Interviewed June 9, 1977
Age 69
Concord Oral History Program
Renee Garrelick, Interviewer.
Click here for audio in .mp3 format
Golf started here when someone from this area went to England
or Scotland and was introduced to the game. One of the leading
lights at that time in Concord as far as golf was concerned was
Moses Bradford, who was the Club's first president. The first
club in Concord was opened in 1895 in an area now known as the
musterfield which is partly in back of Nashawtuc Hill.
Past Presidents of the Concord Country Club include Mr.
Herbert Hosmer, Mr. Charles Edgarton, Mr. Henry Kidder, Mr.
Charles B. Johnson, Mr. Arthur Brooks and down to the present time
of Mr. Tyson and Mr. Everett Parker.
In 1914 the Club purchased the John Brown farm and laid out
the first nine holes. The architect was Donald Ross who became
the leading course architect for many years in this country. The
second nine was started in 1929 and opened in 1930. Again Donald
Ross as architect. A great deal of the work was supervised by a
former president's son known as Bebe Hosmer and when the second
nine was officially opened Bebe's father was picked to strike the
first ball.
It might be of interest to remind some of the people who will
perhaps listen to this taping to know some of the families
involved with the original golf. We'll name a few and hope that
other people will not feel left out, because I cannot remember all
of these as they were. But we can say that the Hosmers, the
Barretts, the C. Hayden Whitneys, the Herbert Townsends, the
Alcott Pratts, George Keyes, the Buttricks, the Edgartons, the
Lockwoods, the Fessendens. Incidentally, one of the original
members, Miss Grace Keyes was one of the early women's champions
of the state. I believe that tournament was played at the Brae
Burn Country Club. Miss Keyes won the championship early in 1905
or 1906. We would have better records if we had the cup here but
we don't.
The record that people talk about a lot is the inception of
clubs around the country. And a few years back I happened to see
some pictures that were taken at Bellreaves where they have a large
plaque of the beginning clubs in this country and the Concord Golf
Club, which was it's original name and since changed to the Concord
Country Club, was either number 15 or 16 on that plaque. As all
things from a very modest beginning, the Club had only nine holes
and a great many things have changed since that time.
As an example of Yankee ingenuity the original farmhouse which
was situated in the area of the present clubhouse, is now a part of
the Emerson Hospital's nurses home. That was moved from its
original area by the local builder and mover, Mr. Edward A. Comeau.
This all was accomplished with horses, teams, and manpower.
From a modest beginning of nine holes and one tennis court to
its present eighteen holes, six tennis courts, and a large family
swimming pool with all facilities it occupies approximately 200
acres and is bounded by a substantial acreage of Herbert Hosmer
land which is now in conservation trust. The conservation trust
land borders a part of the golf course around the fifth hole and
does go from that part of the golf course to the adjoining of
Mattison land and also out to the road which is Old Road to Nine
Acre Corner.
The golf clubs themselves have changed a tremendous amount.
To make comparison to golfers today where we take records made by
Bobby Jones who did play some golf at the Concord Country Club when
he was at Harvard. In those days the clubs were all wooden shafted
and when it rained, the action of the golf club changed consid-
erably but Bobby Jones in his expertise was able to overcome this
and still make records around all parts of the country. The golf
clubs themselves used to have names and not numbers like the
present are. We had names for each and every one of the golf
clubs, we had a driver, a spoon, a baffy, a cleek, which would be
equivalent today to a driving iron, a midmashie, a mashie niblick,
a niblick, and a putter. We also had speciality clubs as they do
today such as a track iron, which I doubt if very many people would
understand without an explanation of it. In the beginning of golf,
of course, all the fairways were cut with horse-drawn vehicles and
very narrow wheeled which would leave indentations in the earth so
a track iron was made of which I believe there are a few still in
existence. I know I have one. It was made to fit into the groove
on the ground and make it so that the golfer could move his ball
from that particular position.
In those days there weren't as many rules for relief as there
are today. In the old days you hit your golf ball into a certain
area it was up to you and your ability to remove it from there. In
the original golf course back of Nashawtuc Hill the average
obstacle or hazard, as we would use for a saying, is not a sand
trap but in most instances were stonewalls which designated certain
areas perhaps of ownership by different people. These were the
things you had to contend with in those days plus not a lush,
curried down fairway where you can use a driver off of it.
There were caddies in the early days. The golfer made his or
her golf tees. For each and every tee there was a tee box which
contained a quantity of a composition of top soil and sand which
the golfer could form into a mound and place his ball on in the
same height as he might do today with the wooden tee. Wooden tees
came into popularity in the early 1930s along with many other
things that added to the game such as the caddy cart to take the
place of the caddy. To my mind, of course, the loss of the caddy
in many instances has taken a great deal out of the game and for
all things, the main thing was the association with a youngster who
was just beginning.
The average private club is a different animal than the so-
called municipal golf courses of today. The municipal golf courses
have been brought about by the great demand of golfers in all walks
of life and they are primarily wide open with little or no hazards,
as the fellow would say, to expedite the time a round of golf would
be played and bring it so that the municipal course can accommodate
more people then the average private club. In most years the
private club will be the scene of open championship which is one of
the toughest tournaments to ever win. In its beginning the open
championship would maybe draw a field of twenty golfers. Today the
golfers that have become expertise enough to qualify or get into it
now numbers up into the thousands. So we have loads of qualifying
areas countrywide. To go back though to the golf courses as laid
out, one of the first open championships that made a great deal of
change in the game of golf took place in 1913 at the Brookline
Country Club, where a young man by the name of Francis Oiumet
startled the golf world by defeating in a playoff two of the elder
statesmen of golf in Great Britain, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. As
far as the three were concerned Francis Ouimet was not getting much
chance to win in this playoff but he did astound the world by
winning that playoff with a 72 for the eighteen holes. Fifty years
later the same open championship was played at the Brookline
Country Club and the winning scores that year was 294 strokes for
72 holes of mettle play. The golf course was not thought to be
tough enough for the present crop of professionals but they found
out very early in the game that the golf course was a little bit
better than the golfer at the time. That tournament was held on
the golden anniversary of Mr. Ouimet's winning at Brookline.
Only from legend and not having anything but that to go by,
there was a gentleman in the old country whether an earl or
otherwise I do not know, I do have a print of this gentlemen and it
is quite noticeable that his caddy in frock coat had a bottle of
liquor. According to the number of holes played and the
consumption of the liquor, it usually was eighteen holes and
whether truthful or otherwise this seems to be the content of why
eighteen holes on a course.
I think I would go back to one of the old settlers, as we
would use the word, Mr. Bebe Hosmer as he was known by most
everyone. It does bring out the total independence of people at
that time. I do remember Mr. Hosmer bringing to the Concord
Country Club one evening Mr. & Mrs. Henry Ford for dinner. At that
time Mr. Ford was involved in the restoration of the Wayside Inn
which is quite a showplace for memorabilia of those times. Mr.
Hosmer did come to the club that night in tuxedo as would be the
proper thing with the entertainment of a person of Mr. Ford's
stature and Mr. Ford, of course, was in evening clothes. I
happened to be on our putting green which is at the very front of
the clubhouse and Mr. Hosmer stopped and called over to me and said
"Harold, you know I got the stuffed shirt on but take a look at
this!" And he put his foot up on the railing and he had mocassins
on that I would say were about as old as he was but he said, "If I
can't have comfort one way, I'm going to have it on my feet."