Post by gforce41 on Apr 12, 2024 9:57:48 GMT -5
Anyone in the greater Boston area knows Newton Commonwealth Golf Club. The course is often billed as a “Donald Ross”, but the course history is complicated and filled with additions, subtractions, and alterations. Once a former private country club, it descended into hacker status when sold and turned into a public course after hitting financial difficulty in the 60s into the 70s. Unfortunately, along with the sale of the club, came sale of surrounding land, which dramatically shrunk the available land for the course and impacted multiple holes.
When I played it fairly often in the mid to late 1990s, I couldn't help but wonder what the full course was once like. There is very, very little public information or photographs of the old course.
So one cold night in January, I decided, what heck, why not take a look? I found a source of old aerial photos and was fairly stunned by what I had found. I realized the course extended all the way down to Chandler Pond...I instantly saw 3 if not 4 “lost holes” as well as some of the familiar favorites that still exist to this day. I struggled to figure out what the routing could possibly have been and what the seemingly random green near what is now the 10 the hole area was…heyyyy, this was getting interesting!
Eager to find out more, I hit the Boston Globe archives and Digital Commonwealth online.
The Globe turned out an article that floored me…in 1941, there was a well-publicized Charity “Grudge Match” between… BABE RUTH AND TY COBB! Are you kidding me? I found a few pictures via Digital Commonwealth….and it WAS GAME ON!
Therefore, I am happy to report that my now well-underway Work In Progress is a digital recreation of the former Commonwealth Country Club (now known as Newton Commonwealth Golf Course) in its fully expanded form, which the Babe played Cobb on in 1941!
Photo is courtesy of Digital Commonwealth
Copyright (c) Leslie Jones.
All rights reserved.
When I played it fairly often in the mid to late 1990s, I couldn't help but wonder what the full course was once like. There is very, very little public information or photographs of the old course.
So one cold night in January, I decided, what heck, why not take a look? I found a source of old aerial photos and was fairly stunned by what I had found. I realized the course extended all the way down to Chandler Pond...I instantly saw 3 if not 4 “lost holes” as well as some of the familiar favorites that still exist to this day. I struggled to figure out what the routing could possibly have been and what the seemingly random green near what is now the 10 the hole area was…heyyyy, this was getting interesting!
Eager to find out more, I hit the Boston Globe archives and Digital Commonwealth online.
The Globe turned out an article that floored me…in 1941, there was a well-publicized Charity “Grudge Match” between… BABE RUTH AND TY COBB! Are you kidding me? I found a few pictures via Digital Commonwealth….and it WAS GAME ON!
Therefore, I am happy to report that my now well-underway Work In Progress is a digital recreation of the former Commonwealth Country Club (now known as Newton Commonwealth Golf Course) in its fully expanded form, which the Babe played Cobb on in 1941!
Photo is courtesy of Digital Commonwealth
Copyright (c) Leslie Jones.
All rights reserved.