Unfortunately the obvious pun is already taken
May 6, 2021 5:32 AM   Subscribe

Golf's Missing Links. John and Marie Llewellyn's website gathers together information about quondam community golf courses, mostly focussed on the late 19th and early 20th century in the UK but with some Irish and a smattering of mainland European courses as well. Each course has a few bits of historical documentation, usually some soothingly trivial contemporary local news reports ("[I]n matches like these the score is not the single object. The home club were, I am told, as hospitable as ever...") and occasionally some interesting accompanying photos.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, travel was becoming popular and was made easier with the improvement of road and rail networks. Golf courses were laid out near many wayside railway halts and country beauty spots. Many of the original courses were laid out haphazardly rather than constructed to a plan; with few artificial bunkers they relied on “natural hazards” ... Unfortunately some of the courses enjoyed only brief success, tragically curtailed in many cases by the two World Wars. Clubs which began with such optimism and commitment on the part of their founding members were forced to close when those members went to war, or when the land itself was needed for the war effort....

Perhaps the saddest fact is that some of these courses disappeared so quickly. The planning, fund raising and layout can be obliterated and forgotten in an amazingly short time. Once thriving and successful clubs quietly sank into oblivion, in some cases in the space of a year or two, and can now only be remembered by a handful of people, if at all. This is an attempt to preserve and record something of some of those clubs and courses, so that they may be remembered for their part in the history of the sport, before they are forgotten forever.
posted by Dim Siawns (3 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is the kind of ephemera I come for, thank you for this.
posted by Think_Long at 8:29 AM on May 6, 2021


This couldn't be more up my alley. Thanks for posting!
posted by holmesian at 10:08 AM on May 6, 2021


Ephemeral seems exactly how golf courses should be, as opposed to the monstrosities we have, taking up what little park land we have.

It seems more sporting to just use the existing landscape.
posted by eustatic at 2:05 AM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


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