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American golf had its birth in the Gilded Age (1870s-1890s), and by the close of the 19th century the United States had more golf courses than Britain. This start is inextricably intertwined with the dominant Tycoons of the day, and this in turn entangles the foundation of golf in America with the expansion of their railroads and their associated Grand Hotels in exclusive resort locations. From 1900 to the advent of WWII, golf in America added sinew and muscle on this underlying frame to make the Resort golf experience truly spectacular and widely accessible outside the echelons of elite society. The enduring legacy has been that the popularization of golf in America is indelibly stamped with the watermark of excellence set by these fabulous early Resorts. Hotels and Resort GolfNorth Carolina Pinehurst
James Tufts of Boston joined the "soda fountain" craze that started with the carbonization of water in the early 1800s. By the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876, he had patented equipment to add cabonation to drinks and had founded a successful company selling counter installations for "soda" drinks across the country. The soda fountain was suited to every location or business where counters and customers came together in the same room, including drug stores, restaurants, and especially resort and vacation venues. The later "American Soda Fountain Co." was a joining of forces of the top soda fountain manufacturers in America with Tufts at its head, combined to crush all upstart companies selling their own carbonization machines and dispensing assemblies. The various concoctions that were sold at the soda fountain grew wildly, eventually taken dominant form with the advent of Coca-Cola, at first simply another offering by a druggist with a soda fountain. Tufts was friends with the preacher Edward Everett Hale, prominent minister to Congress, and was also very health-conscious (as were most people in the days of Yellow Fever, Influenza epidemics, polio, tuberculosis, and similar dread afflictions). Tufts' original conception for Pinehurst was to build a health and leisure vacation spa (and sell his sodas) catering to Northerners of the middle and upper-middle classes who either could not afford the resorts of Florida or who did not want to ride that far on the train. Golf was added as an after-thought when Tufts saw people at his properties in early days playing this game in the local cow pastures and was concerned that their play would spoil local milk production. others around him convinced him to add golf to the resort's leisure offerings. After Tufts discovered that tuberculosis was a contagious disease, he barred "consumptives" from Pinehurst and required a doctor's letter certifying health for all guests and patrons.
In 1891 the four largest manufacturers -- Tufts, Puffer, Lippincott, and Matthews -- formed the American Soda Fountain Company, which was a trust designed to monopolize the industry. The four manufacturers continued to produce and market fountains under their company names. The trust controlled prices and forced some smaller manufacturers out of business. In their heyday, soda fountains flourished in drugstores, ice cream parlors, candy stores, dime stores, department stores, and train stations. They served an important function as a public space where neighbors could socialize and exchange community news. In the early 20th century many fountains expanded their menus and became lunch counters, serving light meals as well as ice cream sodas, egg creams, sundaes, and the like. Soda fountains reached their height in the 1940s and 1950s. With the coming of the Car Culture and the rise of suburbia, they began to decline. Drive-in restaurants and roadside ice cream outlets, such as Dairy Queen, competed for customers. Retail stores switched to self-service, and the labor-intensive soda fountain didn't fit into the new sales scheme. Today only a sprinkling of vintage soda fountains survive.
Donald Ross, course desinger who also played well, finishing in the top 10 in four US Opens.
Holly Inn, the 1st Pinehurst Hotel
Holly Inn
Holly Inn
Pinecrest, where Donald Ross lived.
Pinehurst Carolina Inn
Clubhouse for Pinehurst Golf Resort, and Course No. 2
Donald Ross notes Because the courses were laid out in the Pine barrens / sandhills of the South, there was no irrigation system, and the courses had "sand greens" until 1936, when the coming of the PGA Championship that year sparked the change-over to grass greens. Augusta National, constructed at this time, started with bermuda grass greens, which were eventually changed to Bent grass in 1981 after developoment of Bent varieties that would survive Southern heat.
Pinehurst
Pinehurst CC Pinehurst ReferencesAudrey Moriarty, Pinehurst Beginnings - A historical account of how Pinehurst began Audrey Moriarty, Pinehurst: Golf, History, And The Good Life Pinehurst, North Carolina ... [WorldCat.org] Lee Pace, History of Golf in the Carolinas [Pinehurst, North Carolina pamphlets]. [WorldCat.org] Sand and pines and golf of course. [WorldCat.org] Golf Tournaments | Pinehurst - Golf History | Golf Resorts & Championship Courses Notes from the South, American Golfer Magazine Pinehurst Resort - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A brief history: The making of a mecca Golf Digest (June 1999) Southern comfort - Pinehurst Country Club, North Carolina Golf Digest (June 1999) American Soda Fountain Co.Soda fountain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Donald Yates, The First American Soda Fountains, Bottles and Extras (Spring 2006), pp 70-73 Donald Yates, John Mathews, Father of the Soda Fountain, Bottles and Extras (Summer 2006), pp 72-75 Wendy Woloson " Soda Fountains". St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. 20020129. American Soda Fountain replica at Coca-Cola Museum, Atlanta NuCO2 - Beverage Carbonation Made Easy "Soda fountain": Definition and Much More from Answers.com The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC) FOHBC Bottles and Extras - Index of Past Issue's Articles Root Beer and Ginger Beer Heritage Donald RossDonald Ross (golfer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia World Golf Hall of Fame Member Profile - Donald Ross Man of mystery - Donald J. Ross Golf Digest (June 1999) Grove Park Inn Asheville's growing reputation as a health retreat promoted the development of luxury inns, resorts and associated cottages. During the 1890s, William Green Raoul, a leading railroad executive; Bradford Gilbert, a renowned architect in New York City; and Samuel Parsons, Jr., an important landscape architect, began construction of Albemarle Park, an assembly of inns and residences featuring the Manor along Charlotte Street. Over time, finely designed residences were built along this corridor with Neoclassical, Colonial Revival and Queen Anne features. In 1920 Raoul sold the Manor and Cottages to Asheville's next large investor, Edwin W. Grove. Grove Park Inn Photo courtesy of the Grove Park Inn Grove came to Asheville in 1900. With him he brought an idea for a grand yet rustic mountain-lodge, an inn built to resemble a lodge in Yellowstone Park. Grove began developing the surrounding Grove Park neighborhood at the foot of Sunset Mountain in 1907. By 1913, he had finished the construction of his Grove Park Inn, built of massive boulders reinforced by concrete and capped with a burnt-orange tiled roof. National Park Service - Historic Register
Grove Park Inn, Asheville NC (1913) History Built from granite boulders hewn from Sunset Mountain, The Grove Park Inn opened in 1913. At its opening dinner, William Jennings Bryan declared that it had been "built for the ages." In the decades since it has become one of the South's most famous and venerable resorts. Early History The hotel was the vision of E.W. Grove, a St. Louis entrepreneur who made his millions in the 1890s peddling an elixir called Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic. For his Inn, he envisioned a hotel that would be like "a big home where every modern convenience could be found, but with all the old-fashioned qualities of genuineness with no sham." Modeled after the grand old railway hotels of the West, the Inn was built from a sketch made by Grove's son-in-law, the enterprising Fred Seely (who would become its first general manager). It took a crew of 400 men only 12 months to build the majestic landmark, dragging hundreds of tons of boulders up the mountainside with the aid of teams of mules, ropes and pulleys, wagons and a lone steam shovel. During the summers of 1935 and '36, author F. Scott Fitzgerald resided in our Room 441. He's just one of the American luminaries to have stayed here, a list that includes Harry Houdini, Will Rogers, George Gershwin, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt and Henry Ford. Not to mention eight presidents Ñ from Woodrow Wilson to George Bush. Grove Park Inn - Resort History Donald Ross course "One of the ten best courses in the United States that is 100 years old or more." Designed by the legendary Donald Ross, the course is rated as the 8th best in North Carolina (with five of the seven courses rated higher located at legendary Pinehurst). History and Restoration The golf course first opened for play in 1899 and was redesigned in 1924 by the great Donald Ross. The passing decades gradually altered its play, and in 2001, the resort undertook an ambitious $2.5 million program to restore the course to the past glory and spirit of its original Donald Ross design. Grove Park inn Golf Course - Design History South Carolina
Palmetto Golf Links Clubhouse 1892
Palmetto Golf Links, Aiken SC, 1904
Palmetto Golf Links, Aiken SC, 1904
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