Newport Country Club

Newport Country Club Clubhouse, ca. 1897

Newport Country Club, ca. 2010

Newport Country Club, founded in 1893, is a historic private golf club in Newport, Rhode Island, that hosted both the first U.S. Amateur Championship and the first U.S. Open in 1895.

History

Theodore Havemeyer, a wealthy sportsman whose family owned the American Sugar Company, played the game of golf on a trip to Pau in the south of France in 1889 and returned to his summer home in Newport, RI excited about its future. In 1890 he and his friends rented some property on the old Castle Hill Farm and played golf on a primitive course. He convinced a few pals from the summer colony's social elite, men such as John Jacob Astor IV, Perry Belmont and Cornelius Vanderbilt II, - to purchase the 140-acre Rocky Farm property for $80,000 and establish the golf club in 1893.^[1] At the time of the club's founding, Newport was at the peak of its prestige as the favorite summer colony of America's wealthy elite. The city had thus established one of America's earliest golf clubs since the sport was played almost exclusively by the rich when it was first introduced to the United States. The primitive course that they played upon in 1890 was bought roughly 30 years later and is where the 2nd through 8th holes currently are on. ^[2]

Tournaments

Anxious to host national competitions, Havemeyer invited the country's best amateurs to his new course for a championship in 1894. That December, Havemeyer held a meeting at New York City's Calumet Club with representatives from four other clubs: St. Andrew's Golf Club in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY; Shinnecock Hills Golf Club; The Country Club in Brookline, MA; and the Chicago Golf Club. These clubs agreed to form the Amateur Golf Association, the forefather of the United States Golf Association. In October 1895, Newport Country Club hosted both the first U.S. Amateur Championship and the first U.S. Open. In 1995, in celebration of the U.S. Amateur Championship centennial, the club hosted the 1995 U.S. Amateur Championship, which was won by Tiger Woods. To this day, the U.S. Amateur champion is awarded the Havemeyer Trophy.^[3] It was also the venue of the 2006 U.S. Women's Open, which was won by Annika Sörenstam.^[4]

Course

A nine-hole course was designed in 1894 by William Davis, the club's first professional, and later expanded to 18 holes in 1899, again by Davis. This 2nd nine was long thought to be designed by Donald Ross, but a recent discovery (2013) of an original scorecard (1899) rebuked Ross' work. This information is in the recently written club history. In 1923, A.W. Tillinghast, famous for such designs as Winged Foot Golf Club, Baltusrol Golf Club, Bethpage Black and the San Francisco Golf Club, was hired to remodel the course layout. Since 1995, restoration on some of the course has been completed by Ron Forse.

Clubhouse

Whitney Warren designed the classic, Beaux Arts style clubhouse on a largely barren farm overlooking Brenton Point in 1895. Warren's only other major Newport project at the time was a home for his sister, Edith. This mansion, which overlooks Bailey's Beach and completed in 1900, was called High Tide. Michelle Wie stayed here for the week of the 2006 U.S. Women's Open. The clubhouse went under extensive renovation in 2005.

Scorecard

	HOLE	BLACK	BLACK HCP	RED	WHITE	RED/WHITE HCP	PAR	BLUE HCP	BLUE
1	The First	459	1	480	442	15	4/5	11	427
2	The Cop	410	15	366	352	11	4	9	341
3	Ocean	347	17	328	312	17	4	15	228
4	Graves Point	242	7	220	209	5	3	7	181
5	Polo Shed	451	5	422	411	1	4	1	347
6	Lookout	418	11	383	359	9	4	13	287
7	Long Meadow	596	9	553	512	7	5	5	454
8	Willows	192	13	177	164	13	3	17	155
9	Orchard	464	3	422	406	3	4	3	381
OUT		3579		3351	3167		35/36		2801
10	Quarry	572	16	528	517	14	5	14	477
11	Harbour	321	18	298	289	18	4	18	245
12	Valley	463	2	477	436	16	4/5	10	396
13	Club	188	14	151	137	12	3	16	123
14	Plateau	209	10	189	172	6	3	12	159
15	Brenton Reef	447	4	411	403	2	4	2	391
16	Island	362	12	352	321	8	4	6	311
17	Pond	466	6	441	387	4	4	4	380
18	Home	420	8	379	365	10	4	8	318
IN		3448		3226	3027		35/36		2800
TOT		7027		6577	6194		70/72		5601

	SLOPE	INDEX
BLACK	134	74.9
RED	127	72.2
WHITE	121	70.6
WOMEN
BLUE	126	73.0
WHITE	134	76.7

U.S.G.A. rules govern all play.

References

↑ http://www.projo.com/golf/content/projo_20060627_history.524ce5d.html
↑ Harper's magazine, Volume 95 Harper's Magazine Co., 1897, pg. 706
↑ http://www.projo.com/golf/content/projo_20060627_history.524ce5d.html
↑ Richard J. Moss, Golf and the American country club: Sport and Society (University of Illinois Press, 2001), pg 39

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