The smart residential area of Los Angeles in the 1880s and 1890s was the West Adams district and Tufts got a half dozen of the younger male residents interested in the new fangled game. They organized a voluntary organization, the Los Angeles Golf Club. Mark S. Severance was elected president and Conde Jones secretary. Tufts became the one-man handicapper and Sartori was chairman of the Green committee, a euphimism if there ever was on since there was hardly a green weed, let alone a blade of grass, on the area selected for Los Angeles’ first golf links.
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Coronado probably started in late 1896 or early 1897, was the posh California winter vacation resort for wealthy easterners and mid-westerners. One of its most regular and enthusiastic visitors was A.G. Spalding who was to become a dominant figure in the manufacture of golf clubs and balls. It was reported that Spalding “insisted upon fine golf” and in 1898 Coronado got the first grass greens in Southern California.