Tee Time at Forest Park
You may have noticed that golf is kind of popular around here. Non-golfer that I am, even I can tell that. Just count how many golf courses there are in this county.
Golf and Hamilton County go way back. Talk of building a golf course here began as early as 1916.
The Aug. 7, 1916 Noblesville Daily Ledger noted that articles of incorporation were currently being drawn up to establish a golf club in Noblesville. There were to be 25 charter members with provisions for expanding the membership to 100.
The organizers even had plans to admit members’ wives to “the privileges of the club,” with an eye toward having them become golfers themselves. (Wow. That seems pretty enlightened. Women didn’t even have the vote yet!)
Of several potential locations being considered for the new course, the top two were the Rooker farm on what is now Allisonville Road and some land near Dr. Samuel Harrell’s farm southeast of Noblesville.
I don’t know if the club failed to get enough members, ran out of funds or was killed by World War I, but I found no more references to it, so I’m assuming it came to nothing.
That wasn’t the end of the attempts to construct a golf course in this county, though. Not by a long shot.
At various times over the next 10 years, the Ledger reported on country clubs being planned in Sheridan, Carmel, Noblesville and the new resort community of Riverwood. In all cases, a golf course was to be among each club’s attractions.
However, aside from a tennis court at one of the Sheridan sites that was supposedly nearly complete, I couldn’t find anything to indicate actual construction was done on any of those clubs.
It wasn’t until Forest Park was created in 1926 that Hamilton County finally got its first golf course.
Famous Chicago lawyer S.O. (Salmon Oliver) Levinson, who never hesitated to donate to worthy causes in his old hometown, got the ball rolling by pledging $1,000 for the construction of a golf course at the new park. Soon, money was coming in from both local and out-of-town donors.
By the terms of an agreement between the Forest Park Board and the newly formed Forest Park Golf Association, the park board was to provide the plan, the ground and water for the 55 acre, nine-hole course, while the golf association was responsible for seeing to the actual construction.
Prolific golf course architect Tom Bendelow, who’s been called the “Johnny Appleseed of American Golf,” was engaged to design the course. It took “seven teams and ten men” about a year to turn Bendelow’s plan into reality.
(Presumably, the “seven teams” refers to the United States Army mules that, according to a 1999 Indianapolis Star article, were “loaned” to Noblesville for the project.)
The night before the new golf course opened, a banquet was held at the Forest Park Inn. At this dinner, the golfers proudly turned the new course over to the Forest Park Board with “every dollar of indebtedness paid.”
A few finishing touches remained to be done — landscaping, etc. — but the park board felt that most of that money could come from fees collected from the golfers. Season tickets were set at $7.50, while a single ticket was to cost 50 cents.
Forest Park’s new golf course officially opened for business June 16, 1927 with 50 golfers teeing off at a handicap tournament that afternoon.
The tournament prizes were donated by local businesses that, (ahem) oddly enough, had recently added some golf-related items to their ads. (You could get a set of four clubs and a bag for $10 at Weldy’s Drug Store!)
It’s incredible to think that the golf course I’ve been driving past all my life is almost 100 years old.
Paula Dunn’s From Time to Thyme column appears on Wednesdays in The Times. Contact her at younggardenerfriend@gmail.com