{"id":10651,"date":"2012-06-09T10:51:07","date_gmt":"2012-06-09T17:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/?p=10651"},"modified":"2013-04-05T14:10:42","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T21:10:42","slug":"what-no-golf-course-in-idyllwild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2012\/06\/09\/what-no-golf-course-in-idyllwild\/","title":{"rendered":"What, no golf course in Idyllwild?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Golfers enjoy a round at the Emerson\u2019s Country Club, which was situated along Strawberry Creek overlooking Camp Emerson. Photo Courtesy Idyllwild Area Historical Societs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tourists today expect to find at least one golf course at almost any vacation destination. Idyllwild is unusual in not having one\u2014just one more feature that sets our village apart\u2014but it has not always been a golf-free zone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In fact, the very first big resort here in Strawberry Valley, the Idyllwild Sanatorium, which opened in 1901, proclaimed \u201cgolf links unequaled\u201d in its first ad. Its successor, the Idyllwild Inn, also built a crude course in 1914, but it was during the Roaring Twenties that the game began to thrive here.<\/p>\n

Before 1917, the valley was mostly owned by Los Angeles developers Frank Strong and George Dickinson. Then they sold off the Inn and 1,000 surrounding acres to San Jacinto banker Claudius Lee Emerson, but retained Fern Valley and the heights on South Ridge, including Saunders Meadow. What they didn\u2019t anticipate was Emerson\u2019s entrepreneurial genius as a rival developer.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Emerson's Country Club. Photo courtesy Idyllwild Area HIstorical Society<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his grand plan to turn Idyllwild into a settled community, Emerson saw golf as a plus. As part of his pitch to both tourists and potential lot buyers he immediately announced plans to upgrade the Inn\u2019s existing course.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By 1923, Emerson\u2019s booming village prodded Strong and Dickinson into hiring Pine Cove developer Walter Wood to subdivide and market their own lots. To stay ahead of the competition, Emerson resurrected his still unfulfilled promise to create a first-rate golf course. He opened his Country Club Subdivision overlooking Tollgate Road and began work on a new 9-hole course on the valley floor along Strawberry Creek above Camp Emerson.<\/p>\n

Wood retaliated by hiring away Emerson\u2019s resident manager of the Idyllwild Inn to help open a competing course on Saunders Meadow in 1925. Their new Idyllwild Golf Club issued a slick brochure describing each of the nine holes in glamorous detail and offered life memberships for $250, including a free building lot nearby. But in reality its links were hastily prepared and primitive.<\/p>\n

According to Louise Cole, whose father joined the club, and whose brother patrolled the rough daily collecting lost balls, the fairways were groomed by merely removing a few small trees and wild rose bushes, leaving the native grass uncut. The \u201cgreens\u201d at first may well have been no more than raked gravel.<\/p>\n

To compensate, Wood built an elegant clubhouse and swimming pool and contracted with Idyllwild\u2019s pioneer craftsman, Hal Holcomb, to fill it with rustic furnishings. Upon its grand opening in 1927, the clubhouse was immediately a social center rivaling Emerson\u2019s Idyllwild Inn.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Idyllwild Golf Club. Photo Courtesy Idyllwild Area Historical Society<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Emerson quickly countered by building the Idyllwild Plunge, an instantly popular attraction for both Inn guests and resident swimmers. He simultaneously raised the ante by announcing plans to expand his new course to 18 holes, dam Strawberry Creek for a lake, and add an aircraft landing field for an upscale clientele.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In actuality, Wood\u2019s operation was a shoestring affair. Its social activities were sustained by wives of club members, who soon tired of frequent hostessing. Unpaid bills piled up, and creditors became steadily less cordial in their reminders.<\/p>\n

In desperation, Wood reorganized and, in 1928, staged another grand opening as the \u201cnew\u201d Mount San Jacinto Golf Club. But by 1930 it sank into foreclosure and was sold to a military academy as a summer camp. Only the clubhouse survived, today serving as the dining hall at Astrocamp.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Mount San Jacinto Golf Clubhouse. Photo courtesy Idyllwild Area Historical Society<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, Emerson was riding high, earning a widespread reputation for \u201cthe Mile-High Golf Course,\u201d and employing a club pro to run tournaments attracting the state\u2019s best talent. Following through with his expansion plan, in 1929 he bought the rest of the lower valley (today\u2019s Idyllwild Arts Academy campus). Alas for him, the Wall Street crash was only months away, and his financing was stretched to the breaking point. Although the golf program continued to thrive throughout the 1930s, the Great Depression undermined the Inn and real estate operations, leaving Emerson bankrupt by 1938.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

World War II\u2019s travel restrictions were the death knell for golf in Idyllwild. The country club lay unused until postwar developer Jerry Johnson bought it up, then sold it to Palm Springs developers for subdivision. Aside from a popular miniature golf course in the recreation complex that grew up around the Idyllwild Plunge during the 1950s, golfing here had become only a memory.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Mount San Jacinto Clubhouse Interior. Photo courtesy Idyllwild Area Historical Society<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brief hope for a revival rose in 1960 with announced plans for the Tahquitz Lake Golf Club, a resort community near Foster Lake on Dutch Flat, between Idyllwild and Pine Cove. The course opened in late 1961, but the idea of full-scale development met stiff local opposition. The club folded by the mid-1960s, and that was the last hurrah for golfing in Idyllwild.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tourists today expect to find at least one golf course at almost any vacation destination. Idyllwild is unusual in not having one …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":10654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[20],"yoast_head":"\nWhat, no golf course in Idyllwild? • Idyllwild Town Crier<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2012\/06\/09\/what-no-golf-course-in-idyllwild\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\">\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\">\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/\",\"name\":\"Idyllwild Town Crier\",\"description\":\"Almost All the News \\u2014\\u00a0Part of the Time\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2012\/06\/09\/what-no-golf-course-in-idyllwild\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Country-Club-2.jpg\",\"width\":\"500\",\"height\":\"288\",\"caption\":\"Golfers enjoy a round at the Emerson\\u2019s Country Club, which was situated along Strawberry Creek overlooking Camp Emerson. Photo Courtesy Idyllwild Area Historical Societs\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2012\/06\/09\/what-no-golf-course-in-idyllwild\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2012\/06\/09\/what-no-golf-course-in-idyllwild\/\",\"name\":\"What, no golf course in Idyllwild? • Idyllwild Town Crier\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2012\/06\/09\/what-no-golf-course-in-idyllwild\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-09T17:51:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-05T21:10:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#\/schema\/person\/65d0e742d210878c3031dbd130a9d86f\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/2012\/06\/09\/what-no-golf-course-in-idyllwild\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#\/schema\/person\/65d0e742d210878c3031dbd130a9d86f\",\"name\":\"Robert Smith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/798fcf1c227f7c0680f7de52de1ba78b?s=96&d=retro&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Robert Smith\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10651"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18816,"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10651\/revisions\/18816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idyllwildtowncrier.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}