1922 Sign

     It’s hard to believe, but in 1922 there was a golf course in Oysterville.  As I understand it, our garden was part of it, as was the meadow between our house and the bay as well as the undeveloped property to the north and south which was where my grandfather’s dairy herd sometimes grazed.  It was the only golf course on the peninsula and, as far as I know, it was the first.
     The course was laid out by my uncles Willard (who was 11), Edwin (who was 13) and probably with the help of Bob Kemmer (who was about the same age, maybe a little younger.)  It was Willard’s idea, prompted by a visit with some friends of his folks, Mr. and Mrs. Will Turner.  Mr. Turner was manager of a lumber mill in Raymond, was an outdoor enthusiast, and was particularly fond of golf.  (He was also Martha Murfin’s uncle, though it was long before Willard or the rest of the family knew the-much-younger-than-Willard Martha).
     The Turners, who had no children of their own, took a particular liking to Willard and asked him to Raymond for a visit that summer. My grandparents, always eager for bookish Willard to get out-of-doors and have some exercise, thought it a fine idea and it was on that occasion that Mr. Turner introduced Willard to golf.
     He came back to Oysterville full of boyish enthusiasm and the proud owner of two golf clubs that Mr. Turner had given him.  According to Edwin’s recollections, written some fifty years later, in the large field adjoining our house… some of the grass could be kept low for the fairways, cropped even closer for “greens” and tin cups could be placed in the ground for “holes.”  I recall that we also had to fashion crude clubs out of gnarled tree limbs.  Years later, Wede could still beat me at golf.
     Somewhere here in the house we still have a few old golf clubs and some golf balls from those early days.  I also ran across the sign that was apparently posted on the newly created “links.”  Willard, a wordsmith even then, was absolutely correct.  It was a golf links, not a golf course.  A links is the oldest style of golf course and the word “links” is Scots and refers to an area of coastal sand dunes.
     According to Wikipedia, the land, due to its sandy nature was unsuitable for building houses, and equally unsuitable for farmland due to the salt content of the turf.  (Is that the Oysterville shoreline or what?!!)  … The style of play on a links golf course is considerably different from the style of play on other types of courses. Apparently, even today in Scotland and Ireland, some links courses use grazing animals to keep the grass cropped.
     Our neighbor Tucker remembers talking to Willard about that golf links of years ago.  I don’t know if Willard ever played Whiffle Golf – a game of Tucker’s invention.  It involves custom-made (by Tucker) wooden mallets, a croquet-size whiffle ball and a course that meanders around the schoolyard, crosses the street, goes through Tucker’s yard and on into the churchyard.  Willard would have loved it!