The Cambridge, Wis., property has grown from a five-hole golf course in a pasture to a club with more than 400 golf members. The centennial is being celebrated with various events throughout the year, and the staff is unearthing historic photos, letters, and memorabilia.
Lake Ripley Country Club (LRCC) in Cambridge, Wis., is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, the Madison-based Wisconsin State Journal reported.
LRCC has grown from its humble beginnings—a five-hole course in a pasture—to a thriving club with more than 400 golf members, despite a recent economy that has not always been kind to either golf or country clubs, the State Journal reported.
The centennial this year at LRCC is being celebrated with various events at the club, and the staff has used the occasion to unearth historic photos, letters, menus and other memorabilia to help document the club’s story. Truth is, at LRCC, there is a more or less seamless connection between present and past. A longtime cook at the club, Aaron Amundson, is the grandnephew of A. R. Amundson, an LRCC founder, the State Journal reported.
General Manager Greg Engelstad and Food & Beverage Manager Julie Mickelson each have a long history at Lake Ripley. Engelstad has been in his position nearly 20 years; Mickelson has been at the club close to 30. Julie’s dad was the General Manager in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and held the job when LRCC celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1965, the State Journal reported.
The current membership is a mix of young and old. Engelstad is particularly gratified that the club’s close attention to its junior program has resulted in many of those juniors becoming members as adults, and introducing their own children to golf, the State Journal reported.
A man named Jim Goers, an LRCC member for close to 50 years, and an excellent golfer who has shot his age (87) or better more than 1,000 times. Goers is part of a longstanding group of LRCC golfers who refer to themselves as “the syndicate,” men who arrive at the club sometime around noon most days, pair into foursomes and head out. The syndicate actually predated Goers. It started at LRCC in the 1940s, with a group of guys, either retired or able to shake loose on weekdays, who liked to bet, banter and play fast, the State Journal reported.
“To this day you better stay out of their way,” Engelstad said.
The membership has always included people who live outside of the Cambridge area and have second homes on Lake Ripley. A 1938 State Journal story was headlined, “Lake Ripley Offers Ideal Summer Homes, Resorts,” and noted that the area drew visitors from Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison. The piece included a photo of the LRCC clubhouse, and this: “Less than one-fourth mile from the shores of Lake Ripley, the Lake Ripley Country Club offers one of the best 18-hole golf courses in southern Wisconsin.”
Plans for the 18-hole course began a decade prior to that article’s publication, in 1927, according to the 1932 State Journal article. “On September 12, 1927,” the article noted, “a special meeting of the stockholders was held and voted to enlarge the course to 18 holes and to build a clubhouse.”
A dozen years earlier, 15 Cambridge businessmen ponied up $200 each and leased 30 acres of land from a farmer named John Porter. A rough five-hole golf course was established. “In 1917,” the State Journal story continued, “two more holes were added, and the incorporation of the club took place.” In ensuing years the leased property was purchased, along with additional adjacent acres, making the 1927 decision to expand to 18 holes possible, the State Journal reported.
By 1931, according to the article, the course and clubhouse (portions of the original still exist today) were in place. “The dedication of the new clubhouse took place on June 14,” the story noted. “Forty players entered the blind bogie tournament which officially opened the new course that day.”
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