Fresh Meadow Country Club Former General Manager James W. Cope. Cope was with the club for fourteen years.
Meeting All Demands Jimmy Cope recalls the occasion when Yogi Berra was at Fresh Meadow for a charity outing, but forgot to bring his medicine – a necessity he told Jimmy about when it was 45 minutes before tee time. Using all resources at hand, Jimmy had a local doctor phone the prescription to a nearby pharmacist, who sent a delivery boy hustling to the club with the medicine. Fortunately, all were Yankees fans, although the delivery boy did take a circuitous route so as to purchase an American League baseball for Yogi to sign. He did arrive with a minute to spare, and Yogi got to play Fresh Meadow’s outstanding course.
Served With Distinction Brett A. Morris* Barry L. Chandler James W. Cope George Caeners
142
A Heritage of Service
F
resh Meadow came into existence in 1921 when representatives of the Golf Course Construction Company approached the members of the Unity Club, a social organization serving Brooklyn’s Jewish community. They proposed that the club purchase 106 acres of farmland in Queens, south of what is now the Long Island Expressway, near 183rd Street, which would be transformed into an eighteen-hole golf course. The idea appealed to the club even though the vast majority of its members knew little about the sport, and the round-trip between Flushing and Brooklyn was an all-day affair in those days. From the beginning the club members wanted their course to be one of the great examinations of golf in the country, and host to major competitions. To this end, they engaged Albert W. Tillinghast to design their course, and he had nine holes ready for play by Decoration Day 1922. The full eighteen holes were ready one year later. While the clubhouse was being constructed, the members used a small farmhouse as a temporary facility. The new clubhouse was dedicated on September 8, 1923. It burned to the ground nine days later. It was rebuilt on an even grander scale, and reopened late in 1924. Fresh Meadow first gained national prominence as the site for the 1930 PGA Championship, followed by the US Open in 1932. By 1945, however, Fresh Meadow faced the threat of advancing civilization and escalating real estate taxes. The club’s leaders had to address the question of
whether the club was still viable in its Queens location. Rather, they found that a move would be in the club’s best interests, and on February 25, 1946, the club voted to sell its property to New York Life, while at the same time purchasing the financially troubled Lakeville Club in Lake Success. In 1923 Nathan Jonas, a prominent member of the Unity Club and one of Fresh Meadow’s founders, purchased 171 acres of rolling, heavily-wooded land in Lake Success, planning to build his estate there. Instead, he used the land to form the Lakeville Golf and Country Club for the enjoyment of his friends in the theatrical and motion picture world. The firm of Colt, MacKenzie and Allison of London, England, was engaged to build the golf course that brought Lakeville prominence as “one of the most beautiful and exclusive clubs in America.” The course opened in 1925. The stucco clubhouse featured artistic colonial lines of unusually large dimensions. The interior was designed and furnished by W. and J. Sloane of New York. Outside were flowering gardens, a marble swimming pool framed in cool evergreens, and a toboggan slide. Lakeville fell victim to the Depression, then was leased to Glen Oaks during the war before being sold to Fresh Meadow. At its Flushing site, Fresh Meadow had been primarily a golf club. With the move to Lake Success came a change to a more family-oriented country club with tennis and swimming facilities.