How the Wiindmill Links was built and the enthusiastic way golf was started in Los Angeles was reported by Walter Grindlay [p. 8] in the July, 1898, issue of Golf, a prestigious English periodical. It added some footnotes to Tufts’ report:
“We mapped out a nine-hole course,” Grindlay wrote. “. . . The ground was as hard as the best macadam, very rough and covered with short, wiry, dried up and altogether un-putt-over-able burr clover.
“In a country where it rains in a deluge three or four times a year, and not at all the rest of the time, turf greens were obviously impossible, so we started to make . . . browns . . . but it soon became clear that the soil of California, stiffened by 10 months uninterrupted sunshine, was a very rebellious material . . . The greens are small and hard to stay on, and lies through the green are not of the best . . .
“The tees were marked out with the enameled iron ads of an enterprising tobacco merchant . . . and the youth of Los Angeles turned out and played their first games of golf.
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In 1930, Darsi L. Darsi, who brewed a popular Los Angeles golf column, The Green Tee, reported, while reviewing the history of women’s golf in Southern California, . . . that on one trip lady golfers from Los Angeles made to the island in 1898 “two parties were washed overboard (from the Catalina steamer) but saved in heroic rescue.”
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“On a Saturday afternoon” in January, 1898, the first tournament ever held in Los Angeles.
. . . It was at the May, 1898, tournament “in which the fair sex was for the first time permitted to compete.”
By the summer of 1898, the little Windmill course was overly crowded . . . key members began looking for another site [which] they found at Pico near Hobart Boulevard. . .
[p. 22] . . . the voluntary association decided to incorporate . . . 50 year tenure, to promote social intercourse through “the promoting, maintaining and enjoyment of golf and other open air sports.”
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For almost 48 years all directors’ meetings, . . . were in Sartori’s office in the Security Savings Bank, Second and Main. Most applicants for membership went to Sartori’s office to be approved or rejected by Sartori alone, for membership .
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[p. 23] The articles of incorporation were filed October 3, 1898 and were quickly approved in Sacramento.
. . . The Los Angeles Country Club’s second course, named Convent Linkss, openend bor play on September 9, 1898. It was located on a strip of vacant lots, owned by Percy F. Schumacher, extending from Washingto to Pico, and intersected by the railwas tracks running to Santa Monica. The course got its name because a big brick convent, still standing today, was on one boundary. Another neighbor was Rosedale cemetery.
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[p. 25] The railway tracks running through the course caused some difficulty and a local rule was made that any ball hit onto them was “mandatorily unplayable” with no penalty.
“This rule,” remembered Tufts, “was enforced to prevent the club from losing its members, who persistently insisted on playing out of the tracks and railroad ties, and the (railway) did not have [p. 26] the respect for golfers that they should, as their cars came by at 40 miles an hour.’
Women players had to hoist their long and cumbersome skirts as they crossed the tracks or struggled up the steep slope to Mesa’s green. Tuft’s described their clothes:
“A tiny straw hat with about a two-inch depth and a four-inch brim perched atop a mesa of hair and pierced generously with dangerous spearlike hat pins, a white shirt waist with high neck and long sleeves and a heavy gored skirt billowing to the shoe tips. An elastic contrivance was used in connection with this skirt to hold the skirts secure when making a drive. These skirts were a great handicap to women as the wind blew them about, causing interference with play.”
As for men’s golfing clothes, a reporter made these observations:
“A cursory glance over the links in the various events played this year is all that has been necessary to convince one that knickerbocker, fancy coats, silk shirts, etc., have been relegated to the background. The sensible costume to wear in playing golf we recommend as follows:
“Stout hunting shoes with nails, heavy woolen sox, a well fitting pair of long khaki trousers, a woolen shirt and a hat with brim wide enough to keep off the sun.
“If one chooses to give a little dash to the costume, a big silk handkerchief wound around the neck and knotted in front can be worn. This is a comfortable and very attractive novelty.”
One reason for the desertion of fancy knickers, long and patterned golf hose and colorful jackets probably was the condition of western courses at that time. They were either extremely dusty or muddy. The hazards were full of rocks and clods . . .
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[p. 27] . . .
The number of men and women playing golf was increasing rapidly as the 18th centruy approached its close. The January 8, [p. 28] 1898 issue of Country Club Golf . . . the tournament . . . was a revelation of the supreme futility of the game—which is not at all the frivilous and inane pastime it has been accused of being . . .
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Caddies in the early days were young boys, most of them high school youngsters but some of them less than ten years of age. The golf bags were small . . . [p. 29]
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The proposition came up, but was defeated, that caddies should be paid according to time spent on the course rather than 10 cents per nine holes.
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