopkins recalls, because she was relatively unknown in Alberta.

A Quirky Swing Rae only took a few specialized lessons, including several from Ron McLeod, the 1950’s pro at Jasper, and it showed in her swing – called quirky by fellow competitors and pros. “Henry Martell said he couldn’t change it,” Betty Stanhope-Cole recalls.

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“The only problem was she wanted us to progress too quickly. In those days players in tournaments played and kept their mouths shut.”

A Physical Education Specialist Rae taught physical education and became a Physical Education Director in Calgary beginning in 1956 after graduating from the University of Alberta. The Calgary Golf and Country Club gave her playing privileges from 1956 to 1960 and she often represented the Club in City, Provincial and National championships.

She also continued playing badminton at a competitive level that surprised one Club member. Hearing she was in need of some higher level competition, the Member agreed to a match – only to find the gymnasium filled with spectators.

“The first bird sailed over the net so hard and fast I couldn’t even see it, let alone return it!” he later told his friends.

Rae moved to Ontario in the early 1960’s and married Jim Simpson. Her last high profile competitions were in 1963 when she played on the Ontario Provincial Team, and the Canadian Commonwealth Team. In her fifties she won the Ontario Senior Championship twice and, with her son Scott, won the Ontario Mother and Son Championship.

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A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Bill Tait “Your sterling qualities of quiet leadership, sincerity and humility are very much appreciated by all Country Club Members.”

Fellow Golfer, The Honourable W. Kenneth Moore, Court of Queen’s Bench Alberta. hile there have been many great golfers in Alberta and many great organizers, rarely have the two characteristics flourished in one individual as they have in Bill Tait.

From club caddy in the 1930’s to Club Champion and Club President, and from Provincial Champion to Alberta Golf President, Bill Tait has always displayed the finest qualities of leadership and sportsmanship in golf.

Not one to overlook an opportunity to ask his many golf and business friends to support a good cause, Bill was not shy about taking the lead when an Alberta Golf tournament sponsor backed out of a prize money commitment at the last minute.

Bill Tait, (R), won numerous events over a sterling competitive career in Alberta golf circles. He is shown here accepting congratulations after one of his many tournament victories.

Bill simply went to his home course, The Calgary Golf and Country Club, and passed the hat around until he had collected more than the original sponsor had committed.

Similarly, when Bill heard the Boys Club needed trophies for their events, he stripped the name off his own trophies and donated them to the club.

During Bill’s golfing career, which began when he caddied for his mother at the Calgary GCC and continues today in his 80’s as he rarely fails to ‘beat his age,’ he has won the Alberta Open, Amateur, and Senior titles, been a member of the 1955 Willingdon Cup team and ten Alberta Senior Teams, and carded an eagle on every hole at the Calgary GCC. Balancing his accomplishments on the course with his contributions behind the scenes, Bill served on the Calgary Golf and Country Club’s Board from 1953 to 1962 and was president in 1962 and 1963. He also served on the Alberta Golf Association Board for seven years and was president in 1964 and 1965.

Calgary Herald columnist Johnny Hopkins, one of many admirers of Bill’s picture-perfect swing (‘best short irons’), described a side of Bill that few recognized in the 1950’s.

Bill’s golf plans had been set aside for four years during WWII when he served overseas but, on his return, he quickly regained his competitive form and won the 1946 Alberta Open and the 1951 Alberta Amateur but found his playing hours were being cut short by other commitments.

As Bill prepared for the 1957 Alberta Amateur, Hopkins discussed the question that had been on all Alberta golfers minds since 1951:

“It’s pleasant to contemplate the heights Tait might have scaled had he elected to pursue golf seriously…his tournament appearances have been few – particularly so if it involved him going out of town.

“He never has, for instance, played on a Willingdon Cup team except in 1955 when it was played on his home course. I’m certain, had he chosen to elect to try, he could have been on every Alberta Team since 1946.

But Bill has always placed his family and business above the demands that golf can make if it is an abiding passion … still it is interesting to think of the Alberta Amateur championships that he might have accumulated.”

While golf may be a special community to Bill – he’s an Honorary Life Member of the Calgary Golf and Country Club – he has also found time to serve the greater community, joining the Rotary Club of Calgary in 1954 and taking on the presidency in 1968-69.

When he caddied for his mother and her friends at the Calgary GCC, Bill always looked forward to the end of the round when the ladies went into the clubhouse for their tea. Although too young to be a member, Bill managed to sneak onto the practice tee and hit balls.

“It was as close to fun in heaven as a young boy could find,” he recalls today.

Occasionally the pro, the legendary Jack Cuthbert, overlooked “Billy’s” age and gave him encouragement and “some helpful advice.”

While Bill isn’t the type to enjoy a victory too much, he must certainly have enjoyed the one in 1942 when, age

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20, he and Wilder Ripley defeated Jack Cuthbert and Herb Black in a charity exhibition match.

Always reticent about his accomplishments, Bill barely mentioned his wins in his acceptance speech at his induction to the Alberta Golf Hall of Fame, preferring instead to describe his boyhood years as a caddy and giving credit to the positive influence golfers such as Jack Cuthbert and others had on his life.

“Jack was a disciplinarian, firm but fair. We became good friends … and one of the principal reasons our club enjoyed its reputation as one of the leading golf clubs in Canada was because of Jack Cuthbert.”

Bill, however, did acquire other skills as a youngster, one of which was the blasphemous language he learned in the caddy shack – which the lady members complained about to no avail.

“I remember coming home one evening. I sat down looking at the food on my plate and I said ‘Are we having **** turnips again?’ I endured the typical punishment of the day which was a mouth wash-out with soap and banishment to my room without dinner.”

Today, in his 80’s, the very polite Bill plays with the same enthusiasm he had when he was a boy. He may look back occasionally on his exhibition matches with international stars such as Bobby Locke and Bob Toski, on his friendly-but-always competitive games with fellow club members Bob Wylie, Keith Alexander and Doug Silverberg but … … as he tees off on the first hole, he is once again the boy everyone calls Billy who has to sneak onto the practice tee for a little “fun in heaven.”

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Doug Silverberg “When he needed them to, most went in.”

Keith Alexander

Like many young men of the era, golf was often the summer sport that complemented the tremendously popular hockey – another sport that Doug excelled in. He attended Colorado College on a hockey scholarship.

A Competitive Personality t 6’1” and 195 pounds in his most competitive years – from 1957 to 1965 – Doug Silverberg brought a combination of tremendous athletic ability and a dominating presence to the course.

On his return to Calgary, he was hired by London Life who recognized his potential as a businessman, and he proved the company right by eventually becoming a regional manager. Like Bob Wylie, his golfing contemporary at the Calgary GCC who had also chosen a sales postion, Doug had the ideal opportunity to merge his career with golf.

Keith Alexander, a Canadian Golf Hall of Famer and perennial competitor of Doug Silverberg’s, always marvelled at his friend’s ability to establish control of a game.

“He is dominant in personality, style and the way he approaches the game. Fellow competitors over the years will always remember the way he settled over an important putt – those huge hands enfolding the grip – staring down the line with a look that virtually dared the ball not to go in.

While Doug claims his best years were from 1957 to 1965, Keith Alexander recalls a 1971 Commonwealth Cup match in New Zealand that showed “Silver” hadn’t lost his competitive nature or his golf ability in the 1970’s.

Keith had just halved his round and went to tell Doug, who was ready to hit a dicey pitch over a bunker to the 18th hole, that they needed a win from him to put away the match.

“When he needed them to, most went in.”

An undeniable force on the Alberta golf scene since the late 1940s, Doug Silverberg won every major provincial championship in his home province including the Juvenile, Junior, Amateur, Open and Match Play.

Doug Silverberg powered through golf courses with a control and deter-

“He looked mildly disgusted with me for only getting a half in my match – then he knocked it stiff to the hole, thus winning his match and wrapping up the Commonwealth Cup for Canada.”

mination that his competitors often found unnerving. Photo Credit: Calgary GCC. In addition, Doug won the Canadian Junior Championship in 1950 and the About that time, the responsibility of being the Canadian Senior Championship in 1994. He also Winning the junior championships, to Doug, meant father to a young family had set in for Doug and he represented Canada at the Commonwealth more than a trophy. It was the only way for him to Tournaments, Americas Cup and World Amateur compete outside the province as interprovincial play chose to put golf into second place. He would serve as President of the Calgary Golf Association for Team Championship. only allowed one junior from each province to three years and be inducted into the Alberta Sports compete.

Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Canadian Golf Hall of Starting as a caddy at age ten in his home town of Fame in 1989.

Red Deer, Doug was soon pedalling his bike to the “I knew I’d better not lose the provincial because it course in the evenings to golf. His school principal was the only way for me to get out of Alberta.” As “Golf,” he said almost a decade later as he reflected recognized Doug’s exceptional talent and often well, as the province’s top junior he received an on his decision to put his family first, “is a very time found a way for him to stop by the course ‘and honourary membership at the Calgary Golf and consuming and very selfish activity if you play it deliver some nails’ and while there, hit a few balls.

Country Club which offered him the opportunity to competitively.”

Doug’s competitive nature was established in the play on grass greens. junior tournaments. “I never lost as a junior,” he One wonders if Doug Silverberg could play it any recalls. other way.

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OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Ernie Afaganis Alberta’s Colour Man of Golf rom boxing to golf, from the Olympics to CFL, Alberta’s legendary sports commentator Ernie Afaganis covered all the great athletic events with poise and charm.

His smooth voice and informal manner made him the mainstay of Canadian sports broadcasting over three decades, from the 60’s to the 90’s. And, despite rubbing shoulders with the stars from a multitude of sports, he has always found his way back to the sport that has carried him through the years: golf.

While he might come across as the humble kid from Lethbridge who got a few breaks, Ernie (born 1933) worked his way to the top of his profession beginning with a B.A. from Eastern Washington University where he also played on the golf team.

He joined CBC in 1961 just when golf broadcasts were being introduced. With only a day’s preparation, Ernie was set up on a hole and expected to produce a commentary.

It was pretty informal in those days. You could follow along with the players and talk to them. Over time, golf lost its casualness … its closeness. As money and tournaments got bigger, golf got serious.

“There wasn’t as much fun after the tournaments … the beer.”

It was during those informal, close to the action days that Ernie made many of his best friends in golf. Always the gentleman, Ernie and his cameraman trudged over the course with the players, picking up the story as it unfolded.

Probably, no matter what your gender or age, if you played or followed tournament golf in Alberta between 1960 and 1990, you probably played a round or two with Ernie Afaganis. And, you might have lost a little money to him.

Even if you didn’t play a round with Ernie, you learned something about golf from the Par 27 Golf Show he hosted for 26 years and his instructional Tee to Green broadcasts.

Today, he sees how the media he represented for decades has led, in a sense, to the end of the closeness and camaraderie that he enjoyed so much when he started broadcasting.

With only a touch of nostalgia in his smooth voice, he remarks, “It got harder and harder to get some time alone with the players. They’d give you some time if you respected their privacy, but not if you were pushy.”

And Ernie Afaganis was never pushy. He was always the gentleman who demonstrated the character of golf to a generation of Canadians.

Ernie Afaganis, right, and his friend Pop Brinkworth. Although his career focused on broadcasting, Ernie rubbed shoulders with representatives of the entire golf industry. Pop Brinkworth was credited by the RCGA for constructing at the Edmonton Country Club “the best par three’s of any course in Canada.”

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Alberta Golf’s Most Northern Club Yellowknife: 512 km south of the Arctic Circle The 18-hole Yellowknife golf course, founded in 1948, is home of the Canadian North Midnight Classic played on a rock and sand course each June 21st weekend, the longest days of the year.

For the first 45 years, the club played on a nine-hole course with sand fairways and oiled greens. In the 1990’s, three experimental artificial greens were installed. By 1995 all nine holes had artificial turf.

In 1999 the Yellowknife Golf Club undertook a major expansion project developing ten new holes with modern artificial turf technology. After abandoning one of the original greens, the course became the existing 18-hole track.

While legends swirl about the course’s history – there are reports of ravens stealing balls, and visits by the occasional black bear over the years – the club reports that, to date, they have not lost a golfer.

When an RCAF aircraft crash-landed near Yellowknife’s first fairway, the club turned the remains into their clubhouse, ca 1940.

Glenbow Archives NA-3632-24.

Pat Fletcher: The Last Canadian to win the Canadian Open The Alberta Connection

OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

The Murdered Golf Pro: Frank Willey

When Pat Fletcher won the 1954 Canadian Open, all of golfing Canada rejoiced. It had been 40 long years since Karl Keffer, the professional at Royal Ottawa Golf Club, claimed the 1914 title for Canada.

A sought after exhibition player known for his putting accuracy, the 36-year-old Frank Willey appeared to have the good life sewn up in 1962 as the Professional at the Riverside Golf Course in Edmonton.

Since Fletcher’s victory the Open title has consistently left the country.

With a new home, a wife and two sons to support, Frank Willey worked hard and made extra money selling clubs. A request to deliver a ladies set to a home was not unusual but Frank’s April 19, 1962 delivery to a home still under construction would be more than unusual: it would be his last.

The next morning, Easter Friday, the owner of the home unlocked the front door to discover bloodstained walls and floors. That evening Frank’s wife, Paris, reported her husband missing. It didn’t take the police long to connect Paris with two men, one known to be her secret lover. The men were convicted of the golfer’s murder, despite his body never being found. Paris Willey, uncharged, left Alberta with her sons after the trial.

(Source: Deadly Encounters by Barbara Smith. 1996.

Publishers Kirk Howard and Anthony Hawke.)

Although best known for his pro years in Saskatchewan, Fletcher has a connection to Alberta that deserves recognition.

Frank Willey. Photo courtesy the Edmonton City Police Service.

Originally from B.C., Pat turned professional in 1935 and became the second assistant golf pro at the Jasper Park Golf Club in 1936. From there, he became the Head Pro at the Edmonton Mayfair Golf Club (1937-1941). When golf jobs were scarce during WWII, he became the Manager-Pro at the Edmonton Golf and Country Club (1942-1943) and then the Head Pro at the Highlands Golf Club (1944-1945). (A tuberculosis scar on his lung kept him from serving in the military.)

Later, as Head Pro at The Saskatoon Golf and Country Club (1946-1955), Pat would give Alberta Golf’s 2010 Distinguished Service Recipient Award Sid Puddicombe an introduction to course maintenance … mostly watering greens!

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OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Charlie Scott: Mr. Golf His skill as a builder in sports emerged after WWII when, living in Edmonton, the local golfers elected him as President of the Edmonton Golf Association and a Director of the AGA. After moving to Calgary, Charlie’s enthusiasm and energy soon attracted the attention of the local curlers who elected him the Secretary of the Southern Alberta Curling Association.

Fortunately for Alberta’s golfers, Charlie had a special regard for their sport and, from 1952 to 1969, he conducted the affairs of the AGA with a personal devotion to ensuring the success of all its events.

Whether it was encouraging juniors to compete, or raising purses for the Open, Charlie Scott did what had to be done and golf today in Alberta is in his debt Amongst his tributes, Charlie Scott was an elected: Lifetime Member of the Southern Alberta Curling Association (1970), Booster Sportsman of the year (1971), Honourary Lifetime Director of the AGA 1971, member of the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame (1976); Lifetime Member of the Earl Grey Golf Club and Canyon Meadows Golf Club (1976).

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Nanton Golf Club “A Club in the Country, not a Country Club.”

Alberta’s enthusiasm for golf after World War I wasn’t restricted to the major cities. In 1921 golfers from the ranching town of Nanton opened nine holes of prairie rough that, today, have been expanded to a manicured 18.

Charlie Scott.

“Dad was for many years “Mr. Golf” in Alberta … he was a builder of golf … with his kind and gentle touch he encouraged young golfers to pursue the game … seasoned golfers sought his advice … much of what the golf scene is today is due to his work.” An excerpt from a tribute by Charlies’ sons, Lorne and Chic Scott, 1984.

Few competitive provincial golfers of the 1950’s and 1960’s will forget Charlie Scott, the AGA SecretaryTreasurer, sitting at the Starter’s table taking entries.

Charlie Scott epitomized the informality of that golf era; a time when amateurs and volunteers were the icons of Alberta competitive golf.

A superb all-round athlete, Charlie competed provincially on championship baseball, football and hockey teams with a skill that would be acknowledged in 1976 when he was elected to the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame.

Charlie, born in Scotland in 1909 – his family came to Calgary from Scotland in 1911 – began golfing at the Inglewood Golf and Curling Club. He won the club championship in 1930, the same year his football team, The Calgary Tigers, won the Alberta Championships and his hockey team, the Calgary Canadians, won the Western Canadian Championships.

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The first course could only be played in the spring, before the summer grass became too long for play. It wasn’t until 1932, on a new course, that the golfers planted trees and bought a herd of sheep to keep the fairways grazed.

Very much a community effort, the Nanton course and clubhouse are the result of donations in time and money that enabled the golfers of the 1960’s to build a new clubhouse, replace the sand greens with grass and irrigate the course.

The Town of Nanton donated land to the golfers in 1980 and the club was able to bring in modern planners to lay out picturesque holes with bridges, trees and lakes. The front nine were rebuilt and opened in 2004 under the direction of grounds superintendent Mike Kroening.

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Windermere Golf and Country Club “One of the friendliest in the Edmonton area.”

Windermere GCC was incorporated in 1957. By 1958 all of the greens and fairways were seeded, and an outdoor barbecue area completed with swings, sandbox and horseshoe pitch. Temporary swimming facilities were provided as well as a ski run on a hill near the clubhouse. At that time the clubhouse consisted of an old farmhouse.

Ironically, a new clubhouse burned down in 1964 after what was then known as the "Men's Night Opening Smoker.”

Today the Par 71 course on the North Saskatchewan River at the very south west edge of the city has a modern clubhouse and golf course on tree lined fairways over terrain varying from flat to hilly on the front nine and flat to rolling on the back nine.

While change is an inevitable reality, one thing which has not changed at the Windermere GCC over the years is the people: the club is considered as one of the friendliest in the Edmonton area.

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OPEC, Palmer and Television

Marilyn O’Connor Pat Heisler The Life of a Club Pro The Alberta Ladies Strong-Minded and Independent From Caddying to Scholarships Ken Heywood A.H. (Babe) McAvoy Ken Sharratt Betty Stanhope-Cole Cathy Galusha McMillan Love the Kananaskis Country Golf Courses?

Fran Marsden Jack Brooks Bill Sturgeon

OPEC, Palmer and Television While Arnold Palmer and televised tournaments may have tempted millions of golfers worldwide to try the sport, in Alberta it was the rising price of oil that fed the province’s already established golf addiction. rnold Palmer’s athletic abilities combined with new television broadcasting technology in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s created a showcase for golfing heroes with an appeal that crossed nearly every social and economic barrier.

Golf, in the 1970’s, became a sport for everyone. In the 1920’s, Alberta was golf crazy and it was common to see impromptu courses set up on any open ground local golfers could usurp for play. The Depression and WWII thinned the golfing ranks until the 1950’s when prosperity returned to Alberta with the discovery of oil.

The New Golf Professionals But it wasn’t until the 1970’s when golf professionals began to be viewed with the same reverence as baseball, hockey and football stars that golf became a sport in Alberta played by everybody from oilfield roughnecks to banking executives.

“SuperMex” Lee Trevino, in particular, influenced men and women of humble origins who did not belong to the “country club crowd” to take up golf on public courses.

Like golf in the 1970’s, Alberta politics acquired a new attitude with new leadership when Peter Lougheed’s Conservatives ended the 36-year rule of the Social Credit party, just as the province’s financial fortunes were about to change.

During Lougheed’s first decade in office, OPEC would be instrumental in running the price of oil from less than $5/barrel to almost $40. With the world experiencing its first ‘oil crisis,’ Lougheed would become known as the “blue-eyed sheik.”

Waiting Lists at Private and Public Clubs By the mid-1970’s Alberta’s oil-driven economy had generated a real estate boom that made the one of 1912-14 appear trivial. Every major centre in Alberta was learning to cope with traffic jams while cranes swung overhead: construction companies could barely keep up to the demand.

From the West Edmonton Mall to the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, Alberta attracted worldwide attention as immigration from eastern Canada helped boost the population by more than 30 percent in ten years.

Private golf clubs found themselves in the unforeseen position of building waiting lists for new members, and public courses were forced to maximize the speed and number of rounds played.

The heydays of this boom surprisingly did not result in the development of new courses in Alberta. In the Edmonton region, for example, at least eight new courses opened in the 1960’s while probably only two new (not reorganized or renovated) courses opened there in the 1970’s: Lancaster Park Golf Course and Rundle Park Golf Course. Neither of these reflected the high rolling times of Alberta in the 1970’s.

During the 1980’s, eleven new courses would open in the region ... nearly all after the boom collapsed following the Federal Government’s introduction of the National Energy Program and the slide of oil prices to near $10 in 1986.

Should A Club Cash-in On Its Real Estate?

This curious order of development reflects rising land values during the boom more than it reflects rising golfing appetites. Simply put, land became too

Wolf Creek Golf Resort.

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valuable during the boom for golfers to afford. In fact, many older ‘country’ clubs that were by then surrounded by growing cities found themselves under pressure to cash in on the good times by selling their land to real estate speculators.

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Marilyn O’Connor In addition to being an Alberta Golf Hall of Famer, Marilyn was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Hall of Fame in 2005.

Thankfully, the members resisted these temptations but often had to have tremendous legal savvy on their side when shareholder battles took place.

The daughter of a golf professional, Marilyn was destined to be a golfer. She grew up in British Columbia where, in 1963, she won her first of three junior championships.

Justice Earl Lomas, a member of the Calgary Golf and Country Club, helped solve one battle and later noted, “The issue was really that the shares were purchased to join a golf club, not to make a real estate investment.”

Her international record includes: twelve Canadian team participations; a member of the winning Commonwealth team in 1979; the 1971 New Zealand Foursome Champion with Jocelyne Bourassa; the 1972 International 4-Ball Championship; four qualifications for the US Amateur; and one qualification for the British Amateur.

One interesting course development outside Calgary, Redwood Meadows Golf and Country Club, was opened in 1976 on land leased from the Tsuu T'ina Nation and in 2004 and 2005, hosted the PGA Nationwide tour.

The Provincial Government Steps Up To The Tee When oil and land prices fell in the 1980’s, golf entrepreneurs could afford to build courses and satisfy the pent up demand for tee times. It wasn’t only private enterprise that stepped up to build courses: The Government of Alberta also took the initiative and backed the development of what would be 36 holes in Kananaskis Country.

Lougheed’s government created Kananaskis Country in 1977 to combine wilderness protection with recreation and some development. Then, financed by the Heritage Trust Fund, the Kananaskis Country Golf Course opened with two courses in 1983, both designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr.

Alberta Golfers of All Ages Continue to Shine While the 1970’s and 1980’s may have been a rollercoaster ride for golf entrepreneurs, for Alberta golfer Bob Wylie it appeared that he was steadily improving all the time. A multiple championship winner in the 1960’s, Bob showed astounding endurance when, in 1985, he began an unprecedented series of seven Canadian Seniors championships, starting with four consecutive titles in 1985.

Pat Heisler, a golfer of great talent from the Earl Grey Golf Club, began her series of over 40 major championship wins in the late 1960’s and continued on to the mid 1980’s with club senior championship wins.

Marilyn O’Connor, who relocated to Alberta in the late 1970’s, competed internationally and interprovincially through the 1970’s and 1980’s and won her final Alberta Ladies Championship in 1994.

Ken Tamke, a Medicine Hat native, competed in the 1970’s and 1980’s for Alberta in Willingdon Cup play, for Canada in Commonwealth play and won the Inaugural Alberta Mid-Amateur Championship in 1986.

After marrying Don O’Connor in 1978, Marilyn relocated to Alberta where she would win six Provincial Championships from 1983 to 1994.

She believes her win of the 1986 Canadian Amateur was her most exciting victory, coming as it did, later in her career.

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Pat Heisler Pat Heisler won the Canadian Senior Ladies Championship in 1975 and was runner up for the same title in 1971 and 1974.

Between 1971 and 1979 she was the Alberta Senior Champion no less than six times and an Alberta senior team member for eleven straight years. Three times she won the Calgary Senior Ladies Championship title while winning the Earl Grey Ladies Club Championship title eight times and the clubs’ senior ladies championship on ten occasions.

Although it appears that Pat’s golf game blossomed after she turned forty-five, the fact of the matter is that she dedicated herself to teaching her teenage girls and their friends the game in her younger years.

However, when she decided to play the game competitively the results were simply incredible and, of course, of Hall of Fame stature.

For Pat the most important part of golf was teaching her teenage girls and their friends. For their enthusiasm and talent, her girls in the 1970s became known as the “Hustling Heislers.”

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The Life of a Club Pro Sandy Robertson: Alberta Club Professional from 1958 to 1995 “Most important is to do the correct thing for your customer.” andy Robertson was “born crazy for work,” his wife Marilyn says. “He would go to work at the golf course at six in the morning and not come home until dark.”

We had to work 365 days a year “It was a business to me. We had to work 365 days a year to make ends meet.” And that’s what Sandy did, literally. As the pro at the public Edmonton Riverside Golf Course in the 1950’s, he was paid $2.00 per year and expected to make a living by selling clubs and giving lessons.

After the men hit their tee shots his mother told them not to watch hers. “She drove her first shot in 18 years straight down the fairway and past some of ours! We were all red-faced.”

suggested he try Alex Olynk, then the pro at the Mayfair Golf Course.

Alex Olnyk Hires Sandy

“I began by cleaning and repairing clubs. I gradually worked my way into giving lessons. Before I tried something I’d tell Alex. He’d say ‘No, I tried that it doesn’t work’ and that’s how I learned,” said Sandy.

Shortly after arriving in Edmonton Sandy looked up Henry Martell, who every golfer had heard about, and asked him for a job. Henry turned him down but

Alex hired Sandy and became his mentor.

“I ended up renting and selling cross country skis in the winter, just to keep going,” he said.

You Did Everything “In those days, if you were a pro, you did everything and that included cleaning toilets if that had to be done.”

Sandy emigrated from Scotland at age 27 as a bank accountant but with golf on his mind, based on his impressive amateur championship record in Scotland which included two tries at the British Open title.

Soft spoken and unassuming with a generous burr of his Scottish accent, Sandy had a charming and irrepressible manner – traits that had endeared him to customers and assistants through his career.

“Sandy could teach anybody to golf,” Marilyn says.

“And his assistants idolized him.”

Sandy’s mother taught him to golf after his father was killed in the first days of WWII. The family lived beside the seventh tee of a Perth golf course and, by the time he was a teenager, Sandy had established himself as a top-ranked player.

Grandfather A Clubmaker and Professional Golf was ingrained in the Robertson family heritage as his grandfather had been a clubmaker and professional at Carnoustie. However, it was Sandy’s mother’s amazing ability Sandy remembered best from his playing days in Scotland.

“We were short a player for a foursome – there were three of us scratch golfers – and we talked my mother into playing even though she hadn’t hit a ball in 18 years,” said Sandy.

Sandy Robertson arrived in Canada from Scotland with an armload of trophies he’d won as an amateur.

He turned pro in Edmonton at his first opportunity.

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“I wasn’t a businessman about golf,” Sandy said.

“Alex gave me a lot of good advice. He was smart.

He’d been in the business a long time.” After seeing how hard Alex worked to maintain his business, even setting up indoor driving ranges and schools for the winter months, Sandy knew that he, too, could make a living as a pro if he worked as hard.

The Pro at Riverside Sandy was offered the pro position at Riverside after Frank Willey, the pro, was murdered. (See article page 93). “I never thought I’d fail. I was very confident. I began to make a living after my third year. That’s when we began to pay our accounts on time,” said Robertson Sandy would only play tournaments occasionally after taking over at Riverside. “When everybody else was practicing, he would be out delivering clubs or giving lessons,” Marilyn points out.

He golfed frequently with Henry Martell because, he says, it was “the best way to see how you were playing.”

Sixteen Years at Glendale After 18 years at Riverside, Sandy was the professional at the Glendale Golf and Country Club for 16 years where he passed on his work ethic and genuine interest in customers to another generation of golf professionals.

“I’ll ask you to work hard,” he would tell his assistants. “But you can be sure I’ll work harder and for longer hours.”

Sandy was made an honorary lifetime member of Glendale in 1997.

While Sandy’s biggest legacy might be the innumerable golfers whose swing he has improved and thus their enjoyment of golf, his contributions to professional golf in Alberta are recorded and equally admirable.

In 1964, when the first Education Seminar was held in Red Deer, an unexpected 70 Professionals showed up to the meeting, officially forming the Alberta PGA as a Zone body representative of the Canadian PGA. “I never wanted to be a bigshot,” he would say in his pleasant Scottish accent. “I knew that it would be easy to set something up but much harder to keep it running properly.”

For young professionals just starting out, Sandy had the same advice for them that he followed all of his career.

“Do the right thing by the customer. Sell the right clubs and the customer will come back – with friends. Only put what is best for the customer in your shop. Be willing to help people who need your advice.

First APGA President Sandy was a primary energy behind the founding of the Alberta Professional Golfers’ Association. As the Association’s first President in 1964, Sandy spearheaded the province’s education program, and coordinated the early activities of the professional association in Alberta.

“Look after everybody. That’s the key.”

Glendale Golf & Country Club

The Player’s Course Experience Glendale for yourself.

Membership, Tournament and Banquet Inquiries Welcome.

Proud member of Alberta Golf for over 50 years.

Congratulations to Alberta Golf on their Centennial.

Proud host to past Provincial & Canadian Amateur Championships and Canadian Tour Events

780.447.3529 theglendale.com

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The Alberta Ladies Strong-Minded and Independent

Ladies took up golf as a popular sport in the 1950’s. The Calgary Municipal Course (Shaganappi), 1954. Glenbow Archives NA-5600-7564.

n forming the Alberta Ladies Golf Union in 1912, Alberta’s lady golfers proved to be stalwart representatives of the province’s traditions of independence and excellence.

For more than a quarter century they resisted the sweet-talk of the Canadian Ladies Golf Union (CLGU and later the CLGA) to become a provincial branch of the national organization.

In 1928 they gave up their independence - the last provincial body to do so - much to the delight of the CLGU who proclaimed in the Canadian Golfer Magazine that organized ladies now formed a “chain across the Dominion.”

The continuing success of the Alberta Ladies within the CLGU through the following decades can be seen in the photographic records scattered throughout Alberta clubs of the crowds of golfers gathered picturesquely on lawns and tees wearing long dresses, summer hats and golf shoes.

It was likely in the 1950’s that the Alberta Ladies flair for organizing popular, well-attended events began to attract a new generation of female golfers to the game, accompanied by camaraderie-inducing ideas such as an illustrated yearbook, tournaments for

golfers of all handicaps, and a determination that golf could be enjoyed by ladies of all ages and abilities.

This determination to run an organization that appealed to newcomers as much as it appealed to the low handicap tournament stars, would prove to be the underlying strength of the Alberta Ladies.

By the 1970’s, it was obvious to all that the Alberta Ladies were on the right track.

A Belief in Golf for Everyone For example, in 1967 the Ladies started the Marg Ward Tournament for high handicap golfers, named after a golfer who had a belief that golf was for everyone.

Thelma, also a highly-regarded rules official, acknowledges that with the number of beginners entering “Sometimes you just had to ‘blink.’ If you called everybody you’d have nobody left in the tournament. I told my ‘rulies’ to be kind,” laughed Thelma.

The Alberta Ladies organized every tournament at every level with the same emphasis that the golfers, regardless of their results, have a good time.

“We had reasonable entry fees, there was a dinner, prizes in as many flights as we could afford, door prizes, and flowers everywhere,” said Coutts.

Absolutely Fun

The success of the Ladies’ tournaments could be attributed to two strategic plans made by the organization.

Thelma Coutts, the high energy president of the Alberta Ladies in the mid-1980’s, recalls the speed with which the tournament brought new ladies into the sport, all of whom were looking for a way to meet other golfers and particpate.

First, the organization was run like a machine that would have put many oil companies to shame. The Ladies left nothing to chance, and nothing to the last minute.

“It was absolutely fun for everybody,” said Thelma.

Almost immediately there were waiting lists to play in the tournament, she says, and at one event an overly enthusiastic vice-president took 169 entries when 120 was considered the maximum.

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The Board set the policies and made the decisions.

From there the responsibilities were precisely delegated, filtering their way through to the organization’s seven zones responsibilities where the smallest details of the golf’s season were given full attention.

Louise Waring, 1953 Calgary Junior golf champion.

Glenbow Archives A-5600-6708.

Second, and this was possibly the real genius of their success, the ladies of the host clubs were asked, and they always accepted, to ensure the golfers felt welcome.

And, in what almost became a competitive exchange between host clubs, the results were always spectacular: from fashion shows to dinners and entertainment.

Alberta Ladies Golf Tournament 1950 at the Calgary Golf and Country Club.

The AGA and ALGA Merge 2000 Undoubtedly the merger of the Alberta Ladies Golf Association into the Alberta Golf Association was a sad day for many lady golfers, particularly those who felt their efforts to promote golf had proven successful and should continue within an independent organization.

However, it should be noted that the Alberta Ladies survived the 1929 merger with the ever-dominant CLGU and went on to produce a stunningly successful provincial program.

Perhaps there is good reason to believe the future of the Alberta Ladies is still waiting to be told.

POINT OF INTEREST

In what would become a tradition, the evening’s entertainment progressed from piano recitals to skits and, as Thelma Coutts recalls, these were performances often hilarious and occasionally risqué.

No matter what their score was on the course, every lady golfer had a good time, made new friends and planned to return the next year.

With this sense of dedication and enthusiasm pervasive throughout the organization, it is no wonder the events attracted such a strong following from the province’s lady golfers.

The Confederation Park Ladies Group Typical of the emerging popularity throughout Alberta’s communities, the Confederation Park Ladies Group formed in 1974 to play on the municipal, ninehole course built for Canada’s centennial.

Today’s 80 members who obviously enjoy their golf play Tuesdays on a course known for its “sloping greens.” The members say the greens are sneakily tricky, and the course has decades-old trees to bounce your ball off.

For non-golfers, the Ladies point out, the course is open for cross country skiing in the winter and is host for the annual Lions Christmas Festival of Lights.

“We participate annually in the City of Calgary Ladies Tournament with three other municipal golf courses for the coveted trophy.”

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Alberta has dozens of spectacular golf courses in every corner of our province.

Here are images of a few for your enjoyment.

The Dunes Golf & Winter Club.

Cougar Creek Golf Resort.

Cottonwood Golf and Country Club.

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From Caddying to Scholarships Junior Golf in Alberta unior golf in Alberta had a slow start, not receiving recognition as a serious competition until after World War II, and very few records were kept until the 1950’s.

The first national junior boys championship, for instance, wasn’t played until just before the war, in 1938, and was won by the pride of the Jasper Park Lodge, Jimmy Hogan.

All Canadian championships were cancelled during WWII but some provincial events continued with Glenn Gray of Drumheller making his mark with three junior titles.

Even after the war, juniors were rarely given course times and played primarily when the adults weren’t around. One of the reasons for the slow emergence of the juniors was that so few juniors golfed, preferring the more accessible, popular and affordable sports such as baseball. Tournaments often attracted less than a dozen participants.

Many of Alberta – and Canada’s best – such as Vulcan’s Keith Alexander and Edmonton’s Henry Martell never started playing competitively until their late teens.

Caddying was, for many juniors, their first introduction to golf as they were permitted to play in off-times and compete at a club’s annual ‘Caddy Tournament.’

With little junior-sized equipment available, juniors often cut down adult-sized clubs. Rae Milligan, a multiple Alberta ladies and junior champion of the 1950’s, learned to play at the Jasper Park Lodge using a cutdown brassie as her only club.

with three consecutive provincial junior titles from 1949 to 1951, and the national title in 1950.

“Back in those days you played for your life,” Silverberg recalled in a 1994 Alberta Golf article.

“You didn’t dare lose because there was one spot, one trip to the Canadian Junior. You either came first or you stayed home.”

Today, many clubs offer golf programs for children as young as five with lessons – including golf etiquette – leading up to a Certificate of Achievement.

Getting an Education – and Golfing Junior coaching was almost non-existent, unless a junior attracted the special interest of a club pro.

Provincial open and amateur champion Bill Tait was permitted to play with the adults as a junior, and learned much from them.

While there are hundreds of competitive opportunities for junior golfers in Alberta today ranging from club to provincial tournaments, the biggest change since the pre-war days is the many educational opportunities that golf now provides for juniors.

Post-war junior golf in Alberta gained attention when Hall of Famer Doug Silverberg started his golf career

Matt Rollins, in a 2006 article for The Alberta Golfer, pointed out that “Today golf scholarships are very accessible for young golfers.”

As Alberta Golf’s Player Development Manager, Matt outlined the scholarship seminars and materials provided by Alberta Golf to help juniors “on their road to a post-secondary education.”

Ideally, he said, families should be attending these seminars when their children are 12 to 15 years old.

Charles C. Reid Memorial Scholarships In 1989, Alberta Golf introduced a scholarship program supported by the estate of a Banff golf enthusiast, Charles C. Reid, offering ten $1000 annual scholarships for study in three categories: Amateur Golf Performance, Turfgrass Management, and Golf Course Management. In 1994, the Alberta Golf Association Foundation was established as a registered charity to grow scholarship funds. By 2012, the program had expanded to provide over 20 scholarships valued up to $3000 each.

These scholarships and the others available are good examples of, as Matt Rollins titled his article: “How to get an education while playing the game you love.”

A team of young Albertans is ready to represent their province after making a Provincial Junior Interprovincial Team in the 1980s.

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Photo Courtesy of White Family.

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

Ken Heywood

A.H. (Babe) McAvoy

While serving on the AGA board, Ken Heywood was instrumental in forming the Alberta Golf Association Foundation that raises funds for postsecondary scholarships and golf industry research.

Today the Foundation has grown to provide annual scholarship bursaries in excess of $60,000 to Alberta students.

In the annals of Alberta Golf’s volunteers, Babe McAvoy’s career is a testament to commitment and willingness to make the extra effort for success.

Originally from Crossfield, Alberta, Ken moved to Red Deer in 1974 and began his lifelong career as a Chartered Accountant.

In 1977 he was elected to the Red Deer GCC Board where, in various capacities between 1982 and 2005, he was instrumental in developing a club attitude of contributing its golf facilities for the betterment of amateur golf. This attitude is embraced to this day as the club hosts local, regional, provincial and national golf championships.

Ken was elected to the Alberta Golf Association Board in the mid 1980’s where, as he did at the club level, he promoted provincial amateur golf.

He was AGA President in 1994.

Bearspaw Country Club.

His distinguished volunteer golf career began in 1959 where he embarked on a 15-year term as the Windermere GCC’s Captain. From 1959 to 1963, Babe also lent his assistance to the Edmonton Golf Association.

In 1963, Babe became a Director with Alberta Golf where his major contribution was as a Rules of Golf Official and Chair of the Junior Development Committee. Always a tremendous leader, Babe captained nine Alberta junior golf teams between 1968 and 1985, and served as Alberta Golf’s President in 1973.

Babe was elected to the Royal Canadian Golf Association Board in 1977, where he served actively through 1987 as a member of the Green Section, Membership and Junior Development Committee.

In 1989, Babe was appointed an Honourary Lifetime Director of Alberta Golf as well as being presented with the prestigious Premier’s Achievement Award from the Province of Alberta. In 2002, the R.C.G.A. honored Babe McAvoy with a Distinguished Service Award.

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Stony Plain Golf Course.

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

Ken Sharratt The Father of the Modern AGA Organization n the summer of 1970, Charlie Scott, the AGA’s Secretary-Treasurer, asked Ken Sharratt, a Director since the 1960’s, if he would help him out by taking over his duties for the summer while he recovered from health problems.

“Charlie Scott was a family friend and he’d been running the AGA almost all by himself. Ken agreed to help and brought all this stuff home,” his wife Jean recalls. “Charlie was never able to take it back.”

At the time, decades before the introduction of record storage on personal computers, the AGA maintained ever-growing files on golfers and tournaments. What Ken brought home transformed the downstairs of the Sharratt home into the headquarters of the ‘family business’ that maintained the AGA records and organized the annual tournaments.

“He was a good golfer and interested in the game,” Jean says, understating Ken’s abilities as an amateur golfer and as a business manager who applied his unique skills to transforming the loosely run, decades old AGA into a cohesive, focused organization capable of meeting the expectations of modern golfers.

“He was naturally a very organized, methodical individual,” Jean says. “He set up files and cards on every golfer – their scores at tournaments, their handicaps. Everything.”

While Ken organized and filed information needed to run the tournaments, golf in Alberta expanded and so did the entries in the tournaments.

Cars Were Pulling Up At The Last Minute “All the entries had to be sent to our house. Cars were pulling up at the last minute. Guys were in a panic to get their entries in. We had to add a children’s telephone line so our main phone could handle all the calls. We had to make sure someone was always home to take the entries,” says Jean.

“Then we had to sort them out!”

Besides accepting and confirming entries, Ken had to ensure that the tournaments ran smoothly. As a senior manager with an oilfield service company, Ken ran his life on a tight schedule and effectively used every free moment to keep abreast of his AGA responsibilities.

The Sharratt family ran the AGA as a family enterprise.

Vacations Timed To Tournaments

Ken Opens AGA’s First Office

“Every vacation was timed to run a tournament,” Jean says with a smile as she remembers the hectic pace of their summers, and the way their teenage children pitched in to help.

“At the tournaments, Ken and Babe McAvoy – his good friend – were hanging scoreboards, posting scores and attending to thousands of other details … they were the mainstream of the organization.”

“One summer we were supposed to go to a wedding in Moose Jaw when the sales ticket tags provided by duMaurrier, the tournament sponsors, arrived without strings. The family spent the drive stringing the tags.

Ultimately, Jean says, Ken realized that the responsibilities required fulltime help, and the AGA agreed to open its first office and hire a secretary.

“Ken could see the big picture. He could see that the AGA was going to keep growing.”

“Then there was the time that the AGA put out one of its first newsletters. 10,000 pages arrived at our house, not folded or collated.

Ken also served as the AGA President in 1980 before moving on to the Royal Canadian Golf Association Board in 1984 where he provided leadership for another 10 strong years.

“When we finished that job, the children were so tired of seeing the same person’s face on the cover that they celebrated by burning one copy.

Ken was appointed an Alberta Golf Association Honorary Lifetime Director in 1989, presented a Premier’s Achievement Award from the Province of Alberta in 1991 and a Royal Canadian Golf Association Distinguished Service Award in 2002.

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A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Betty Stanhope-Cole “To be a happy person, I couldn’t have gone any other way.” n measuring Betty Stanhope-Cole’s accomplishments as a golfer, the question is not which championships she’s won, but how many times she’s won them. From the Provincial Championship (17 times) to the Edmonton City Championship (25 times), Betty owned the provincial record book from the 1950’s to the 1980’s.

As well, she’s won Canadian junior, amateur, and closed championships, been runner-up for the senior title, and competed internationally for Canada. Just to keep her life interesting, Betty also skipped three Alberta Championship Curling Teams. Her team placed second in the 1978 Lassie and has won 13 zone and Edmonton Championships.

Indicative of Betty’s unrelenting ability to compete is that in winning her 25th Edmonton golf championship, she defeated Heather Lee whose grandmother (Hazel Jamieson) and mother (Gale Lee) Betty had also golfed against.

But, in a world where high profile athletes with exemplary records are expected to be outgoing, charismatic and even inspirational, Betty is an anomaly: she’d rather play golf than talk about golf.

“I’m pretty much an introvert,” she says. “I don’t deal well with a lot of people.”

Today, Betty is a grandmother in her early 70’s and lives in a southwest Edmonton main floor condo overlooking a small park. “It’s very functional,” she says, “and it has an open feel that I like.”

She has dark steady eyes that are a challenge to meet and she moves with a fluid, youthful gracefulness that must be the envy of other senior ladies.

The only acknowledgement that Betty makes of her golfing accomplishments is contained in a basement corner of her condo where she displays photographs of some of the golf friends she has made.

Betty grew up in the oilfield town of Turner Valley, south of Calgary, where in the 1940’s her father was a toolpusher and later a drilling foreman.

Even though the town had a pasture-type golf course, Betty didn’t take up golf with her parents, preferring school sports and horseback riding. The family followed the oil industry to Edmonton after the 1947 Leduc discovery and there Betty accidently discovered golf as a young teenager.

Betty Stanhope-Cole, (far L), as she entered her first tournaments. ca. 1952.

“It was really a set-up,” she says. Her father had booked himself a lesson with Alex Olynk and then, mysteriously, had to cancel. Her mother then arranged for Betty to take the lesson.

By the end of the summer Betty was working at the driving range with a crowd of boys and hitting all the golf balls she could but rarely playing a match.

“It was ideal ... the right training for me. Alex was so good with juniors and beginners.”

In 1951 Betty’s parents joined the Highlands Golf Club.

“I remember going down the hill to the golf club the first time … and there was Henry (Martell) by the pro shop.

He had a mat and was hitting balls off a tee.

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“I was just in awe of his wonderful golf swing and how far he could hit a ball.

“I spent most of my days there. I hung around the pro shop a lot. There weren’t any girls around my age so I played a lot by myself. You could just go on a fairway and hit balls.”

Despite not having played many matches, Betty entered the city juniors.

“In those days it was 21 and under. I got to the 8th hole and I hit into the trees on the right. I went for the green and ended up playing all the way in the bush. I think I scored in the double figures.

“I might have come second. I don’t know. But I do know I didn’t win.”

OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Cathy Galusha McMillan

Betty Stanhope-Cole was honoured in Edmonton as a park overlooking the Highlands GC was named after her.

By 1953 Betty, age 15, began to win. “At first I wasn’t going to enter the provincial juniors,” she says, but was persuaded by her father and others.

“It was match play. Three rounds. I got to the finals against Mona Morup. She was the daughter of the greenkeeper from the Calgary Golf and Country Club.

“I wasn’t nervous or anything. I just played and I beat her.”

“My dad seemed really pleased. That got me hooked.”

Three decades later, Betty was still winning.

While she doesn’t like talking at length about her golf, Betty opens up quickly when asked about Henry Martell. “I loved playing with Henry. He was so good to me. I caddied for him and I learned a lot about golf that way from him.

“He would talk to me. About how to handle a bad lie.

About wind. About course management.”

But, she says, her interest in golf has now changed.

“Today I’m a fair-weather golfer. I’ve played in the rain and in storms. I’ve done that and I’m done with it.

had to overcome: from a divorce to injuries, to scoliosis and a kidney transplant.

“To be a competitive golfer, or any athlete, you have to have a bit of selfishness to succeed.”

“But I had to do it. To be a happy person I couldn’t have gone any other way.”

Her last competitions were in the late 1990’s as a senior.

Since then Betty has been playing off-and-on with a ladies group at the Highlands who, as friend 80-year-old Enid Hart humorously notes “found her quite intimidating at first. We were embarrassed to ask her to play with us.

“We didn’t think we could help her with her game.”

The group, which likes to take a little time to discuss the scenery while golfing, has learned that Betty is not a ‘chatterer’ nor will she often stay afterwards and have a meal in the clubhouse.

“She’s usually busy. She doesn’t like sitting around with the girls. When she does, she rarely talks about her golf – you never hear her brag – but she will talk about her world travels. When she opens up, she’s a lot of fun,” said Hart.

“I got burned out,” she explains. “I played at a high competitive level. I never got away from the stress. Now I have almost no interest. Part of me would like to play more, but part of me says ‘Why?’”

However, the group has learned that on the course Betty can still get impatient when players are talking, not golfing.

In looking back on her golf career, she understands the price competitive golf has cost her and what she has

“We think she’s mellowed – but every now and then you’ll hear her say, ‘Come on. Speed it up.’”

In the summer of 1963, 16-year-old Cathy Galusha left the sand greens of her rural, nine-hole Ponoka course to play Canada’s best junior girls on the manicured Rivermead fairways and grass greens in Hull, Quebec. She returned home as the Canadian Junior Girls Champion and was treated by her hometown to a celebration parade and given the keys to the town by the Mayor.

Looking back to that summer, Cathy is still slightly overwhelmed by the town’s warm response. Then, almost as an afterthought, she points out something that many golf historians have overlooked: “I was probably the last Canadian Champion to come from a course with sand greens.”

Playing sand greens, she says, was almost like playing a sand trap – the ball doesn’t roll so where it landed was where you played it. The sand was mixed with oil to keep it in place.

Because the golfers ahead of you always left the sand tracked up, you were allowed to mat the sand - smooth it with a rake or board to give you a smooth putting surface.

In a career that encompasses 14 provincial teams, including the senior squad which won four of five Canadian titles, one of Cathy’s best memories is from the 1963 Junior Championships when Betty Stanhope-Cole and Rae Milligan, competing in the Ladies event, ran to her side to congratulate her. “I’ll never forget the way they shouted ‘You won!’”

And, as far as the sand greens go, Cathy doesn’t miss them. “Your shoes and socks were always black by the end of a round.”

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Love the Kananaskis Country Golf Courses? …Thank Alberta Golf

ack in the 1970’s when the Alberta government was awash in oil money, Keith Alexander had an idea about spending some of it – on a new golf course for the province.

Already well-known as a leading amateur, Keith became the Alberta Golf Association president in 1977, the year after the province created Kananaskis Provincial Park and Kananaskis Country.

Knowing his way around politics as well as he knew his way around a green, Keith went directly to Premier Peter Lougheed and his cabinet with the suggestion that a golf course be built in Kananaskis.

The Premier and his cabinet initially balked at the idea. Traditionally, municipalities were responsible for building public courses – not the provincial government.

Keith countered saying that Kananaskis was a provincial jurisdiction and besides … the area needed a world-class golf course to go along with Calgary’s proposed bid for the 1988 Olympics, and the province needed another venue for Alberta Golf tournaments.

Many of the cabinet members were golfers and it didn’t take long for Keith’s determined arguments to be approved.

Working with Alberta Golf directors Ken Sharratt and Tom Wood, Keith began interviewing course architects and chose Robert Trent Jones Sr. who first toured the forested landscape by helicopter.

“Jones took one look at the property and said ‘This is from heaven,’ Keith recalls. As well, Jones was the first to suggest that two courses be built instead of the one originally proposed.

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Jones, the first architect inducted into the Golf World Hall of Fame, had a reputation for designing competitive courses with holes where, he said, “Par was tough but a bogey was easy.”

The two, 18-hole courses, Mount Kidd and Mount Lorette, opened in 1983 with green fees of $20 and have lived up to Jones’ reputation.

Although getting the two courses built was a major coup for Alberta Golf, Keith had one more idea that he believed would turn the association into a major participant in golf: He proposed that Alberta Golf be the management team for the courses, just as the RCGA managed (and later owned) Abbey Glen.

Alberta Golf, however, turned down Keith’s proposal because it seemed too big a step outside its traditional role.

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

Fran Marsden

Jack Brooks

Bill Sturgeon

Fran Marsden was the first woman to captain (nonplaying) a men’s Willingdon Cup championship team (2000) and, to mark the occasion, the Alberta team claimed the trophy that year. She is the only woman with her name on the trophy.

A tireless volunteer with a great sense of humour and camaraderie, Jack Brooks provided exemplary volunteer leadership at both his home club and the Alberta Golf Association for over two decades.

Most notably, he played a pivotal role in the 2000 merger of the Alberta Golf Association and Alberta Ladies Golf Association.

Bill was an extremely successful businessman whose community activities were varied and extensive, thus it was fortunate for Alberta Golf that he made time to become a director in the mid-90s.

Bill became an outstanding Alberta Golf Rules Official and contributor to the Alberta Golf Association Board of Directors.

Starting in the late 1980’s, Jack served on the Lacombe GCC board for 4 years, acting as president for two years. He went on to join the Alberta Golf board in 1992, becoming a member of the executive committee in 1996 and ascending to the role of president in 1998.

Bill Sturgeon was an avid golfer remembered for his great humour, friendly nature and rules tenacity. In Edmonton, he held many positions on the Board of Governors at the Royal Mayfair Golf and Country Club including that of president in 1975.

For those who know the indefatigable Fran Marsden, it is hard to imagine that she came quietly into the game as an Alberta Ladies Golf Association club representative in 1987. However, her dedication to golf and ambition to further the sport were soon noted and she was quickly elevated to higher positions of leadership within the ALGA, culminating in her election to the role of president in 1998.

Fran played a major part in the amalgamation of the men’s and ladies golf associations in 2000 and was the amalgamated association’s first president.

Putting all of her talents to work in 2005, Fran acted as the World Masters Games Golf Event Executive Director. No small organizational feat! The international games attracted over eight hundred golfers who played on multiple courses around the Edmonton area.

Jack became one of the first Alberta Slope Master Course Raters in 1993 where, along with his fellow course rating committee members, was instrumental in re-rating every club in Alberta over a three year period.

At Palm Desert, California, he organized golf leagues and set out the rules and conditions under which the events would be played. He was so proficient and committed to running the tournaments that his clubmates selected him as the first non-American president of the Monterey Golf Club.

Jack also served as the team captain for six Alberta Junior Boys Teams and two Willingdon Cup Teams.

He is well known throughout Alberta for his outstanding efforts as a Tournament Chairman and Rules Official.

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The Rise of the Weekend Warriors

Leading the Way The Duties of a Course Superintendent Sid Puddicombe Tony Krivoblocki Frank McBride The McLennan Ross Sun Junior Tour Frank Van Dornick Kareen Qually-Nelson Ken Tamke The Sun Life Financial Alberta Championships Lola Rozsa Thelma Coutts Jean Smeland Alberta’s Golf-Related Associations Thank You

The Rise of the Weekend Warriors Golf became informal and cool in the 1990’s. New courses opened throughout Alberta catering to every crowd of golfers: from the country club set who expected fine cuisine and wine after 18 holes, to the weekend warriors who preferred the informality of pizza and beer. n Alberta golfer from the 1950’s would have been overwhelmed by the changes to the sport by the end of the 1990’s. Gone were the wooden tee box and its rubber mats, replaced by a closely cropped teeing area (still called a tee box).

Gone were the familiar persimmon wood drivers, replaced by titanium drivers (still called woods). Gone were sturdy metal spikes, replaced by ‘soft spikes’ designed to protect the delicate grass greens – no more sand greens!

Gone were the caddies who carried a canvas bag of clubs, replaced by electric carts. Gone were the dry fairways and the small dust clouds that rose with every shot, replaced by irrigated fairways mowed to exact heights.

Gone were the days of the peaceful Pro Shop where the Head Pro and maybe one assistant displayed three or four sets of clubs and a half dozen choices of balls, replaced by a merchandising program featuring professionally endorsed clothing and custom fitted clubs.

Golf as a Competitive Industry By the 1990’s golf in Alberta had been transformed from a competitive sport to a competitive industry, consumer-tuned to meeting the expectations of a diverse golfing community.

At least 25 % of Albertans were playing golf in the early 1990’s, and to meet this demand new courses were being opened at a rate never seen before.

In the first two years of the 1990’s, 30 new courses opened in Alberta and 20 more were already planned, as compared to 29 new courses opening in all of the 1970’s and 49 in the 1980’s, according to golf writer Alan Dawes in his 1992 Guide to Golf Courses of Alberta.

The ability of the new Alberta courses to match golfers’ varying expectations and budgets was impressive. For example, the Les Furber designed Carnmoney Golf Club (1992) opened as a private club a short drive south of Calgary in DeWinton, built to appeal to golfers of all levels while challenging the low handicappers.

The New Public Clubs While member-oriented clubs like Carnmoney would still be built, the majority of new clubs were public.

Typical of an evolving 36-hole public facility built over the last 25 years is the Wolf Creek Golf Course in Central Alberta. Construction began in the mid-1980’s and continued until 2009 to make it one of Alberta’s top rated and most challenging courses, according to SCOREGolf. Branded as ‘Where Canada Meets Scotland’ this Rod Whitman design is recognized internationally as comparable to Banff Springs, Jasper Park Lodge, and Kananaskis. Wolf Creek hosted the

Whitetail Crossing Golf Club.

Alberta Open (Canadian Tour) from 1987-1999 and continues to hold the McLennan Ross Sun Junior Tour Championship.

In a 2009 article in Alberta Golfer, writer Allan Melbourne describes the nine holes - The Links opened that year as delivering a very natural feeling in a true links style environment as a result of the minimal amount of earth moving in construction. The 18 hole, Old Course, he wrote, “remains one of the most challenging layouts in the province.”

The popularity of the public course versus the memberowned private course can best be seen in the Calgary area where a 1995 City of Calgary report predicted a near tripling of the number of local holes, from 522 to 1467.

Of the proposed courses, only 20 percent would be private: the remaining 80 percent either public, municipal, or semi-private.

These figures represent the change in perception of golf from a ‘Members Only’ sport to a business venture run be entrepreneurs catering to consumers with a society-wide range of ages, backgrounds and incomes.

The Tiger Woods Effect

Stewart Creek Golf & Country Club.

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This change in perception is illustrated by The Tiger Woods Effect, a golf industry term that describes how Tiger Woods’ emergence as a star athlete coincided with an explosive increase in golf participation, and

Sundre Golf Club.

Ernie Afaganis. The holes are named in groups of nine: The Champions, The Traditions and The Old Hickory – and the course is home to the Hickory Hacker golf league that plays with pre-1935 hickory-shafted golf clubs.

While the Weekend Warriors aren’t likely to push amateur and professional competitive golfers off the Alberta courses in the near future, it is likely that their ongoing enthusiasm will allow many cost conscious clubs to keep their courses open at a time when courses with higher overheads tremble at the thought of reduced green fees.

resulted in comparable sales of equipment and the construction of new courses.

From the club manager to the head professional, the new parlance of golf was that the ‘facilities’ operated by ‘executives’ were now offering a ‘product’ to their customers.

The marketing of golf as a product proved very profitable while Albertans were benefiting from rising oil prices that would peak at $145/barrel in 2008. In the years leading to that peak, Alberta would record the strongest period of economic growth of any Canadian province – ever!

The Collapse of 2008 However, the crumbling of the world’s financial markets in 2008 would show that the fortunes of the golf industry were closely connected to those of the financiers. For consumers, the resulting housing foreclosures and stock market losses led to immediate cutbacks in consumer spending on leisure activities, including golf.

In 2008, in the USA, more courses were expected to close (100) than were scheduled to open (80).

The Weekend Warriors

many concerns about clothing regulations, they do respect the course rules. They bring their girlfriends and wives who often form golf leagues of their own. When they transition to family life, they get their kids started golfing at The Legends.

Most important, the rise of the Weekend Warrior represents the trend to niche marketing of golf in Alberta. From the amenity and challenge-loaded mountain courses to the no-frills, rural nine-holers, the spectrum of golfing choices in Alberta provides opportunities for every player to pick and choose.

More of an Attitude Than A Class

The Future Leadership

These are the core of the Weekend Warriors, the funloving Albertans out for an afternoon of inexpensive golf with their pals. They play their round, eat a few hotdogs or hamburgers, and have a beer or six while they kid each other about scores and collect their bets.

Perhaps the new market dynamics are an opportunity for Alberta’s golf industry organizations, from course superintendents to professionals, to work together by introducing new golfers to the rules and learning opportunities, encourage existing golfers to develop their game, and develop the unique courses and amenities that, together, define the spirit of golf in Alberta.

The Weekend Warriors are more of an attitude than a class. They are the white and blue collar post-2008 survivors: the consumers who know the green fees of every course in their area and can rate them all for ‘Value For Money.’ They are savvy about matching their expectations, abilities and credit cards to what is being offered in terms of course amenities and playability.

For example, the AGA’s support of golf through junior programs, volunteerism, rule clinics, the Hall of Fame, and provincial tournaments has the potential to present golf as a sport that will always be relevant to players of all abilities and ages.

Appreciative of Traditions For those who doubt that the Weekend Warriors appreciate the traditions of golf, The Legends proves otherwise. The course and clubhouse are almost shrines to Alberta’s golfing heros. Each year the club honours a new Legend inductee, from a leading amateur such as Henry Martell to the broadcasting icon

Whether a golfer is an Alberta champion, a Weekend Warrior, or a high school student taking her first swing, there is a good chance that she will become part of the tradition in Alberta that began in 1883 when the Browning brothers drove red gutta percha balls across their ranchland.

While most public courses throughout Alberta experienced lower revenue, one course showed that a segment of the golf population was not deserting its favourite sport.

The Legends Golf Course, just outside Sherwood Park, was a gravel pit when owners Ron Lyons and Eddie Chan bought the land at near foreclosure prices in the early 1990’s. With virtually no previous golf experience, they built a 27-hole course and modest clubhouse that catered to the Weekend Warriors of golf.

By keeping overhead costs down with basic course maintenance and amenities, the owners created a nonstop golf factory. The parking lot is jammed every day.

Buses bring in loads of prospective golfers – school children who can’t wait to hit a ball.

Shift workers from the nearby oil and gas complexes book the tee times when most courses are slack. They show up ready to play and, while they don’t have too

River's Edge Golf Club.

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THE ALBERTA GOLF ASSOCIATION

Leading the Way In the Forefront of the Province’s Number One Participation Sport ost-WWII golf ignited the interest of thousands of new golfers and began a half century of growth and transformation in the Alberta Golf Association that would place it in the provincial forefront as golf emerged as Alberta’s Number One participation sport.

Struggling to Come Up With Prize Money When asked about running the Association on a very limited budget in the 1950’s, “The support of the clubs made it possible,” a former Association official noted.

“I remember one championship,” he said, “when we thought we had everything taken care of … until the sponsor backed out. We already had the prizes announced and we didn’t have the money to cover them. Charlie Scott, the Secretary-Treasurer at the time, was sure we were in real trouble.

“I offered to go to one of the clubs and ask some of the members to help us out. We ended up with more than the sponsor had originally offered.”

Despite the limitations of relying on only one source of funding – memberships – the Association managed to grow in post-war Alberta. From 1940 to 1960 the number of member clubs only increased by 9 clubs: from 31 to 39. But, from 1960 to 1985, membership more than doubled to 109, of which 10 were added in one year.

Alberta Golf Board of Directors, ca. 1984.

The membership would double again over the next 25 years. Today there are 230 member clubs and 58,000 individual members.

The inclusiveness of the Association that began in the 1940’s is a result of the Association’s intentional focusing on and responding to golf’s diversity of participants, and has been the energy driving its growth.

Founded 100 years ago as a five-club organization to host the annual provincial championships, the Association today: • delivers tournaments for almost every level of player • runs a top notch junior development program including a post-secondary scholarship program • funds a turfgrass research initiative • communicates Alberta golf news and topics through a website and annual magazine • implements the RCGA Course Rating System • institutes educational seminars on the Rules of Golf and the Course Rating and Handicap System • Sponsors the Alberta Golf Association Hall of Fame and Distinguished Service Awards The inclusiveness of the Association that developed in the 1940’s to encourage rural clubs to join through the revival of the Alberta Country Districts Championship could be seen in full force by 1960.

Earl Wood, Alberta Golf Executive Director, 1984-1988.

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As Bill Tait, Association president in 1960, noted in his Annual Report, the Association “ran off successfully” seven tournaments including the Seniors (Judge Walsh) Trophy and the Eaton Four Ball which matched Calgary and Edmonton golfers.

These two high profile, independent tournaments had almost not survived the WWII-related golf downturn. When the Association added them to their annual events, they cemented the provincial golf scene.

But organizational skills and good intentions do their best work when they support high profile leadership, and in the late 1950’s golf in Alberta was the recipient of the golfing leadership of several players beginning to acquire national acclaim, including Betty Stanhope-Cole, Doug Silverberg, Keith Alexander and Bob Wylie.

Just as Charlie Hague and Tom Gillespie sparked the interest and pride of Albertans in the 1920’s by showing the rest of Canada that Alberta golfers were capable of meeting a national challenge, this group showed Albertans that, despite a reputation for cowboys and roughnecks, the province was home to some top notch golfers.

By 1960, with $6,372 in dues collected from 39 member clubs, and with three of Canada’s best golfers playing in Alberta, the Association was ready to become a leader in Alberta’s billion dollar golfing industry.

Fran Marsden became the first president of the amalgamated Alberta Golf Association in 2000. During the year she captained the Alberta Team to a Willingdon Cup victory and became the only woman to have her name etched on the trophy.

Supporting Turfgrass Management The establishment of the Alberta Golf Association’s Turf School in 1971 added to the sense of a broad golfing community within the Association.

Appropriately, the first school was held at the Royal Mayfair Golf and Country Club where Dominion Plant Pathologist and Association SecretaryTreasurer Dr. Bill Broadfoot played in the 1940’s and began advising clubs on turf management.

Golf House Still run on a voluntary basis through the 1970’s with offices in the homes of the Secretary-Treasurers – dedicated men like Charlie Scott and Ken Sharratt – the Association made an important decision in 1976: to lease space for a permanent office for a full time secretary and one part time executive director, Pat Tivy.

After one relocation in 1984 the Association in 1987 bought its own office space and then, in 2007, its second now known as Golf House which, besides offices, contains a library, photograph collections, trophies and the Hall of Fame.

The Alberta Golfer Attracts Industry-Wide Articles For golf historians, the 1986 launch of The Alberta Golfer, an Alberta Golf Association annual magazine, has proven to be the start of a treasure of information on the changing dynamics in the golf industry.

Almost immediately, allied golf associations, from the Edmonton Golf Association to the Alberta Golf Superintendents Association, began contributing informative articles that blended with traditional player and course profiles.

Frequently, an important interpretative article was contributed by Ray Turchansky of the Edmonton Journal, who provided important insights into the provincial industry that, directly and indirectly, funded the Association.

“ … it’s a business.”

For the Tenth Anniversary issue (1996) Turchansky wrote “Fiscal Fences, ” an article that everybody from player to club owner would have found extremely useful. The article described the overexpansion of courses in the province since the 1980’s, and proved to be a harbinger of the struggle clubs were still facing more than ten years later.

Providing course ratings for member clubs continues to be a highly valued Alberta Golf core service.

While Turchansky’s article gave solid evidence of the overbuilding, other

Long time AG volunteer and photographer, Al Savich, set the early standard for setting up and marking golf courses for tournament play.

articles gave the industry practical suggestions from successful club owners such as Ryan Vold, of Wolf Creek Golf Resort, on how to make the best of the situation: “Now you have to sell your golf course. You have to look at everything as a way to create revenues. That includes the golf shop, the driving range, food and beverage, memberships, green fees, corporate tournaments. “ … it’s a business.”

Vold’s advice to course owners, in fact, represents exactly how the Alberta Golf Association remains a viable organization today. From solely running provincial tournaments 100 years ago, the Association today is the focal point of the entire Alberta golf industry, from juniors to professionals, from course owners to course superintendents, and from scratch golfers to high handicappers. The Alberta Golf Association does today what the industry most requires– it sells golf!

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The Duties of A Course Superintendent From ‘The Burn’ to Environmental Stewardship very fall in the 1930’s members of the old Rosedale Golf Club near Calgary closed the golfing season with ‘The Burn.’

“The prairie was set ablaze and would burn the entire area in a more or less controlled fashion. In the spring we were rewarded with beautiful green fairways,” member Hal Godwin recalls in his memoirs written for the Rosedale Community Association.

While ‘The Burn’ never caught on provincially as standard maintenance practice, it does highlight the lack of resources Alberta’s early greenkeepers faced in offering golfers green vistas each year.

The ‘Greenkeeper’ (the traditional Keeper of the Green surroundings, formerly known as the ‘Foreman’ and later as ‘Course Superintendent’) often was also the club professional, hiring strong young men to haul watering hoses from green to green during the night to ensure the most discussed aspect of the course would not turn brown as the summer progressed.

Sid Puddicombe, a 15-year-old aspiring hockey player in the late 1940’s who would become known as the patriarch of golf course superintendents in Alberta, got his start watering greens at night in Saskatchewan.

Most of the staff then were hockey players, he recalls, because golf courses provided employment in hockey’s off-season.

“There was no fairway watering at that time. In fact, there was no real science in golf course maintenance.

We used fertilizers from a farm supplier,” said Puddicombe.

Sid’s first opportunity to expand his horizons came ten years later when he was hired by the Riverside Golf & Country Club in Saskatoon. By then Sid was aware that golf course maintenance needed to be much more than the application of agricultural practices.

“I told Riverside I needed some formal training and they sent me to Winnipeg where I learned how to operate a golf course under the direction of John B. Steel, one of Canada’s best.

Puddicombe said, “We were ‘fooling Mother Nature.’

I could grow grass in March and have it playable in April. Now everybody has winter protection on their greens.”

Not one to keep his ever-increasing knowledge to himself, Sid led the initiative to introduce the Turfgrass School at Fairview College and became one of the regular lecturers.

Today, the Puddicombe family runs an international golf course and design firm.

“I knew nothing.”

Walt Gooder began his superintendent’s career in the 1960’s, about a generation after Sid Puddicombe. At age 20, Walt was hired as the entire grounds crew at a small Calgary club.

“I knew nothing. The boss, a former rodeo cowboy, hired me because I had at least played the game,” said Gooder.

After this brief but enticing baptism, Walt knew where his future waited. He enrolled in a ‘Golf Course Operations’ program at a Florida college, and then returned to Calgary where he became the Assistant Superintendent at the Willow Park Golf & Country Club.

“There were no rules in those days about safety concerns – the way we handled dangerous chemicals.

I look back and just shake my head!,” laughed Walt.

The Edmonton Country Club hired Walt in 1973 as its Course Superintendent and allowed him to put new ideas into action. “They were interested and gave me my head if they could,” he says. “But I had to stay within budgets.”

Careful control and maintenance of environmentally sensitive areas is a relatively new requirement for course superintendents and their staff. Calgary GCC.

Short growing seasons, lack of water and/or watering systems, little knowledge of specific fertilizers needed for courses, and expensive and inefficient machinery all combined to thwart the greenkeepers’ efforts.

Farming Practices From golf’s introduction to Alberta in the late 1890’s until the 1950’s, a greenkeeper’s resources were based on adaptations of farming practices to course maintenance.

For example, until the introduction of practical motorised mowers, horses pulled gangs of mowers over the fairways. To reduce the impact of their hooves on the grass, they were shod with leather boots. The narrow ruts made by the machinery wheels required golfers to carry a special club, a rutter, to knock the ball out.

“By that time there were different chemicals and fertilizers coming out for golf courses … it was all new to me. I had to go through a huge learning curve that took me toward ‘the fine art of greenkeeping.’

“I won the John B. Steel Award in 1997,” he adds with obvious pride in the award made annually by the Canadian Golf Course Superintendents Association.

‘Fooling Mother Nature.’

After 11 years at Riverside, Sid moved to the Mayfair Golf & Country Club in 1968 where, amongst his many innovations, he introduced the concept of covering greens in the winter.

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From introducing automated watering systems to modern pesticides and fertilizers, Walt brought the club’s practices forward to meet the demands of the members who, by then, had seen lush American courses and wanted something comparable at home.

TV, Travel and Power Carts From Walt’s point of view, the introduction of golf on TV, travel to the American winter resorts, and power golf carts all combined to increase Alberta golfers’ expectations of course conditions and, consequently, the demands on the course superintendent.

“They wanted courses that were aesthetically pleasing, and that they could play later in life with carts. All that combined to change how we maintained courses and how courses were constructed,” Gooder continued.

Modern triplex fairway and greens mowers are a far cry from the tractor-pulled blade gang mowers that once were standards of the industry.

Photo courtesy of Ron Lyons.

More education and information was what Walt knew he needed if he were to be successful in giving the ECC members the verdant course they hoped to have.

“I began to attend conferences and seminars. I rubbed shoulders and learned.”

While today it may not seem to be a big accomplishment, having playable greens in the spring was then considered a major accomplishment.

“You never play temporary greens today,” he explains.

“But when I started, a badge of honour amongst superintendents was not to have temporary greens.”

Walt added to the course aesthetics by introducing horticultural displays which, he admits, were beautiful but expensive.

“But they added an atmosphere. They made people relax. Many golfers live in a city where there is a minimum amount of garden nearby,” Gooder noted.

Like Sid Puddicombe, Walt wanted to share his experience and knowledge and was a founder of the Alberta Golf Course Superintendents Association in 1987.

Before retiring in 2007, Walt spent 17 years in Calgary at The Country Hills Golf Club where he experienced firsthand one of the difficulties faced by his predecessors in turning a dry, Chinook-blown, foothills prairie into a golf landscape …tree planting.

“I planted a lot of trees. To plant a tree in Calgary you have to really want it. They don’t happen on their own.

They are a big investment and people fall in love with them,” he said.

Looking back on a career that started with him as the entire grounds crew, Walt marvels at the complexity of staff skills a superintendent needs to supervise today. “For example, you need a mechanic, a horticulturalist, an arborist and an irrigation specialist. These are all highly skilled positions and they require education.”

“The future is water management. The expectation is for golf courses to reduce water consumption,” says Beebe.

“The way we will do that is with technology.”

The newer types of irrigation systems, he explains, can put water exactly where it is needed. Every sprinkler can be programmed to adapt to soil conditions, location, humidity, and temperature.

In the old days, he says, superintendents used “gut feeling” to determine how much water was required.

The Environmental Stewards Today’s generation of superintendents is exemplified by James Beebe, the Priddis Greens Golf & Country Club Superintendent.

James began his career with his education, and his studies have included programs at Seneca College and at Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. He has been at Priddis for 18 years, the first four as Assistant Superintendent.

Unlike his predecessors whose attention was focussed primarily on how to provide golfers with the vibrant green courses they expect, James sees his role as taking greenkeeping to the next step – the environmental stewardship of a golf course.

“Environmental issues play a huge role in what we do today,” Beebe says.

“Now we use digital moisture meters.”

Despite all the technology that James sees possible in the future, there is one problem that he half-jokingly says will never be overcome: “North America’s fascination with green grass.”

He foresees a day when golfers will have to accept courses being a little drier. That, he says, will become a compromise between a course’s playability and environmental stewardship.

“Water will become more expensive and that will impact the cost of maintenance and the affordability of golf.”

“We keep detailed records of all our pesticide applications, and we’re starting to show a reduction in their use.

“There is much more government involvement. And a lot of what we are doing today voluntarily will become mandatory in the future.

“We used to spray everything. Now we have an integrated pest management system where we map the problems, set thresholds and then, for example, we may manually remove weeds or spot spray them.

“That’s a lot different than hooking up a 400 gallon sprayer to cover the course. We’re very selective now...

Healthy.

“Healthy turf is the best control we have.”

The second area where James sees positive advancements in environmental stewardship on golf courses is in water management.

Long time superintendent, Walter Gooder addresses an Alberta Turfgrass School audience.

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ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

Sid Puddicombe

Tony Krivoblocki

Frank McBride

Sid Puddicombe, who would become known as the patriarch of golf course superintendents in Alberta, got his start watering greens at night in Saskatchewan.

The Calgary Golf Association was the beneficiary of Tony Krivoblocki’s motivational skills beginning in 1971 when the CGA barely stayed afloat with only twelve member clubs and a roster of just four tournaments.

Frank McBride grew up in Saskatchewan and then moved to Manitoba at the age of 17 to begin a baking career with Brown’s Bread. Eventually he would choose to spread his wings and travel west to set up shop in Medicine Hat.

Over the next 36 years, as a Board Member, Vice President and President, Tony catalyzed the growth of the organization to thirty-six clubs hosting ten major tournaments each year.

This venture was so successful that Frank was able to retire after just 13 years. With time on his hands he became a member of the Connaught Golf Club and became a golfing addict. However, beyond playing the game, Frank always found time to volunteer to help the club in any way he could.

More than forty years later, Sid owns a family-run golf course design and construction company that has influenced the design and construction of courses internationally, from Canada to New Zealand and Japan.

Sid’s first formal course management training was provided in Winnipeg by the Canadian turfgrass legend John B. Steel, whose name now adorns the Canadian Golf Course Superintendents Association’s highest annual award for excellence; an award that Sid proudly won in 1987.

At the Mayfair Golf and Country Club in Edmonton where he was superintendent from 1968 to 1988, Sid introduced the practice of covering greens in the winter to enhance spring grass conditions.

Sid was well known for mentoring young up and coming superintendents, many of whom became well-known in their own right. Sid also volunteered his time to the Alberta Golf Association as a director educating clubs on the tricks of the trade. He started a turf school at the Fairview and Olds Colleges and was instrumental in hosting annual spring conferences with the goal of furthering the conditions of all Alberta golf courses through education.

Tony was involved in every aspect of each event from receiving entries, making draws, starting players, adjudicating the Rules of Golf, scoring, liaising with the media and promoting the association.

During his tenure with the CGA he was also actively involved with his home club, the Silver Springs Golf and Country Club, as Club Captain, Director and President.

Tony’s goal has been to build competitive golf in Calgary and he has selflessly dedicated countless hours to achieving that objective. His legacy lives on as Calgary is now known nationally for its depth of talented players and its competitive golf scene.

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By 1982, the Alberta Golf Association recruited him to work provincially and he would go on to serve as president of the society from 1987-1989. He was a tireless worker who quickly made friends at clubs throughout Alberta.

But it was his work with junior golfers that Frank really enjoyed. His encouraging, upbeat style positively impacted a generation of junior golfers; many who decades later still have a fond recollection of a man who made a difference in their lives through golf.

The McLennan Ross Sun Junior Tour “We Develop Players” ith 24 stops around Alberta in 2012, the McLennan Ross Sun Junior Tour provides young Albertans with an opportunity to learn about tournament golf, prepare to take on the competition nationwide, and further their education by working toward golf scholarships.

With Tour participants going on to win Canadian titles as individuals and as team members, the Tour has proven its worth in producing top ranked golfers since its inception in 1996.

Just as important, the Tour provides juniors with valuable life lessons built around golf. They meet other juniors, play new courses, learn the Rules of Golf, and handle the expectations of them on and off the course.

“The McLennan Ross Sun Junior Tour is very important for hundreds of other junior golfers who may never get the chance to play at a national level,” says the Tour’s Executive Director Dunc Mills.

The Tour is open to both junior boys and girls to help them get valuable tournament experience.

“Competitors on the Tour learn how to handle the pressures of making four-foot putts to win a tournament, Rules and Etiquette, and maybe learn a little about themselves.”

On To Scholarships Dozens of Tour players, he said, “have worked very hard to get scholarships at US and Canadian universities to help further their education and play high level collegiate golf. The Tour is extremely proud to have provided $60,000 in academic scholarships to the Alberta Golf Scholarship Foundation since our inception to help further the educations of these deserving young people.

“We are very proud of the Tour graduates who have competed in PGA Tour, Nationwide Tour, Canadian Tour and LPGA Tour events, but are every bit as proud of the thousands of other young people who hopefully become better people by their exposure to Junior golf.”

Playoff in Canmore! The Tour provides great learning experiences to players by helping them learn how to perform under the pressure of competition.

McLennan Ross LLP, is a major Alberta law firm and one of the Tour’s original sponsors, along with the Edmonton and Calgary Sun newspapers. Other current sponsors include the accounting firm of Mackay LLP, MacEwan University, Srixon Golf, Koch Ford Lincoln, and Dairyland.

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A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

A L B E R TA G O L F H A L L O F FA M E

Frank Van Dornick

Kareen Qually-Nelson Ken Tamke

An outstanding provincial golfer, Frank Van Dornick came onto the competitive scene relatively late, not competing seriously until his late 20’s. He made up for lost time in a serious way since that time and his winning record has not slowed over the last three decades.

At 35 years of age, Kareen Qually-Nelson is the youngest inductee to the Alberta Golf Hall of Fame.

From a competitive start in the late 1980’s with the Alberta Mid Amateur in 1988, Frank added the 1999 Alberta Amateur and the 2009 Alberta Senior title to his record, winning the Senior title by a 13 shot margin.

This accomplishment gave him the Alberta Golf Triple Crown – the Amateur, Mid Amateur and Senior Championships.

Her superlative junior and amateur playing record places her among the Province’s elite female golfers of all time. Kareen won the 1998 Canadian Women’s Amateur while also finishing as the runner-up in 1994 and bronze medalist in 1999. She was also the Alberta Ladies Amateur Champion in 1995 and 1998, the Alberta Junior Ladies Champion in 1993 as well as the Canadian Junior Ladies Silver Medalist in 1992 and 1993.

Frank’s talent always finds him in the hunt at provincial championships and his 21 plus team berths are a testament to how competitive he is in every event.

Kareen was internationally recognized when named to the Canadian Ladies Golf Association World Amateur team in 1994 and 1998 as well as the 1995 and 1999 CLGA Commonwealth teams. She also represented the province on the Alberta Junior Ladies Team from 1992-93, and the interprovincial team play downs at the amateur level in 1994-96 and 1998-99.

Nationally, he won the 2004 Canadian Mid Amateur Championship, and competed on six Willingdon Cup Teams including the 2002 winning team, and numerous Mid Amateur and Senior interprovincial teams. Internationally, he was on the 2003 Alberta Pacific Coast Amateur Team.

Kareen has been a terrific ambassador for Alberta golf having played on six continents as an amateur and professional golfer. In 1998 she was recognized with the prestigious SCORE GOLF MAGAZINE award as the Outstanding Canadian Female Amateur Golfer.

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Ken Tamke represented Alberta as a member of the Men’s Interprovincial Willingdon Cup Team a total of no less than eleven times, with Alberta winning the title twice. He played on the winning Canadian Commonwealth Team in 1975.

Twice when Alberta Golf initiated a new championship, Ken won it! At Wolf Creek in 1986, he beat the inaugural field of Mid Amateur competitors by ten strokes. He also shot the low individual score at the first Alberta Golf Inter-Club Team Championship at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course.

Ken grew up in Medicine Hat before moving to attend school and embarking on a brief career in Saskatoon. While in Saskatchewan he was on the team representing that province at the national junior championship in 1968.

Law studies lured him back to Alberta and he began to accumulate many city wins — three Edmonton Open Championships, two Edmonton Amateur Championships, three Best Ball Championships, two Edmonton Match Play Championships—and Ken won the Champion of Champions Tournament three times.

Unique to Alberta: 400 Agents Sponsor

The Sun Life Financial Alberta Championships In what might be a provincial record for number of sponsors, the approximately 400 Sun Life Financial Agents in Alberta individually contribute toward funding the annual provincial golf championships. ot only are the number of individual sponsors likely a record, so is the sponsorship’s longevity – at least 20 years.

Typically a sport sponsorship lasts from three to five years, as the ups and downs of the economy and evolving corporate public relations take their toll on event funding.

But in the case of the Alberta Golf Association and the provincial agents of Sun Life Financial, the relationship has not faltered since Kevin Hunter, an agent and former golf pro, met with Wayne Peterson, then an AGA Director and the president in 1992 and 1993, and proposed the sponsorship.

Media Day, he adds, has increased the agent’s sense of participation. “Usually 20 or 30 local agents have the opportunity to play a round with the golfers before the tournament, and that’s an experience that they remember for a long time,” said Taylor enthusiastically.

Agencies in other provinces have tried to duplicate the success of the Sun Life Financial sponsorship in Alberta, Carl says, but it has never caught on. He’s not sure why it hasn’t worked outside Alberta, and says it might just be because it is hard to duplicate the close relationship between the agents and Alberta Golf.

Unique to Alberta The program is coordinated in four Alberta regions run by Sun Life representatives: Walter Montina, Lethbridge; Gord Kingcott, Red Deer; Todd Currie and Shoaib Syed, Calgary; Pat Segin, Edmonton; and Rick Frayne, Grand Prairie.

Sun Life Financial also funds an annual Alberta Golf Association Foundation scholarship for students pursuing a post-secondary education.

The sponsorship began in 1991 with the Men’s Amateur Championship played at the Edmonton Country Club and won by David Schultz of Calgary.

According to the personable Carl Taylor who now represents the Sun Life agents, every agency in the province was asked to vote on the proposal, and they all voted to accept. This gesture of faith turned out to be very rewarding for the golfers and the agents, as attested to by the high profile and solid reputation the event carries today.

“Sun Life is recognized as a respectable company doing quality business with quality people,” Carl says.

“We’re friends now … this has gone beyond being a business relationship.”

Much of the sponsorship’s success, he adds, arises from the sense of inclusion the agents feel in the golf championships.

“They’re excited about it, they love to talk about it,” said Taylor.

Sun Life Financial has set the high standard for corporate sponsorship of golf in Alberta supporting the Alberta Men’s and later Alberta Women’s Amateur Championships since 1991.

“I know when a golfer stops me on the street – and this happens often – and thanks me for Sun Life’s sponsorship, I take that personally.”

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ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

ALBERTA GOLF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE

Lola Rozsa

Thelma Coutts

Jean Smeland

Affectionately nicknamed the “Grandmother of Calgary Golf” by local media, Lola Rozsa dedicated herself to the promotion of the game, serving on the Calgary, Alberta and Canadian ladies golf associations. From the beginning in 1960 she always worked closely with players, especially juniors, taking them to tournaments and acting as a chaperone.

Thelma Coutts has been devoted to the game of golf since the early 1970s, working for the game on the provincial and national levels. She has acted in many capacities culminating in terms as president of the Alberta Ladies Golf Association in 1986 and 1987, and president of the Canadian Ladies Golf Association in 1998 and 1999.

Jean Smeland was a terrific booster of the game of golf and provided tremendous leadership for the sport she loved both provincially and in the City of Medicine Hat.

Lola served as president of the Calgary Ladies Golf Association from 1970-1971 and the Alberta Ladies Golf Association from 1984-1985 before serving with the Canadian Ladies Golf Association as National Teams Director in 1986. She was also a nationally accredited Rules of Golf official: in 1983 she ruled at the Commonwealth Team Matches; and in 1984 at both the Canadian Junior Girls and Canadian Amateur Ladies championships.

Lola and her husband Ted moved from Texas to Calgary in 1949 and became charter members of the Canyon Meadows Golf and Country Club.

Thereafter, she and Ted became members at the Calgary Golf and Country Club. Lola’s first major championship was in 1960 as she helped organize the Alberta Ladies Amateur Championship at Canyon Meadows. By 1975, she became actively involved in the Calgary Golf and Country Club Ladies Section serving in various roles culminating as president from 1985-1986.

Known for her unflagging enthusiasm and work ethic, Thelma taught the Rules of Golf for the Lethbridge Community College Golf Management Program for twelve years. Her excellence as a rules official took her to the international stage where she officiated at the World Amateur Championship, two Nations Cups and two LPGA DuMaurier Classics.

Thelma was presented with a lifetime membership at the Henderson Lake Golf Club and was inducted into the Lethbridge and Alberta Sports Halls of Fame. In 1999 and in 2006 she received Distinguished Service Awards from the Canadian Ladies Golf Association and the Royal Canadian Golf Association.

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She was a long-time member of the Medicine Hat Golf and Country Club and as a nationally certified rules official, Jean worked with and mentored a number of up and coming officials throughout the province.

Her natural leadership abilities led her to roles as Alberta Ladies’ Golf Association Rules Chair and then President.

With golf booming in the early 1990’s, Jean played an instrumental role in setting up the first Alberta Ladies’ Golf Association office and hiring the society’s first employee. These visionary moves allowed the ALGA to continue to grow the game for female golfers throughout the province.

Alberta’s Golf-Related Associations From Professionals to Superintendents Canadian Society of Club Managers The Canadian Society of Club Managers, founded in 1957, is the national professional society for those individuals involved in professional club management in Canada. Most of the approximately 560 CSCM members are from the golf industry, but also include members from recreation and leisure clubs as well as a wide variety of sports, fitness and other types of clubs.

Members include general managers/ CEOs/ COOs and senior staff at a wide variety of clubs, but also include representatives from the food and beverage departments as well as Assistant Managers and Controllers. The CSCM strives to raise the quality and professionalism of club managers throughout their membership with their vision of “creating great clubs through excellence in professional club management” For more information: www.cscm.org

National Golf Course Owners Association The National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA) is a not-for-profit trade association, owned and governed by its membership; the owners and operators of golf courses throughout Canada.

Many of Alberta Golf’s private, semi-private, resort and public golf courses are members of the NGCOA. The objectives of the organization include providing networking opportunities within the industry, offering educational content on the business of golf, providing cost savings to members by group purchasing programs, engaging in cooperative marketing strategies to promote golf and the promotion and the development of very successful “Grow the Game” initiatives such as their “Take a Kid to the Course” program.

For more information: www.ngcoa.ca

The Professional Golfers' Association of Alberta

Edmonton Ladies' Golf Association

The PGA of Alberta is one of nine Provincial Zones of the Canadian Professional Golfers' Association formed in 1911, the oldest Professional Golf Association in North America.

Operating as a not-for-profit organization, the PGA of Alberta organizes golf tournaments, education seminars, trade shows and consumer shows to advance the careers of its membership.

The PGA of Alberta began in 1964 and now has over 500 members working at Alberta's public and private golf courses. The PGA of Alberta now runs over fifty tournaments and events each year including Golf Championships, Team Competitions, Golf Shows, Golf Seminars and Junior Golf Programs.

For more information: www.pgaofalberta.com

The Alberta Golf Superintendents Association In 1987 six Alberta golf course superintendents formed the AGSA with the mandate: “To promote the position of the Golf Course Superintendent and to achieve more recognition for the Superintendent as an authority on golf course maintenance, cultural requirements of fine turfgrasses and its environment, and to promote fraternity, benevolence, justice and mutual understanding to and for all its members.”

The Edmonton Ladies' Golf Association (ELGA) was formed in 1934 with five clubs: The Edmonton Country Club, The Municipal (Victoria), the Highlands Golf Club, the Mayfair Golf & Country Club and the Prince Rupert.

Today the ELGA, a division of the Edmonton Golf Association, hosts the Edmonton Ladies Amateur Tournament which includes ladies, seniors and super seniors events. Each year, in rotation, a different club hosts the tournament.

In addition to Interclub competition, each EGA ladies' club visits another EGA ladies' club and hosts a member club during the golfing season.

For more information: www.egagolf.org

Calgary Golf Association Calgary’s men first played for the city title in 1918, and the competition for the Stanley Jones Memorial Cup has not faltered since then. The Calgary Golf Association has since expanded to host eleven annual tournaments. The CGA membership is comprised of 34 local clubs, and tournament players must belong to one of these clubs.

For more information:: www.calgarygolfassociation.org

Calgary Ladies Golf Association

Today, the association recognizes that the golf course superintendent position has continued to increase in value as golf clubs look for guidance in areas such as Environmental Stewardship, Water Conservation Issues, and Workplace Health & Safety.

The CLGA, formed in 1929, is a collective organization of all member golf clubs within a 40 kilometer radius of the Calgary city center. The CLGA has 32 member clubs today and hosts several annual tournaments for all levels of women players.

For more information: www.albertagsa.com

For more information: www.calgaryladiesgolf.ca

The Edmonton Golf Association The Edmonton Golf Association is a registered non-profit society of associated member clubs formed in 1921 to promote and preserve the game of golf in and around the Edmonton area. The Edmonton Golf Association was incorporated in Alberta on October 16, 2003 and is run by a Board of Directors comprised of volunteers from member Clubs.

The EGA works with the golf community and local businesses to schedule, plan and execute tournaments for the enjoyment and participation of amateur and professional golfers. The EGA conducts a number of major tournaments annually, as well as organizing interclub competition for men, ladies and junior players in Edmonton and surrounding areas.

For more information: www.egagolf.org

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A THANK YOU AND SOME NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR TYLER TRAFFORD

What a terrific experience it has been talking to golfers of all levels and interests throughout Alberta. There’s nothing I like more than meeting people who love their sport.

As I travelled around the province snooping into club archives and asking questions, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the level of enthusiasm I found for compiling this history of golf in Alberta.

Not being a golfer, I was envious of the spirit that pervades every course and every clubhouse. Golfers are fortunate to have found a way to combine sport with comradery, good manners and a sense of humour.

The sign of a golfer who plays the sport well, I learned, is not a beautiful stroke. You just need class.

Thanks for the great time, Tyler

THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Thank you to the members of the Editorial Committee who made story suggestions and contributions, reviewed the manuscript and corrected everything from punctuation to dates. The members were: Brent Ellenton, Dunc Mills Donald Stewart, Jack Lane, Bob Planidin, Fran Marsden, Thelma Coutts and Diana Ringstrom.

THANK YOU AND OUR APOLOGIES Thank you to everybody who had a story for us, from the ones about Alberta’s almost forgotten champions of the old days to the fresh stories about the Ladies who play every Tuesday on the Confederation Park municipal course.

We wish we could have included them all. Our apologies to those who generously submitted suggestions, articles and photographs and don’t see them in these pages. Don’t despair, they won’t be forgotten: they will be compiled in the Alberta Golf archives for the second centennial.

ON ERRORS AND OMISSIONS In compiling this document our Editorial Committee strove for accuracy, clarity and accessibility. Please let us know of any instances where the record should be corrected.

ON CREDITS AND SOURCES We’ve done our best to keep track of and identify our sources, and give credit for photographs. If we erred, let us know and we will amend the files for posterity.

Photo Credit: Andrew Bakô

THE AUTHOR

Author Tyler Trafford was raised in Calgary during the oil boom following the discovery of Leduc No. 1. He graduated from The University of Calgary and worked for many years as a reporter and editor, first with The Calgary Herald, then in Australia with The Australian and several weekly outback newspapers, and later as a financial columnist for the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel.

He has worked on cattle stations in Australia, seismic survey crews, construction crews and has been a vice president with an investment firm. In 1993 he devoted his full efforts to his writing career and since then has published fifteen books commissioned by engineers, drillers, businessmen, construction innovators, and ranchers.

Tyler is the author of The Story Of Blue Eye, Alexander’s Way and The Métis Girl, novels in the Sun On The Mountains collection focusing on the early relationships between Native, Métis and European cultures in southern Alberta. The Story of Blue Eye was a Grant MacEwan Literary Award finalist.

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