Myopia Hunt Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Myopia Hunt Club is a foxhunting and private country club at 435 Bay Road in South Hamilton, Massachusetts founded in 1882.[1] The five founders of the Hunt Club all wore glasses, hence its name, Myopia.[2] Today, the Myopia Hunt Club is a drag hunt, meaning that the hounds follow a laid scent rather than live fox.[1]
Myopia also boasts the oldest continually running polo field in the nation. Polo is still played on Sunday afternoons and is open to the public for a small fee.
Golf: This is the only course in the United States to have been listed by "GOLF Magazine" as having two of the United States's top 100 signature holes, Myopia's fourth and ninth.[3]
The U.S. Open was held at the club in 1898, 1901, 1905, and 1908. The 72-hole winning score by Fred Herd in 1898 was 328, a record high that still stands today.[4] Herbert Corey Leeds was the course designer.[5] The first nine was completed in 1896, but the second nine was not finished until 1901, so the 1898 U.S. Open was actually played on eight rounds of nine holes.
In 1902 a real tennis court was opened at the Myopia Hunt Club, but has since been converted to other uses.[6]
From 1995-2005, the course underwent a series of major improvements under the leadership of Club president Michael Greene. Greene, along with Captain of Golf Steve Warhover (and with the consent of the voting members of the club), lengthened the course with new tees on the 2nd, 4th, 7th, 10th, 11th, 15th, and 18th holes. In addition, many trees throughout the links course were removed and replaced with traditional mounds, as the historic design of Herbert Corey Leeds demanded.
This club is not to be confused with the ORIGINAL Myopia Hunt Club which was founded in Winchester, MA in the early 1870s. This club was formed so that its members could hunt on Myopia Hill. (The founding members of this club eventually moved to Brookline, MA and Hamilton, MA. In Brookline they founded The Country Club, and in Hamilton they founded the Myopia Hunt Club.) In 1901, the name was changed to the Winchester Country Club. This 18 hole course was the first country club in the US. Back in the 1870s the hill was mostly forest land, now it is a neighborhood of luxurious early- to mid-20th century estates overlooking the golf course, the Mystic Lakes, and the Boston skyline.
[edit] References
- ^ John Steele Gordon. The Country Club. Retrieved on April 25, 2006.
- ^ GolfClubAtlas.com. Myopia Hunt Club, MA, USA. Retrieved on April 24, 2006.
- ^ Golf Online. Myopia Hunt Club. Retrieved on April 24, 2006.
- ^ Peter F. Stevens. Golf Online: Myopia Misery. Retrieved on April 24, 2006.
- ^ GolfClubAtlas.com. Myopia Hunt Club, MA, USA. Retrieved on April 24, 2006.
- ^ Allison Danzig. The Royal & Ancient Game of Tennis. Retrieved on April 24, 2006.
