That spring, prominent members of the Mosholu Golf Club in
Riverdale, including T. McClure Peters, B.W. "Gus"
Schwab, Moses T. "Percy" Pyne, and Cleveland H.
Dodge, petitioned James A. Roosevelt, a member of the Board of
Parks Commissioners, to build a golf course in Van Cortlandt
Park. The popularity of the sport had been growing steadily
for several decades and these local businessmen had tried
unsuccessfully to find private lands within the City large
enough to accommodate a new grand-scale, fully-appointed golf
course. They knew that the only way the course of their
imagination could be realized, was under command of the City
of New York.
Unlike the City's more manicured parks, Van Cortlandt
consisted of wildly sprawling grounds that made one forget the
teeming urban landscape outside its borders. To golf
enthusiasts, the fields, tall grasses, and colorful
wildflowers of Van Cortlandt furnished the perfect spot for
the golf links, which quickly earned the nickname "The
Meadows." T. McClure Peters constructed the nine-hole
course north of Van Cortlandt Lake for a cost of $624.80. The
original layout spread over today’s 1,2,3,6,7,12,13, and 14
holes. Playing through the 2,561-yard course was relatively
easy for the first eight holes, each less than 200 yards.
Then, golfers confronted the ninth hole, with a 700-yard
fairway that crossed two stonewalls and two small brooks. The
ninth hole was among the longest and most challenging hole
ever created in the United States.
In its first year, there were no set rules at the Van
Cortlandt Golf Course, and it quickly became over-crowded.
Local newspapers blasted the poor playing conditions, the
unmanageable crowds, and a general lack of golf etiquette. As
a result, the City hired Scottish Golf Architect Thomas
Bendelow in 1899. Bendelow was to manage the course and
oversee its expansion from a 55-acre, 9-hole course to a
120-acre, 18-hole course.
Once the general public discovered the facility, it became
common for up to 700 golfers to complete the course on a
typical Saturday, Sunday or holiday. By 1920, there were an
estimated 5,000 golfers per week teeing off at Van Cortlandt.
Golfing in the Bronx continued during the Depression and World
War II. Easily accessible by both the Broadway IRT train and
the Putnam Railroad, Van Cortlandt’s links were a popular
spot for quick morning rounds. In the 1940s and 1950s,
Bendelow's course had to make way for the Major Deegan
Expressway and the Mosholu Parkway Extension. Architect
William Follet Mitchell rearranged fairways, eliminated two
hillside holes, and added four new holes west of the Putnam
Railroad line.
In the winter of 1961, Parks opened three public ski slopes
on the back hills of the course. An estimated 5,000 people
used the facility on busy winter days. Skiers only had their
fun for a few years before winter golfers reclaimed the
course. In the 1980s, the City of New York began to license
management of its thirteen golf courses to a private company.
The American Golf Corporation, which manages over 300 golfing
facilities throughout the country, has been operating Van
Cortlandt Golf Course since 1992.
Apart from being the first public course in the country,
Van Cortlandt Golf Course enjoys several other distinctions.
In 1896, the St. Andrews Golf Club hosted the country's first
public golf tournament here. And the golf house, built in
1902, has been a popular pre-and-post-game spot for nearly a
century. Its visitors have included Babe Ruth, Willie Mays,
Jackie Robinson, and Joe Louis. The Three Stooges also made
Van Cortlandt their preferred golf course. The house’s
locker rooms have retained their original wooden lockers,
which were in a scene from the Oliver Stone film Wall Street
(1987).
