Play Golf!: On Par for a Century
Advertisement for the Peninsula State Park Golf Course c. 1940 - from the Ephraim Historical Foundation Archives
The beginnings of the Peninsula Park Golf Course date back to 1913, when the Ephraim Men’s Club adopted a resolution to ask the State Conservation Commission to set aside land for golf links. By early 1914, Park Superintendent A. E. Doolittle was given the green light by the Conservation Commission to lay out two separate sixty-acre golf links. One was to be located near Fish Creek, and one near Ephraim.
The State operated the Ephraim links with help from the Ephraim Men’s Club in those early years - with a committee consisting of Henry Adolph Anderson, Ole Olson, and Elias Helgeson formed to oversee them and find an administrator. The then-owner of Horseshoe (Eagle) Island, E. F. Folda (pictured left), played a significant role in funding $50 to pay a groundskeeper during the season for three years as well as taking on the administrative role. By the Summer of 1914, the links in Ephraim were still under construction – but playable and in use. This first course was comprised of 6 holes, and by 1916 there were many improvements made around the course. The tees and greens were prepared, and grass planted, however the weather that winter had prevented the seed from taking.
A delay in further progress in making the links came about in the following years for multiple reasons. First, the onset of the United States’ entrance into World War I in 1917 resulted in budget cuts to the State Conservation Department. As a direct result of this, the sixty-acre Fish Creek course which was established at the same time as the Ephraim course was abandoned. Second, the State Department of Agriculture began looking at the tract of land the Ephraim links resided on as the site of a new Agricultural Experimental Station. It wasn’t until 1920 when the planning for the facility was moved to a plot in Sturgeon Bay that the Ephraim links began to take form what they would be today. The Ephraim Men’s Club and other private parties had raised upwards of $2,000 to be used for a new course.
What would become the established 6-hole course was first planned the following year in 1921. The new links were laid out by W.M. ‘Bim’ Lovekin, a ‘golf link expert’ from the Fox River Valley Country Club of Green Bay. He also helped lay out the Sturgeon Bay Country Club links, where he subsequently won the first pro tournament that August of 1921. The new course in Ephraim was a private facility operated by the Ephraim Men's Club on land that was leased from the State in the southeast corner of Peninsula State Park, measuring a total distance of about 3500 yards. In 1923, the first 9 holes were completed under E. F. Folda’s management, though with sand greens. The completion of the first 9 mark what is accepted as the beginning of the links as we know today. Though, the problem of watering without irrigation remained a barrier to having a full grass course.
The course with Ephraim pictured in the Distance - from the Ephraim Historical Foundation Archive
E.F. Folda was the sole administrator of the course on the Ephraim Men’s Club’s behalf until 1924 when a committee of 5 was elected to take over – including A.E. Doolittle as chairman, Sam Hogenson, Everett Valentine. B. D. Thorp, and Harold Wilson as manager of the clubhouse. By 1925, the club had secured significant financial backing and donations from the community to improve the course. The improvements included a pumphouse and complete watering system for all the greens, a specialized mower-roller to cut and care for greens and fairways, and $1,000 in labor donated on behalf of the state. The clubhouse was also moved from the center of the course to an area on the new highway, with a parking lot to accommodate 70 cars.
1925 was also the year of the first annual amateur tournament that was played at the Peninsula Park Golf Course. Beginning on August 23rd, it was won by G. W. Christopher of Pittsburg who beat 15-year-old Arthur Haach of Sturgeon Bay. 1925 was also the most successful year of the course yet, with Harold Wilson reporting that $3500 was taken in on around 2400 day-tickets, 95 week privileges, and 25 season tickets. 60-75 players came through on an average daily throughout the season. Doolittle reported in August that with the money raised from the fruitful season would be put into improving and enlarging the links, planning to expand to 18 holes next year in 1926.
Beginning in late 1926, however, strife between the state and the Ephraim Men’s Club began with disagreements around the philosophy of the course’s operation. The Men’s Club wanted the state to pass a bill which would permit all the money generated from the course to be put back into it, willing to manage it without compensation. The state had different ideas, wanting the monies to be put back into the Conservation Commission. Two bills for state management of park recreation were vetoed in 1927 by Governor Zimmerman before a bill was eventually passed giving the state authority to operate the golf course. The second nine, while laid out during the time it was still managed by the Ephraim Men’s Club, was completed under management of the state in 1930.
George Norton and Fred Dole golfing at Peninsula State Park Golf Course c. 1928 - from the Ephraim Historical Foundation Archive
