Meadowbrook Country Club
Meadowbrook Country Club is a country club in Northville Township, Wayne County, near Northville, Michigan. The idea for Meadowbrook Country Club, a private golf and social club, came about in 1916 when 23 Northville businessmen purchased 125 acres (0.51 km2) of the Fred C. Cochran Farm. The club was named after a brook, which ran through the property. Its golf course hosted the PGA Championship in 1955, won by Doug Ford. Willie Park, Jr is credited with designing the original Meadowbrook 6-hole course which are present-day holes #10, #11, #7, #2, #3, and #18.
Meadowbrook has also hosted The Motor City Open. The Motor City Open was a PGA Tour event played at various clubs in and around Detroit from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The PGA Tour record for the longest sudden-death playoff was established at the 1949 Motor City Open, played at Meadowbrook. Cary Middlecoff and Lloyd Mangrum played 11 holes at Meadowbrook Country Club and were still stalemated when darkness arrived. Tournament officials, with their mutual consent, declared them co-winners.
Meadowbrook Hosted the Motor City Open in 1948, 1949, 1954, and 1959. Winners in those years were:
- 1959 Mike Souchak
- 1954 Cary Middlecoff
- 1949 Cary Middlecoff, Lloyd Mangrum (co-winners)
- 1948 Ben Hogan
Meadowbrook's Early History
An excellent recollection of Meadowbrook’s early history was written in 1954 by the club historian, William H. "Uncle Bill" Aston. Members of Meadowbrook's Historical Committee believe the original was published in the program for the 1955 US Open. Aston's history exists in several similar, but not identical, iterations. The best version hangs in a frame over the fireplace near the Centennial Dining Room at Meadowbrook Country Club.
Here is Bill Aston's article: “To be completely frank about it, I don’t believe that there is a Meadowbrook member today who would have found any pleasure golfing on our original primitive six-hole layout on worked-out farm land. There’s not much left of the brook from which Meadowbrook Country Club derived its name. The women complained about its being a hazard where it crossed in front of No. 1 green and No. 2 tee.
Every member probably can recall his first trip to the club. I remember very clearly. It was in August 1917 a month after the six holes opened. Sam Mumford, comptroller at Detroit Edison then, was a bridge partner of mine and one night we got to talking about golf. Both of us had tried the game a little. He mentioned that he had a membership at a new club, Meadowbrook, but never had been out there. So, we made a date for the next Saturday to try it.Asking around, we learned that there were two ways to reach the club. You could take the interurban railway which ran from Detroit to Northville by way of Farmington, down Farmington Road and along Base Line, now known as Eight Mile Road, passing right in front of the club. It was fast, too, took only 90 minutes from Detroit. The other means of transportation was by auto, somewhat slower, and even more roundabout. At that time Base Line was called a gravel road, but it seemed to be 95% clay and 5% gravel. Wagon wheels made big ruts in it in the spring and you risked getting stuck. Those ruts baked like bricks in the summer and it was even worse. Consequently, the safest and surest way to reach Meadowbrook was to drive out Seven Mile Road into Northville, then double back on Base Line to the club. That’s the way Sam Mumford and I went on that day.
While we knew how to get to Northville, we didn’t know the route from there to Meadowbrook. We asked all over Northville for directions to Meadowbrook and finally a man at the grain elevator got us started. On the way out Mumford told me something about how the club was founded and later I learned the rest. It was on Feb. 16, 1916 that Meadowbrook was incorporated as a club by the 23 original members, mostly Detroit or Northville business men. None of the 23 are members now and I believe most are deceased.The first place we went was to the clubhouse, an eight or 10-room white frame building which had been the old Cochran home. There was a kitchen and dining room on the first floor, while the upstairs had been made into a storage place and cloak rooms. Since it was late in the day we had to hurry to get in six holes. On the dual basis that this was 37 years ago and I am now 83 years old, I believe I can excuse myself for not recalling my score that first day. But I do remember learning for the first time what the golf cry of “Fore” meant. On No. 18 we had to shoot up and over a high hill and forecaddies usually were stationed over the crest. When we were ready to drive off, we yelled “Fore” to alert the forecaddies. Which I understand was the original meaning of the word and not a warning to players as it appears to mean today.
After our round we went into the kitchen and asked if we could get something to eat. There was a Mrs. Hemple in charge of the kitchen and she fixed a real meal. Her dessert was a form of caramel pie and I still remember it fondly as her own special dish. Incidentally, Mrs. Hemple charged us each 50 cents for the dinner and she told us that we were the only two members to eat there that day. I found out later that most of the members brought their lunch and munched it in the clubhouse. Later on the board of directors passed a rule forbidding that practice in order to encourage members to eat in Mrs. Hemple’s dining room.
To tell the truth, I fell in love with the club that first day, and maybe it was Mrs. Hemphill's caramel pie which did it as much as anything. I told Sam I wanted to join. He told me the membership fee was $100 and annual dues $40. By the time I got around to filing my application a week or so later the membership fee had gone up to $300. I still paid, but then they cut it back to $100. The president, Harry G. Buckley, asked me if I would leave the $200 difference in my account for a while as the club was short of funds and needed it to pay some bills. (Yes, I did get the $200 eventually).
Once I became a member, I joined others in our constant search for a quicker route to the club. We gave up on Base Line road since the county and township people refused to improve it for a long time. Someone discovered a grass grown trail, now Haggerty Road, running north and south just east of the club. It was called Four Towns Road because it intersected Base Line Road at the meeting of four townships: Farmington, Livonia, Novi and Northville. A collection was taken up among the members to have the ruts on Four Towns Road filled with gravel and enabled members to come directly to the club from Seven Mile road. Sometimes I feel I benefited most. A few years later I noticed a for sale sign on a house on Haggerty. The price was right but I was a city man, used to a 50 foot lot. The idea of owning 15 acres scared me. I bought it for a summer home. Today it is my permanent home since I retired from the printing business. From my front windows I can see our clubhouse. I'm only three brassie shots (the way Chick Harbert hits them) from the No 2 green.” [1]
Another history was written by Jim Frantz. He caddied at Meadowbrook Country Club from 1922 to 1931. He then moved away and did not return until about 1980. He played the course and then wrote the club sharing his memory of the early days and a comparison of the course as it existed then with what he found in 1980. His thoughts were published in the February 1981 edition of "Foreward Press", the club’s magazine for members. Incidentally, he also donated the water fountain next to the caddie door at the first tee. A plaque over the fountain memorializes his gift.
Here is Jim's recollection of the early days at Meadowbrook: “My first sight of Meadowbrook was in 1922, when one of my boyhood chums convinced me there was money to be made as a caddie carrying an old bag of golf sticks for people who were playing a game called Golf. I thought it kind of silly, at first, but very soon I got hooked. I stayed with it for nine years , all at Meadowbrook.
As I remember, the Club was started about 1916. The site was in the farming section a few miles east of Northville. Up to this time, it had been a working farm and the soil was mostly of a clay base which, in the hot summer when rain was scarce, made the airways very hard. It also made your feet hurt from walking over it in tennis shoes. The original Club House was the old farmer's home and it sat alongside the Detroit Urban Railway tracks which ran between it and the Base Line Road, now known as Eight Mile Road. The Base Line Road divided Wayne and Oakland Counties. At that time, the road was a rather narrow graveled road that threw off dense clouds of dust from cars travelling over it. When the winds came from the North, the Club House was engulfed in dust. The members grew tired of this nuisance and had oil and, later on, a chemical spread over the area of the road near the Club House entrance.
Most of the caddies came from the neighboring small towns of Farmington, Northville and Plymouth. A very, very few travelled from the towns of Redford and Detroit. In those early days, all of us depended upon the DUR as our transportation to and from Meadowbrook. The line ran from Detroit, out Grand River to Farmington, thence down Farmington Road to Base Line Road and out to Northville and Plymouth, where it turned around and retraced its tracks. The fare from Farmington to Northville (Meadowbrook) was five cents each way. The cars ran about once an hour. I lived just outside of Farmington. On two sides of the old Club House was a veranda which, I believe, the members had glassed in. This made a delightful dining area in which to enjoy your lunch and view the activities around the course. It was a very special time in the life of a caddie when a member invited him to have lunch with him in the Club House. It was my good fortune to have enjoyed this and also to have been privileged to have an evening dinner with a member. Mr. L. M. Post was my benefactor and I still remember that I ordered chicken, which I have always detested. I suppose I was too excited to think straight.
I left Meadowbrook in 1931 and moved into Detroit in 1933 to serve an apprenticeship in the printing trade. My connection with Meadowbrook was severed at that point and I never returned until last year (1980)." [2]