Where Did Country Clubs Come From?

The Fried Egg Golf Podcast

thefriedegg.com

Golf, Sports

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The late 1800s saw the invention of an important institution: the American country club. This week’s U.S. Open venue, The Country Club in Brookline, was the first—or at least one of the first. By the beginning of the 20th century, most major cities east of Chicago had several golf-focused clubs. What were the reasons for this proliferation? And what can we learn from the origins of country-club life in America? To get some answers, Garrett Morrison talks to Richard J. (“Pete”) Moss, a retired history professor and the author of the excellent Golf and the American Country Club.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Mr. Green, for example. I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
0:05.0	And when I find my ball in a Friday egg.
0:07.0	Friday. The dreaded Friday.
0:09.0	Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. Friday.
0:11.0	Friday. Friday. I'm about ready to run off the golf course course.
0:30.0	Hello and welcome to the Friday podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison.
0:40.0	And today we're talking about how and why country club life started in America.
0:45.0	So the US open is at the country club in Brookline this week.
0:50.0	And Brookline is often said to be the nation's first country club.
0:54.0	Now, I'm not sure how accurate that claim is.
0:57.0	But it was definitely one of the first.
1:00.0	It's been active since the early 1880s.
1:02.0	And it's offered golf since the early 1890s.
1:05.0	Before that period, there just weren't many places like it in America.
1:10.0	By the end of the 1800s though, it was a different story.
1:14.0	The 1890s in particular saw an explosion of golf focused clubs in the US.
1:19.0	And I've often wondered why this happened then.
1:23.0	Why was it that about 130 years ago?
1:26.0	Americans suddenly wanted to go out and form country clubs and play golf.
1:31.0	Well, the best answers to that question that I found are in a book called Golf
1:36.0	and the American Country Club, which was written about 15 years ago by Richard J. Moss.
1:41.0	Yeah, but believe it or not, everybody calls me Pete.
	...

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