The Salem, Ohio and State College, Pa. clubs each began as 9-hole facilities and later expanded to 18 holes. Centre Hills added a third 9-hole course in 1993. Both clubs can also boast of visits by U.S. Presidents—Warren G. Harding played Salem in the early 1920s, while Dwight D. Eisenhower played Centre Hills during a visit with his brother, Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, who was then president of Penn State.
Salem (Ohio) Golf Club celebrated its centennial July 24 with a golf tournament, followed by a cookout and fireworks, the (Lisbon, Ohio) Morning Journal reported.
“We’re proud of our long history and still thrilled about being part of the community and looking forward to our next 100 years,” SGC General Manager Rick Evans said.
The property holds a lot of history, both public and personal, for the community, the members and the employees, the Morning Journal reported. Take for example Jim Hippely, member and retired Head Groundskeeper who still assists in the care of the course in his 80s. The Salem High School Class of 1957 graduate started caddying at the 9-hole course at the age of 10 in 1949, then got the opportunity to work in the pro shop. After high school, he started working on the course itself, leaving briefly for four years for the city parks & recreation department. He came back to work at SGC in 1968 when the back nine holes were added.
“I think it’s great we’re still here. Best club in my opinion,” he said.
Another longtime employee can be found behind the bar, the Morning Journal reported. Patsy Hardy has been pouring drinks in the lounge for 41 years. The staff includes 16 full-time and 30 part-time employees working in the clubhouse, the swimming pool, keeping the grounds or managing the golf course. Tobin Lane is the Golf Course Superintendent and Glenn Huston is the Head Chef.
Golf Pro Tom Atchison, who’s been there seven years, told the Morning Journal it’s a great facility with a great course layout. He said the members make the facility.
“Not many clubs in the United States can say they’re celebrating 100 years,” he commented on the milestone, adding “it’s a hidden gem.”
Evans, who joined the staff three years ago, has worked in Columbus and California, but grew up just outside Mansfield, the Morning Journal reported. SGC boasts 300-plus members, including families with four generations represented. Jean McCulloch is the oldest member at a young 96.
A press release prepared by Evans recounting the highlights of the past 100 years explained that founders of the club (including Harold Brian, Charles Brooks, Ralph Campbell, G. Ramsden Deming, William H. Dunn, Charles Gibson, C. D. Harris, W. D. McKeefrey, William Mullins and Fred Pow) researched numerous potential sites for their new venture, including Salem Country Club and the old Polo Field on North Ellsworth before settling on what was known as the ‘Timothy Gee’ farm south, the Morning Journal reported. The Hawkins family agreed to sell approximately 100 acres with natural springs, a creek and a pond set among hills. This location was deemed to be worth $100,000 by noted early golf professional, Bertie Way,” the press release said.
Work on the course, overseen by RW McCallum, began in November 1921, with the original nine holes laid out and ready for play in summer 1922, the Morning Journal reported. The first official tournament took place over Memorial Day 1922, with 60 players taking part and prizes for both men and women. G.R. Deming was the winner.
Evans told the Morning Journal there’s talk about recreating that first tournament on Memorial Day weekend 2022, using the old-fashioned golf clubs of the era.
President Warren G. Harding played the course in the early 1920’s with his close personal friend, Salem News publisher Louis Brush, and Salem resident Joseph M. Kelley, presenting Kelley with his putter, which now hangs on the wall at the club, the Morning Journal reported.
Emmet French, runner-up to Gene Sarazen in the 1922 PGA Championship, set the SGC first course record of 77 at an exhibition in August 1923, the Morning Journal reported. The runner-up, Joseph Wells, shot a 79 after just setting the course record at the Portage Country Club with a 67.
Other history markers include the brick home of Glenn and Esther Hawkins, who sold the property to the SGC, serving as the first clubhouse until 1953, when the original Gee barn was converted into the new (present) clubhouse under the leadership of club presidents Joseph Kelley and Al Parker, the Morning Journal reported. The swimming pool was added in 1968 and the pool’s makers said it’s their longest operating pool still in existence.
The clubhouse saw a major addition in 1972, additional construction in 1976 and a major renovation and reconstruction in the late 1980s, the Morning Journal reported.
Through the years, adjacent property was purchased and now the club covers 197-plus acres, the Morning Journal reported. Work began on the second nine holes, designed by Robert Simmons, with play beginning in late 1968 although they weren’t officially ready until spring 1969.
Some of the original barn can still be seen, with two horse stalls used for seating and some of the original barn beams still in use in the upper and lower tea rooms on the first floor, the Morning Journal reported. The ballroom on the second floor had been the main hay loft.
Handpainted silk Gracie wallpaper in the formal dining room on the first floor was recently restored and the room has been renamed the Centennial Room, the Morning Journal reported. There’s also the grill room, the pro shop, locker rooms and lots of history within the walls.
“This has an ambience that just isn’t available anywhere else for miles,” Evans said.
To the East, a group of business leaders in State College, Pa.—as well as faculty and administrators from the Pennsylvania State College—met to establish the incorporation of Centre Hills Country Club in 1921, statecollege.com reported. One hundred years later, Centre Hills is honoring its roots, even as it continues to adapt and evolve with the changing times.
In honor of its centennial year, the club had a new logo designed by Lee Wybranski, who has designed logos for country clubs like Merion, Oakmont, and Torrey Pines, statecollege.com reported. The new logo features a rendering of the red covered bridge on the Jones Nine.
Plans for a centennial celebration have been hampered by COVID concerns, General Manager Paul Smith said, but as restrictions ease, the club hopes to host a large event in the late summer or early fall, statecollege.com reported.
As it enters its next century, Smith told statecollege.com the club must consider ways it can be more of a year-round facility for its members, perhaps by adding fitness facilities and/or indoor golf simulators. To that end, board member Paul Tomczuk said they are looking to engage members in forming a long-range master facilities plan.
“This is extremely exciting for the future of the club,” he said. “I can’t tell you what that future is going to look like, but I know it’s going to look like whatever the current members want it to look like.”
In the beginning, the club gathered 60 investors to purchase 65 acres of farmland from Safarious and Anna Rafsnyder for $6,000, statecollege.com reported. The founders hired Alexander Findlay–known as the “Father of American Golf” for his role in popularizing the game in the United States–to design a nine-hole course on the farmland. An on-site barn built in 1845 was transformed into a clubhouse, featuring large gathering spaces as well as dormitory accommodations for up to 32 overnight guests.
Newsletters from those early years paint a picture of a vibrant social club, offering monthly dances, weekly ladies’ days (featuring bridge games with “plenty of room to sew and chat”), family picnics, Sunday teas, and, of course, golf, statecollege.com reported. The club strongly encouraged members to try the game, with an April 1923 newsletter imploring: “The game of golf is on the grow. Let’s have Centre Hills among the pacesetters. The objective is ‘Every member a golfer.’”
Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States during the same years his brother, Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, was president of Penn State, statecollege.com reported. While visiting his brother in May of 1953, the golf-loving POTUS played a round at Centre Hills. According to club lore, the president became the first person to use a newly constructed tee box on number four, landing his shot on the green with a five-wood.
At the time of Eisenhower’s visit, Centre Hills was still a nine-hole course, but it was looking to expand, statecollege.com reported. In 1956, the board purchased large tracts of farmland in Ferguson Township, with the intention of relocating the club and building an 18-hole course. However, those plans fell through in 1961, when the members voted against moving the club.
In 1964, the club purchased land from the Kissinger family and hired Robert Trent Jones Sr. to design a second nine holes across from the Findlay Nine, statecollege.com reported. Completed in 1967, the long, relatively flat Jones Nine is a distinctly different style than the narrow, hilly, slightly shorter Findlay course.
In 1993, the club added the Clark Nine, with its own separate entrance in College Township, statecollege.com reported. This location also features a driving range and a large practice area.
Tom Hanna was Centre Hills’ head pro from 1977 to 1985. He later worked as the Director of Golf and Head Golf Coach at the University of Maryland, before retiring to State College in 2016 and becoming a member of the club where he once worked, statecollege.com reported.
“The improvements to the golf course since I left were amazing. They upgraded the bunkers, they converted to bent grass, and our fairways are as good as any fairways you’ll see on the PGA Tour on TV,” he said. “The greens protect our course. The course record [63, held by Hanna himself] was set in 1978, and it hasn’t been broken since. It’s a tribute to the golf course that it’s not easy.”
Tomczuk agrees.
“Under Superintendent Steve Craig, who is in his third year here, I would say we have raised the conditioning of this course to a championship level,” he says. “But the biggest benefit by far is accessibility. You can literally walk out onto the first tee and play at almost any time. There are no tee times, and it’s never crowded. Access to the course is unparalleled. There is nothing like it around.”
Through the years, Centre Hills members have proven somewhat reluctant to stray from tradition, statecollege.comreported. In 2002, when it became clear that the clubhouse was no longer structurally sound, the board proposed building a new clubhouse at the Clark Nine site, but–reminiscent of their vote to stay put in 1961–the members voted to raze the old clubhouse and rebuild it in the same location.
Today, the clubhouse holds a boardroom and office space on the top floor; a pub, large event space, and small outdoor patio on the main level; and locker rooms, the “grill room,” and a large outdoor patio on the lower level, statecollege.com reported. In the grill room, the club honors its history with large wooden plaques hanging on the walls, listing club champions, hole-in-one makers, and winners of major club tournaments.
The swimming pool is the same pool that was built in 1932, although it has been upgraded with the addition of a wading pool, expanded dining and sunbathing areas, and a new pool café, statecollege.com reported. The two tennis courts have remained in the same spot next to the ninth green since their construction in 1934, but they also have changed with the times, most recently with the addition of pickleball courts.
The club has evolved in other important ways, too, statecollege.com reported. Early newsletters refer to “members and their wives,” without even a remote consideration that a woman could be a member in her own right. Of course, today, women are able to join as full members. In addition, according to a 1948 Rules Handbook, the golf course was reserved for men only during certain hours on weekends and holidays, something Hanna said continued until the mid-1980s.
“[Members] Marilyn and Bob Mitinger finally got the rules changed. It was the right thing to do,” Hanna said.
More recent rule changes include allowing jeans to be worn into the clubhouse, and allowing children to eat in the grill room, statecollege.com reported. It’s all part of a national trend of country clubs becoming more casual and family-friendly, said Smith.
Smith, who spent 30 years running yacht clubs, beach clubs, and country clubs in New York and Connecticut, told statecollege.com the industry is changing drastically.
“Time has become so important to people, whereas in the old days, people used to show up at the club and spend all day there–have lunch, play 18 holes of golf, play cards, have dinner. Nowadays, people don’t have that kind of time,” he said.
The focus has started shifting more toward food and beverage service, Smith told statecollege.com—a shift that actually took the Centre Hills board by surprise five years ago, when a survey showed that the majority of the membership listed dining as a priority over golf or any of the other services of the club.
“My position was created from that survey,” said Jamie Ryan, the club’s Membership and Events Director. “It showed a big shift from when the average age of the club was 60-something and golf was the number one priority. Now, we are getting a lot more young families, so we’re trying to include more family-oriented things.”
Even so, Tomczuk told statecollege.com the pandemic nudged the needle back toward golf a bit.
“Interest in golf was waning, but with COVID-19, we had a record number of rounds in 2020,” he said. “That’s across the entire industry; all clubs saw that spike. The question is whether that spike will continue as things open back up.”
The club adapted to the pandemic by offering family-style curbside meals, hosting wine tastings via Zoom, and renting outdoor heaters and a large tent to cover the front patio during the fall, allowing for comfortable and safe outdoor dining, statecollege.com reported.
“The pandemic was almost a blessing for us,” said Smith. “People didn’t want to go downtown or to other restaurants to eat, but they felt comfortable coming here. We were busy, busy, busy, because people knew that we were following the right protocols and that the club was safe.”
Centre Hills employs more than 100 people during the summer months, ranging from servers to lifeguards to greenskeepers to tennis instructors, statecollege.com reported. It has about 20 year-round employees, including Ryan, Smith, and Executive Chef Brandin Gray.
Some employees stay for decades, statecollege.com reported. Office Manager Lisa Byers has been with the club for 41 years. Jeb Boyle served as the Head Professional for 33 years before retiring in 2020. The club recently hired Sean Farren to take his place.
“Jeb was the consummate pro’s pro—the classiest professional you’ll ever find,” said Tomczuk. “But bringing in Sean has brought in fresh ideas. He was a pro at an extremely prestigious club in Long Island. His reputation alone is going to improve Centre Hills’ reputation and bring in more interest in golf.”
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