Clancy Horn came for the $11 greens fees. Mary Ann McBride came for the free cake. Beverly Sanden came to play with her husband and two grandsons.
And Joey Keefer, age 9, came for the best reason of all.
"This is my favorite course," Keefer said Tuesday after he and three friends were dropped off by their parents to play Sandy Hollow Golf Course.
The Rockford Park District celebrated the 75th birthday of its most popular course with a low-key celebration Tuesday that included $7 off the regular greens fees, cake, punch, a free 75th anniversary logo golf ball and, for every 75th golfer, a $75 gift certificate to the pro shop.
The most fitting present came from the golfers, who made Sandy Hollow busy again. More than 250 players teed off by 2 p.m. Sandy Hollow looked like its heyday again, when the course hosted the 12 busiest seasons in area history between 1982 and 1997, with a record of 74,753 rounds in 1985. Sandy Hollow's rounds have dropped 28 percent in recent years, from 67,889 in 1997 to 48,692 six years later.
"This was the best way, just to get the golfers out there and have a low-key celebration with the golfers," said David Claeyssens, the Rockford Park District's manager of golf services. "They are like family.
"Sandy Hollow has always been the most popular golf course in Rockford. Adults in our tournaments tell all sorts of stories about playing at Sandy Hollow."
Buzz Frye has been golfing at Sandy Hollow for six decades. Tuesday, he told boyhood stories of diving into Sandy Hollow's only water hazard, at the par-3 11th hole, to retrieve balls and sell them back to the golfers. And of tying a pull cart to his bike with rope and cycling three miles to Sandy Hollow to play. "And it wasn't no 10-speed, neither," he said.
"This is the most beautiful course in Rockford," Frye said. "I like all the holes. Except that long one. No. 9 (a 583-yard par-5) is too long for me. When I'm playing by myself or with a bunch of women, I'll go up to the forward tees. At least you've got a chance from there."
Sandy Hollow opened on the Fourth of July, 1929 and was immediately called "one of the most beautiful and sporty in this section of the country" in the Rockford Morning Star. Designed by University of Illinois graduate C.D. Wagstaff, the course cost a modest $58,190.77 to build. The city purchased 118 acres at $200 an acre and saved revenues from play the previous three years at Ingersoll and Sinnissippi to pay for it.
Rockford's third public golf course - there are now five - was built to alleviate congestion at Ingersoll and Sinnissippi, which hosted a combined 75,285 rounds in 1926. From the day it opened, Sandy Hollow became the most popular course.
"I like the maturity. It's so beautiful," said Mary Ann McBride, who has been playing Sandy Hollow since she moved to Rockford in 1977. "Our kids grew up playing here. My dad loves this course.
"It's just a really wonderful course. Not the sand traps, though," she added with a small laugh. "That's certainly not what keeps us coming back."
The Sanden clan agreed.
"I just like the layout - although there are a lot of sand traps," said Beverly Sanden, who played Tuesday with her husband, Jerry, and grandsons Ryan, 16, and Patrick, 14.
Sanden's grandsons, like McBride's kids, have grown up playing Sandy Hollow.
"They are beating me all the time now," Beverly Sanden said. "There was a time when I beat them."
Sandy Hollow's hills and hollows, tall trees and large bunkers have long made the course popular.
"I really like the mature trees and the scenery," said Greg Link, who has been playing here for 20 years. "The new courses take a period of time before they get scenery. All the trees here are 20 feet tall. I always enjoy playing a mature course. Except when I punch my drive under those trees."
But there's more to Sandy Hollow than a nice, mature layout. Sandy Hollow's legion of golfers have long formed a quasi family.
"You meet a lot of nice people here," Clancy Horn said. "I recognize their faces forever. All the time, I see guys I played with out here and catch them at the eating places."
Linda Tracey, Sandy Hollow's concessionaire for 16 years, recognized many familiar faces Tuesday who had wandered away from the course in recent years, but returned for the anniversary celebration.
"Everyone wants to come back to celebrate," she said. "That's nice. Sandy Hollow is homey. There isn't anyone who doesn't like to come into the clubhouse and chitchat over a beer or a pop."
Connor Martensen, 13, cited Tracey and the clubhouse atmosphere as one of the reasons he likes Sandy Hollow so much. Claeyssens said Tracey and her predecessor Genie Sanderson, Sandy Hollow's concessionaire for 20 years, have always made Sandy Hollow feel like home, even handing out golf balls to kids who couldn't afford to buy new ones.
"Linda has carried on the tradition of being like family with the staff and customers," Claeyssens said. "It's been that way ever since I played there as a kid in the early 1960s. Sandy Hollow has always been a place everyone felt welcome to play."
Source: Rockford Register Star (Rockford, Ill.)
