In the late 1800’s, Louis Keller and his friends escaped to the Jersey countryside on the weekends, and in 1895 Keller had the foresight to found a golf club for himself and others from Manhattan. The club’s name was a combination of the first and last name of the land’s owner, a Dutch farmer, Baltus Roll. The original clubhouse, a converted farmhouse, was destroyed in a fire in 1909, and one of the club’s members, Chester H. Kirk, designed the massive Tudor revival-style clubhouse that we know today. Baltusrol’s “Old Course” hosted 5 USGA Championships, including the 1901 Women’s Amateur, before A.W. Tillinghast decided in 1919 that the Old Course be plowed over and two new courses be carved from the land. Baltusrol member, Emma Leavitt-Morgan (Mrs. W. Fellowes Morgan), was a WMGA founder and the first president of the WMGA.

Beginning in the 1880’s, Lakewood, NJ, with its slightly warmer climate, became a winter destination from October through December for wealthy New Yorkers, including George Jay Gould and John D. Rockefeller.  The Golf Club of Lakewood was organized in 1894 and soon afterwards the Ocean County Hunt and Country Club was founded. In 1902 the Ocean County Hunt and CC merged with the Golf Club of Lakewood and was renamed the Country Club of Lakewood. Its members purchased the Hyer Farm, where they developed a new golf course that was ready to play in 1903, and that’s where the Lakewood Country Club is now located. However, in the 1920’s the wealthy began traveling down South by train and car in the winter, and by 1937 most of the large Lakewood estates were sold and Lakewood lost its appeal as the golf playground for New Yorkers. (lakewoodcountryclubnj.com)

Englewood Golf Club in New Jersey began as a nine-hole course in 1896 and expanded to 18 holes in 1900. It hosted the US Amateur in 1906 and the US Open in 1909, and that was the last time it hosted a major event.  While celebrities such as Buddy Hackett, Joey Bishop and Rocky Graziano could often be found out on the course, its days were numbered. I-95 eventually split the club into two and in 1976 the club closed and condos and houses replaced fairways and greens. (nj.com)

It all began when a Yale graduate, Julian Curtiss, who worked for Spalding sports equipment (he would later become its President), became interested in golf. Julian, his brother and a neighbor combined some of their properties to create a five-hole golf course. It expanded to nine holes in 1895 when a local landowner, Warren Smith, donated some land and the Fairfield County Golf Club officially opened. Then when Edmund Converse, a banker and industrialist, moved to Greenwich and became the president of the Fairfield County GC, the course expanded to 18 holes in 1908 and a year later was renamed the Greenwich Country Club. (greenwichlibrary.org)

Five years after it opened as the Hillside Tennis Club in Plainfield, NJ, a nine-hole golf course was built. Golf was growing in popularity in the United States, and Scotsman Tom Bendelow was hired to design an 18-hole course that at 5,239 yards would prove to be too short for the newer golf balls of the early 1900’s. In 1904, Hillside became Plainfield Country Club, and in 1916 the club bought another 60 acres and hired Donald Ross to add yardage to the course. Instead, Ross convinced the club to let him build an entirely new course, and after some WWI interruptions, his layout opened in 1921. Nine of Bendelow’s 18 holes exist today as Plainfield’s CC’s “West Nine.” (plainfieldcc.com)

From its beginning in 1894, Morris County was a unique club that was planned, organized and operated by women. This was extraordinary in a time when a woman’s place was to run a house and not a golf club. Mrs. William Shippen, a WMGA founder and the organization’s first vice-president, was one of the women who established the Morris County Golf Club. The women granted honorary membership to clergy and allowed 200 men, mainly fathers and husbands, in as associate members, thinking they would “make good caddies.”  (morriscgc.com) 

It was four men and four women who organized the New Brunswick Golf Club in 1894 in NJ. In 1897 Ross Hall, where George Washington headquartered after the Battle of Monmouth, became the clubhouse for the club. That same year a nine-hole course was built and by 1912 the club had enough money to purchase an additional 118 acres. Unfortunately, the club succumbed to bankruptcy during the Depression, and Rutgers purchased the club for $15,000 in 1935. (ipo.rutgers.edu)

It was a Newburgh businessman, Homer Ramsdell, who organized the Powelton Lawn Tennis Club and in April of 1892, the Powelton Club was incorporated. Originally, baseball, croquet, bicycling and tennis were the club’s official activities, and then Mrs. Ramsdell’s mother-in-law, Maude, designed a 5-hole golf course. As golf continued to increase in popularity, so did the size of the golf course, and by 1896, Powelton had nine holes. In 1899, the club joined the MGA and WMGA, and in 1921 Devereaux Emmet was hired to design an 18-hole golf course that opened in 1926. The original clubhouse burned to the ground in 1929, and a new one was constructed in 1930. (powelton.com)

Originally called the Rockaway Hunt Club, it was founded in the Bayswater section of Far Rockaway, NY, in 1878 and it is the oldest country club in the United States. Golf was not yet on the scene as sporting activities focused on one Steeplechase event (horse race) every year and fox and hound hunts. By 1884, residential construction forced a move to its present location in Lawrence, where members built a clubhouse overlooking Reynolds Channel, Long Beach, a polo field and a four-mile steeplechase course. Its golf course, a Scottish links design, was constructed in 1900 by Tom Bendelow and redesigned in the 1920’s by A.W. Tillinghast. (rhcny.com)

In 1891, 44 individuals purchased shares in Shinnecock Hills Golf Club for $100 each, and the proceeds were enough to build the course and  clubhouse, designed by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White. The original golf course was twelve holes and designed by Willie Davis; it expanded to 18 holes in 1895. One of the founding members to purchase shares was Janet Hoyt, mother of Beatrix Hoyt, who at that time was 11-years-old. Beatrix would become a founder of the WMGA and served on its original executive committee. Dubbed “America’s Young Tom Morris,” Beatrix was a three-peat winner of the Women’s Amateur, 1896-1898, with two of those wins at WMGA founding clubs: Morris County GC (1896) and Ardsley CC (1898). When Shinnecock hosted the Women’s Am in 1900, Beatrix won medalist honors, but lost to Margaret Curtis in the semifinals. (usga.org)

One of New Jersey’s first golf clubs was the Nutley Golf Club in 1894, and its name changed to the Yountakah (Yantacaw) Country Club in 1899 when the course expanded to 18 holes. It took its new name from the Lenni Lenape (local Indian tribe) word for “gathering place.” The course had seven holes and the clubhouse on one side of Kingsland Road and the other 11 holes were across the street. WMGA legend, Maureen Orcutt of White Beeches, won several of her amateur titles at Yountakah. Financial difficulties led to the club closing in 1943. (nutleyhistoricalsociety.org)