Source: VT Golf Magazine | Issue: Summer 2006 | Author: Kevin Mendik
Synopsis: This article talks about various historic items that are stored in various golf clubs across the region. These specifically are collector’s items that enrich the history of the golf club.
There are many thoughts about what makes a golf course great. For those of us who collect golf stuff, everything from books and clubs to medals and ephemera, there is another factor beyond the usual. For us, a visit to a golf club can actually have as the day’s highlight something other than playing golf.
Certain artifacts, often casually displayed on a clubhouse wall or hallway, other times set out in a prominent location, are quite simply astounding to any collector or person with even a passing interest in golf history. On the wall in a downstairs hallway leading into the men’s locker room at the Chicago Golf Club is possibly the most important document in American golf: the original signed agreement dated December 22, 1894, that formed The Amateur Golf Association of the United States, now the USGA. Nearby are several cases of old golf clubs, all with a story of their own.
At The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, the original Articles of Incorporation, dated November 12, 1882, hang on a wall in the clubhouse. Then there are oil portraits, so prominent in many clubhouses, of gentlemen with names such as Donald Ross or Charles Blair Macdonald.
Link to source: 61-66