Source: Sacramento Bee (California)
The Del Paso Country Club was built when country truly surrounded the 18-hole course.
That was 88 years ago, when wheat fields, open land and valley oaks surrounded the links at Watt and Marconi avenues instead of houses, apartments and fast-food restaurants.
With an impending major redesign, the Arden-Arcade course that has played host to such golf luminaries as Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Gene Sarazen is looking to the future.
Members decided to lengthen holes to accommodate modern golf equipment that makes balls fly farther. Del Paso was built when club shafts were made of wood, not graphite.
"We are redesigning the golf course to accommodate modern technology," said Cliff Hutchinson, Del Paso's general manager. "The technology of the game has passed our golf course by. It's a different game than when this golf course was built."
Hutchinson said there is room to lengthen the course: "At this point, a lot of acreage does not come into play. The new design exploits that additional acreage that we have."
About 800 trees will be taken out, but Hutchinson said most large trees will be retained.
"We are talking about small, volunteer trees being removed," he said. "Very few of the big specimens will go."
Neighbors of the course, being redesigned by Kyle Phillips, won't notice much difference, Hutchinson said.
"It will continue to be a classic parks-style design," Hutchinson said. "Kyle is noted for his adherence to classic golf course architecture. It's a classic California country club."
The course will be closed during January to clear trees. Play may be possible from February to May, depending on course conditions.
In May, when temperatures rise and the course closes for a year, workers will attempt to kill all Bermuda grass.
In June, heavy equipment will move dirt for the redesign. Club officials hope to plant grass seed on the fairways next October, leading to reopening the course in the late summer of 2006. Del Paso members will be allowed to play for monthly dues at Morgan Creek Country Club in Roseville during the renovation.
Many of the club's 600 members live in Arden-Arcade, which was hardly the case in 1916, when the course was built.
A 1966 article by Bee sportswriter Ed Burt told of the early days. The development began with a downtown meeting of nine men, including Clinton Harber, who recounted to Burt that he had an earlier association with an even older course - the Sacramento Country Club at 46th and J streets.
When a developer said he would sell part of the 44,000-acre Rancho Del Paso at Marconi and Watt for a country club, the nine-man group began a study.
They went to San Francisco to look at other courses and visited the Del Paso site. Afterward, a decision was made to proceed.
An architect in the group designed the clubhouse, and a builder in the group handled construction.
"We didn't ask anyone to join until we had a complete plant to show, and it was opened for public inspection in September of 1916," Harber told The Bee in 1966.
The group arranged for a bus to take people from downtown to the country course. In those days, cars were scarce.
According to a club history, arrangements were made with the county to repair and sprinkle with water the dusty road leading to the clubhouse.
With only about 75 active golfers belonging in those early days, the club put in tennis courts, a swimming pool, trapshooting and bowling.
But tennis play and trapshooting among members eventually dropped off, and bowling was hampered, in part, because it was hard "to get pin boys out in the country."
Golf became the main activity, although the pool remains a popular feature. In recent years, a fitness center has been added.
In those early years, the greens were not grass. Instead, they were compacted sand and oil before being replaced in about 1922.
Joan Taylor, a member since 1970, said she likes the club because "you feel special while you are here, because of the employees and the members."
Taylor notes that she and her husband, Pat, have celebrated their 50th, 55th and 60th wedding anniversaries at the club. The same chef, Dan Gilbert, handled each celebration dinner.
"Just recently, they put in a marvelous fitness center," Taylor said. "Of course, they are trying to attract business people and younger people, because the first wave is getting older and not playing as much golf."
While Taylor spoke, a red-tailed hawk and an egret flew over golfers at the first tee box. She said the country club has been designated a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.
Del Paso's Audubon committee worked with the golf course superintendent to create environmental plans toward gaining the sanctuary status. The golf course will have to be recertified after the renovation.
In addition to a healthy bird population - course score cards call Del Paso "The Home of the Magpie" - skunks, opossums and other critters make the course home.
In that way, Del Paso Country Club retains a little bit of country in the middle of suburbia.
