Golf’s governing body for the United States and Mexico — the United States Golf Association or USGA — has acquired a collection of 30 photographs showing the construction and 1938 grand opening of the Amsterdam Municipal Golf Course.
Rand Jerris, director of the USGA museum in Far Hills, N.J., purchased the pictures on eBay. The photographer’s last name was Kirk, and the photos were taken as part of an arts project for the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, the same New Deal job-creating agency that built the golf course.
The federal government put up $99,000 toward the construction project, and the city chipped in $23,000. Some 200 men worked to build the course. The facility is named for then-Mayor Arthur Carter, a Democrat who had known President Franklin D. Roosevelt when FDR was New York governor and Carter was a state auditor.
The USGA has a special interest in the Amsterdam course because it was one of the first 10 designed by Robert Trent Jones, a man Jerris said was the most important golf architect of the last century. Jones, a Rochester native, created his own golf course design curriculum at Cornell University in the 1930s. After graduation, he designed six federally funded golf courses, including the one in Amsterdam.
After World War II, Jones worked closely with the USGA to make sure that courses used for the organization’s signature event, the U.S. Open, were challenging enough for the nation’s best golfers.
“There is great value and significance to the golf course in Amsterdam,” Jerris said.
Pictures of the course construction in Amsterdam show techniques that Jones later used at more elaborate golf courses — clusters of bunkers or sand traps, larger tees, using the landscape of a site to best advantage.
Jerris wrote, “This remarkable collection includes images taken throughout the construction process, including the installation of the irrigation system, the preparation and seeding of fairways, the erection of rustic wooden bridges to help players move through and across sensitive wildlife areas, and even the construction of the parking lot for the patrons.”
The first nine holes of the Amsterdam facility were ready in 1937. But Jones delayed opening until 1938 to let the turf develop and give time to finish construction of the remaining nine holes.
Opening day was July 19, 1938, and the first foursome consisted of golf stars Gene Sarazen and Tom Creavy, joined by Frank Hartig, the first pro at the new course and pro John Lord from the Antlers private course in Fort Johnson, now called Rolling Hills. The caddies were Earl Hartig, Moe Iannuzzi, Earl and Harry Gode. A Scottish band led the group down the fairway. Lord and Creavy beat Sarazen and Hartig that day.
Why golf?
Why did the federal government get involved in building golf courses? Jerris said President Roosevelt was an avid golfer before being stricken with polio and retained a great interest in the game. Building public golf courses also was part of an effort that began in the 1920s to increase the ability of the average American to access parklands. Jerris said this democratization of golf was aimed partly at encouraging physical fitness in the event of another war.
As has been the case in Amsterdam, Jerris said a number of the 360 federally funded Depression-era public golf courses around the country have faced financial challenges in recent years because of the cost of maintenance.
As news of the Amsterdam golf course pictures has spread, Jerris received inquiries from 15 to 20 Amsterdam area golfers who wanted to see all the photos. That can be arranged online by contacting the USGA museum at museum@usga.org.
Anyone with a suggestion for a Focus on History topic may contact Bob Cudmore at 346-6657 or bobcudmore@yahoo.com.
