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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1990-09-12, Page 3Fish on This Saturday, Somber 15, the Seaforth Golf and Country will be cekbraungto grand style fur two reasons. This year narks the 30th 'birthday' of the Seaforth district club, open in 1960, and this weekend will also mane the opututg of the facility's five new holes. The unique 13 -hole count is all grown up now, with 18 full holes to save area golfers. The Seaforth Golf and Country Club has a nch history, having grown up with the community for throe decades now. But golf was around in Scaforth long before the Doig family thought about opening up the greens in Tuckersniith Township. In fact, the game of golf was around in Canada long before it made it big derm in the States. The hardy Sco were duffing around the moors often enough to have golf declared the 'rational sport' way back in 1425. It took about 400 more years for "fore" to be heard in Canada, but it is believed that the country's first golfers were the fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. By 1896, the Royal Canadian Golf As- sociation was established in Canada with less than 10 clubs. And early in the 20th century, Seaforth opened its own links. The area's first official 9 -hole golf club was located on the 40 acres of McKillop Township sand and gravel owned by one Thomas Dodds. Mr. Dodds charged a meas- ly 50 cents a day in green fees, and with his eagle eyes welded to his field glasses, kept a sharp lookout for non-paying golfers while at the same time minding his sheep which pastured on the course. Another thing that Mr. Dodds kept an eye peeled for was Sunday golfers. These were taboo on his land. This put a bit of a crimp in the locals' form, and the Seaforth Golf Club made a fruitless bid to buy the land from Mr. Dodds so that they could open the greens for Sunday duffers. The God-fearing Mr. Dodds refused to budge, and six -day -a -week golfing was suffered through for a few more years. In 1934, the Seaforth golf Hol- ding Corporation bought the Case farm, just east of the present-day Seaforth Community Hospital. A tricky 36 -par 9 -hole course was built on the site, and a bustling clubhouse with catered meals and services made the.Seaforth Golf and Country Club one of the local hot spots. The Club's glory days began dimming during the Second World War, and the mortgage on the club was sold shortly after the war. Several attempts were made to repurchase the club, but to no avail. the greens The organization disbanded. Local golfers were left with no local choice, and wuc forged to travel to courses in Mitchell, Bayfield and Goderic:h for the neat number of years. But along came 1960, and along came tate Doig family . Living on then fano out is Tuck- ersnuth Township, dust outset of Seaforth, the two Doig brothers - Ken and Rod - started looking at their land in a different light. Ken had become an avid and com- petitive golfer while living in Scot- land, and h3oked younger brother Rod onto the sport during a visit hone. Ken returned to live in Seaforth, and a trip to the Ontario Open Golf Championship in Fon Erie really opened the brothers' eyes. The course, the Cherry Hill Golf Course, was flat. As flat as their Tuckersrruth acreage. The lights started to go on. One of the joys of the work was rock picking. And more rock picking. And when that was done, there were rocks to be picked. The Doig brothers began planning the construction of a golf course, and in 1961 the sod was turned. The late Frank Kling was very gung-ho on the project and donated all of the bulldozing work, keeping bulldozer operator Joe Nigh hop- ping. The Doig brothers really seemed to know what they were doing. The wonderful thing was, neither brother knew the first thing about building a golf ,;ourse. Ken and Rod managed to keep this under their hats, though, and the golf course construction clipped along. With just a bit of trial and error. One of the joys of the work was rock picking. And more rock pick- ing. And when that was done, there were rocks to be picked. With the growth of the Seaforth Golf and Country Club over the years, the Doigs and their friends have seen their families raise an entire generation of rock pickers. With_gic eighteenth Hole now open, that legacy may have come to an end. The first golfers braved the new Seaforth Golf and Country Club in 1962, forking over a 50 cent green fee which bought them the privilege of hunting for the greens in the rock -filled course and rough fair - 1 THE CLUBHOUSE IN ITS INFANCY as seen from an aerial photograph, taken early in the Club's 30 -year history. THE HURON EXPOSITOR SEPTEMBER 12 19% , was all a part of building their dream ways. Will .o clubhouse le sight yet. Seaforth pilfers wort ublised to answer the call of assure widi a quick detour off of the fairway, acid refit:4 traltil carie in the fora of pop and diocolate bars peddled on the lawn. None of these isle incon- veniences B deterred the duffers, however, and the golfers just kept wrens. Tryinit to smooth out the course took a bale mors ingenuity than the Doig brothers might have unagutcd at firms. The task of c;onstrucung a three -gang roller to smooth the fairways was tackled, and the contraption was fashioned from cancan tik filled with cement and built around a steel rod. Five days later, the roller was completed and it looked as good as it had on paper. Too bad the tractor wouldn't pull the monstrous thing An added feature during the construction of the first nine holes was wildlife on the golf course Small rodents and sundries were common, but a special attraction was the many small fish that flapped around the greens when water from Silver Creek was pumped in to irngate the newly - seeded course. In 1968, pipe was laid for ir- ngation and hors d'ouevres were no longer to be found on the greens. The irrigation pipes were laid with a 1934 Case tractor and a walking plough, Paul Doig trotting along behind manning the blade. Paul Doig also availed part of his home to the club, and for a number of years the basement of his house served as a makeshift clubhouse for local golfers. Finally, in 1967, the old barn was dismantled and the main section of the present clubhouse was constructed. Ken and Rod Doig's dream has grown from its 9 -hole beginnings to its 18 -hole culmination. It may have lost its 13 -hole claim to uniqueness, but the strength of this family dream and its long-standing tradition in the Seaforth community makes it lastingly unique in its own right. 1.4* A DAY ON THE LINKS at Dodd's Farm, five -milers, north of Seaforth in McKillop Township, was enjoyed by the nattily attired David Ross, Dr. George Ross, R.J. McLauchlin and George McLauchlin sometime before 1934. Seaforth Golf and Country Club photo. The Game .of Golf Golf is a form of work made expensive enough for a rich man to enjoy. It is physical and mental exertion made attractive by the fact that you have to dress for it in a $200,000 club house. Golf is what letter -carrying, ditch -digging and carpet -beating would be if those three tasks had to be performed on the same hot afternoon in short pants and coloured socks by gouty -looking old gentlemen who required a different implement for every mood. Golf is the simplest looking game in the world when you decide to take it up, and the toughest looking after you have been at it for 10 or 12 years. It is probably the only game known that a man can play as long as a quarter of a century and then discover that it was too deep for him in the first place. The game is played on carefully selected grass with little white balls and as many clubs as the players can afford. These balls cost from 75 cents to $2.50 and it is possible to support a family of 10 people - all adults - for five months on the money represented by the balls lost by some golfers in a single atfternoon. A golf course has 18 holes, 17 of which are unnecessary, and put in to make the game harder. A "hole" is a tin cup in the centre of a "green". A "green" is a small parcel of grass costing about $1.98 a blade and usually located between a brook, a couple of apple trees and a lot of unfinished excavation. The idea is to get the golf ball from a given point into each of the 18 holes in the fewest strokes and the greatest number of words. The ball must not be thrown, pushed or carried. It must be propelled entirety by about $500 worth of curious -looking implements especially designed to provoke the owner. Each implement has a specific purpose and ultimately some golfers get to know what that purpose is. They are the exceptions. After each hole has been completed, the golfer counts his strokes. Then he subtracts six and says "made that in five. That's one above par. Should we play for fifty cents on the next hole, too?" After the final, or 18th hole, the golfer adds up his score and stops when he has reached 87. He then has a shower, a couple of beers with six or eight other liars, and calls it the end of a perfect day. -Author unknown �Y 1 :•J � r: T.•. rr '.Vl.. r r.•: r: y .1•r:.. h r.:V. .Tr• .r �. •:•r. Prison term "fitting" for pear hooligans SEPTEMBER 12, 1890 Mr. John Cumming of Eg- mondville has a sunflower stalk on which are 62 heads, and Mr. John B. Henderson of the Huron Road, Tuckersmith has one with 108 flowers. This would seem to in- dicate an abundance of hen feed this year. Mr. James McMichael had a nice young pear tree in his garden which was loaded with delicious fruit, and on Tuesday night some thievish boys or other dishonest persons visited it and carried off the first and spilt off two large branches, seriously injuring, if not entirely ruining, the tree. A term in the Central Prison would be a fitting punishment for the perpetrators of such despicable acts. We were shown a few days ago a life-size photograph of three children of Mr. James Scott, of this town. It was enlarged from an ordinary photograph by Mr. A. Calder, and is certainly a credit to 4 his artistic skill, as it is accurate, clear and life -like. We believe that Mr. Calder makes a specialty of this kind of work, and to our mind it is nicer than crayon or even oil painting. while it is very much cheaper. SEPTEMBER 10, 1915 Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Collier 01 Buffalo, cousins of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Moore of Tuckersmith, and passengers on board the ill-fated steamer 'Arabic' which was recently torpedoed by a German submarine about 60 miles off the Irish Coast, visited the Expositor office this week. Mr. Collier stated that he and his wife were on deck watching a steamer which had been torpedoed earlier in the day, when they saw the wake of the torpedo which was making directly for them, and a moment later it exploded, cutting the boat almost in two and killing a number m board. He secure a life belt for his wife and himself and they were put in IN THE YEARS AGONE from the Expositor Archives the second boat which was suc- cessfully launched, the first one capsizing and drowning a number of the occupants. it was just seven minutes from the time that they took water that the big boat sank stem foremost, and although the disaster was terribly sudden, both stated that there was absolutely no panic. In fact, it was hours after before the passengers realized the terrible predicament they had been in and their wonderful escape. They were three hours in the boats before being picked up by a war ship and taken back to Queenstown. SEPTEMBER 13, 1940 Nearly 4,000 people attended the Drumhead Service on Zone 10 Canadian Legion and Huron County Patriotic Rally, which was held in Seaforth on Sunday. The demonstration was arranged by the Seaforth Legion and the entire program from the parade until the dismissal was carried out with clockwork precision. SEPTEMBER 16, 1965 A climax to more than six year's planning, patients were moved from Scott Memorial Hospital to the new Seaforth Community Hospital this Tuesday. In a carefully worked -out schedule, the move was completed in a little less than two hours as ambulances supplied by Box Fur- niture and Whitney Furniture shut- tled between the old and new buil- dings. FOOTWEAR WAS OPTIONAL during the early days of Junior golf at the Seaforth Golf and Countryo;lub. The hats were pretty snazzy, though... COMMUNITY CALENDAR 1 if you're orgardakta a non-profit event of Intermit to other S..forth arse residents, phone the recreation office 1527-OS$2 or the Expositor at 827-0240, et testa- ehr information to Community Cawdor, The Huron Expositor, SOX 111/, liesforth, Ontario, N01C 1WO w0 In advance of the scheduled date. Fres leery includes data, time, name of event and location only. Specs for th. Community Calendar le donated by The Huron Expositor. Wed., Sept. 12 1 30-4:00 p.m. - Senior Shuffleboard at the Arena 7.00 p.m - BIA Workshop - "Keeping Business in Seaforth" - at the Town Hall 7 00-$:00 p.m. - Browne* Registra- tion, Egmondvllle U.C. 7:30 p.m. - General grngette meeting at Seaforth Arena 8:00 p.m. - Huron County Football League North Division Final Seeforth Beers vs. W niton Brewers at the Lions Park (H necessary) Sat., Sept. 15 6.00 a.m. - Lioness yard and Bake Salo at the Lion's Park Pavilion 6:00 p.m. - Seefortth Fa* Fair No and Dance at Arens - Seeforth Golf Course 30th Anniver eery Party Sun., Sept. 16 10:00-12 noon - Terry Fox Run at Van Egmond House Mon., Sept. 17 6:00-7:00 p.m. - Novice Hockey Prac- tice in Hensall 7:00-8:00 p.m. - Pee Wee Hockey Practice in Hensall 8:00-0:00 p.m. - Midget Hockey Prac- tice In Hensall Tues., Sept. 18 7 30 p.m. - ice Scheduling meeting at the Arena Wed. , Sept. 19 1:30-4:00 p m Shuffleboard et S D.C.0 6:00-7:00 p.m. - Mlle Hockey Practice In Henson 7:00-0:00 p.m Atom Hockey Prac tice in Hensen A:004:00 p.m - Bantam Hockey Proc- ne* in Hensel)