The Beginning
The Story of Oakwood Country Club In 1881, Congregation B’nai Jehudah was eleven years old, and provided religious services to some 50 Jewish families, mostly of German origin. The need for social activities for the children in these families caused Samuel Latz and others to form an organization called the Progress Club. This Club was able to provide a suitable social setting outside the religious structure. A building on the west side of 11th and Main had rooms which were rented by the club, and later rooms at 1208 Main were rented for a period.In 1890, the Progress Club determined to build a home of their own at 1017 Washington Street, commissioning Frederick Gunn and Louis Curtiss as architects. The design was termed “Chateauesque”, and it’s façade has been preserved; it can be seen today at 252 YMCA branch. The building was completed in 1893.
It served as the headquarters for the Ohio delegation to the Democratic National Convention in 1900, an event unique because of the fire which destroyed Convention Hall ninety days prior to the Convention, and the extraordinary feat of rebuilding, which enabled the event to take place on schedule. The Progress Club minutes note that the delegation leased the club building for $200 for the week. The Kansas City Star observed, “No other state has such exclusive and convenient quarters as the Progress Club’s will be for the Ohio delegation…The building has all the conveniences that could be devised…”
By 1910, however, the residential trend was changing, and the leaders of the club, including A. C. Wurmser, Julius Lyons, I. E. Bernheimer, Alexander Rothenberg, Henry Flarsheim, and others, sought to obtain a rural property so that the Jewish community might enjoy the new, popular game called “the golf”. A town club was to be retained for the use of the members for card-playing and social affairs, during the winter months.
The 1017 Washington building was offered for sale and in 1910 was sold for $33,000 to the Loyal Order of The Moose. The Kansas City Star of Oct. 2, 1910 reported that the Progress Club had taken a lease on the residence of the late Judge William B. Teasdale on Hunter Avenue, just west of Main Street. Wurmser was the Club’s president at that time. The names of I. Bachrach, Harry Benjamin, Nathan Lorie, A.S. Flersheim, Leon Block, Sol Block, Grant Rosenberg appear as directors.
The Star of Nov. 18, 1911, advised that the Progress Club had purchased the W.A. Rule farm southeast of town on the Dodson-Grandview Rock Road for $50,000 to serve as the site for a links. A handsome stone house on the property would be converted into a clubhouse, The Star said.
William A. Rule was a banker, known for many years as cashier of the National Bank of Commerce. He had a wide range of interests, especially including horses, and was a civic person of considerable power. He had been a part-owner with C.C. Christie in the Elm Ridge Race Track and Golf Club at 61st and Flora, a venture that was born in 1903 but was closed in 1907 because the passage of Missouri’s anti-gambling legislation.
The Progress Club’s, Henry Flarsheim, had a business partner named Harry D. Seavey who belonged to the Elm Ridge Club, and it was there that Flarsheim became attracted to the game. It is likely that he was one of the handful of Progress Club members who had any exposure to the game. The Kansas City Country Club had been established in 1896. The Fairmount Golf Club opened in 1899—it became the Evanston
Golf Club in 1901. In 1906 the public course at Swope Park, a rather crude affair, was opened. When the Progress Club (Oakwood) golf links opened on Memorial Day 1912, there were just three other private courses plus Swope Park and Excelsior Springs available to golfers.
An interesting sidelight—the Progress Club committee assigned to select a site was offered the former Elm Ridge property but rejected it as too costly; subsequently the Orient Realty Company, composed of a group of Kansas City Country Club members and others, bought it and created Blue Hills Country Club, which opened in late 1912.
The Progress Club employed the services of the A.G. Spalding Company’s course planner, Tom Bendelow, to lay out the nine holes east and south of the clubhouse. Bendelow was a busy man, traveling the country to assist groups in many cities, towns, and hamlets, which were starting golf courses. He could do a course in two hours by putting down stakes for tees, greens, mounds, and bunkers, pacing off what he deemed appropriate distances for each installation. A former newspaper employee in New York, he probably had as much impact on the growth of the game as anyone of his time, despite the low esteem in which he was held by some. After a decade, however, he gained more professionalism and respect. He laid out the Mission Hills and Excelsior Springs courses, among others in this area; in Chicago he did the first layouts of Medinah’s courses.
Oakwood’s first golf professional was Arthur Boggs, who arrived in Kansas City from Cleveland in late May of 1912 to begin his duties. The Kansas City Journal stated that Boggs had been with Jewish Club links of Cleveland, a reference to the Oakwood Club of that city.
In 1913, the use of the name “Oakwood” became favored over that of the Progress Club. “Oakwood, Summer Home of The Progress Club,” was the title. The first manager was Joseph Haar.
In 1913, Boggs had returned to Cleveland’s Oakwood Club, and Jim “Skokie” Watson was employed as golf professional. The golf course was also his responsibility and it was a challenge! South of the entry gate, a few hundred yards was a rock quarry, and the subsurface of the property contained much rock too. The horse-drawn mowers, used to cut the grass, had many a blade dulled. Jim Watson stayed at the clubhouse in an upstairs room most of the summer, but left at the end of October, having been hired by J. C. Nichols to help prepare the new Mission Hills course for it’s 1914 opening.
Watson assisted in finding his replacement, a fine young Scottish professional named Fred Clarkson, who stayed for three summers—he later secured the head pro post at Glen Echo in St. Louis in 1917, and stayed there for 50 years. Clarkson also lived in the clubhouse at Oakwood, but walked to Dodson and caught the streetcar into town on weekends, staying with Watson near the Mission Hills club. It was there that Clarkson met his future wife. Clarkson told his son, Charles, that it wasn’t too onerous a task to walk down the hill after Sunday night closing, but returning up the Dodson hill on Monday nights was a bit of a chore. One should not judge the hill by today’s relatively mild grade—then it was much steeper, and more winding.
In 1915, Clarkson at Oakwood staged one of the first professional golf tournaments in the area. Seven pros were entered—Clarkson, Watson, Bob Peebles of Topeka, Tom Clark of Blue Hills, Joe Mathews of the Country Club, Jim Dalgleish of the Evanson Club, and E. R. Cambell of the Independence Country Club. Peebles won.
Mrs. David Benjamin ran a free camp for new American children in 1914 and 1915 at Oakwood.
It was in 1915 that the Women’s Golf Association of Kansas City was formed, with Oakwood as one of five original members. Miss Sadie Danciger, Miss Helen Griff, Mrs. Samuel Heibrun, and Miss Cornelia Harzfeld competed for Oakwood. These same ladies, plus Mayme Oppenstein, Mrs. H.A. Guettel, Mrs. Meyer Shane, and Mrs Jerome Bernheimer played in the Missouri State Women’s Championship at Mission Hills that year. Miss Helen Griff won the 1915 Oakwood Club Championship for women—but there is no evidence that the men played a club championship until 1920.
In 1917 a colonnade was added to the east or front end of the clubhouse. A new golf professional, Cliff Booth, replaced Clarkson, and efforts were made to add nine holes to the course. Booth left in mid-summer to take the pro job at the newly opened Meadow Lake club, but soon thereafter entered military service and never returned to Kansas City. The club had purchased 122 acres from Rule but needed more ground to create an acceptable 18-hole layout. With help from James Dalqleish, the Hillcrest pro, several attempts were made to add 9 more holes but to no avail.
Also in 1917, a reference was made in the Kansas City Journal to the fact that Booth had spent considerable time during the spring clearing rocks away from several of the fairways. And that the club was planning to place a watering system on the course to connect to each green, because the club experienced considerable difficulty in 1916 during months when scarcely any precipitation was recorded.
In 1918, Oakwood hired Charles Bell as professional, but he enlisted in the Canadian Army in midsummer, and was gone by September. In the same year Mrs. Samuel Heilbrun defeated Mrs. Seymour Rice for the club championship, her second in a row. The year 1919 brought yet another golf professional to Oakwood, Louis Montressor, who had been at the Homewood Club in Chicago. He stayed for three years before moving to Chandler, Arizona where he died in 1927 at the age of 29. Mrs. Heilbrun won the Women’s Club Championship again in 1919.
In 1920, the Kansas City Golf Association was formally organized and incorporated, with Oakwood as one of the original eleven members. J.K. Davidson represented Oakwood. A news item of July 25th of that year stated that the 18-hole course was expected to be ready by September. Construction had been completed, but the new addition was as yet immature. Marguerite Levy was a finalist in the 1921 City Women’s tourney.
By 1922, Oakwood had another new golf professional, Charlie Mathews, but no new nine holes, despite the high hopes of all. An item in the August Kansas City Golfer reports that the new four holes: ten; eleven; twelve; and thirteen; were coming along in fine shape. The remainder of the second nine would be ready soon, the publication said—but they weren’t.
Abe Rosenberger won the 1921 men’s club title.
Sam Bren won the Men’s Club Championship and Marguerite Levy won the Women’s in 1922. The Club listed five scratch players; Gordon Deichmann, Abe Rosenberg, Sam Bern, Ed Aaron, and Hymen Levi.
In 1923, Oakwood employed Bill Leonard, the greens keeper/professional of the Kansas City Country Club, to lay out the additional nine holes (once again). An October note in the Kansas City Golfer, stated that work had started on four of the holes and that, when playable, they would be added to the five practice holes then in use to make a temporary nine holes. Helen Grill Lyon defeated Marguerite Levy for the club championship, but the big news of 1923 was the purchase of 85 additional acres adjacent to the course.
Martin Stein won the 1924 Men's Championship; Helen Griff Lyon won the women's title. The awards dinner was held at the Progress Club, in town.
In 1925, there was interest in polo by several members, including Melville Levy, Albert Schoenberg, M.L. Friedman, Arthur Guettel, and Sidney Altschuler. There was a stable to the north of the entry to the club (where the Spofford Home is now located) where members boarded their horses. Others could obtain horses for a fee.
Eddie Guettel won the club championship. In September, a magazine item stated that the new nine holes was "shaping up". But not yet ready for play, alas. Also in 1925, the Kansas City Golfer, a monthly magazine, became re-constituted as the Western Golfer, with many Kansas Citians as stockholders, including Oakwoodians J.A. Harzfeld, B.L. Sulzbacher, Edward A. Aaron, sigmund Harzfeld, H.A. Auerbach, and Sol Berkson. The magazine ceased publication in 1928.
Philip Daston became club manager in 1927, succeeding Albert Lipper.
Frank Madden succeeded Charlie Mathews as professional in 1927. Oakwood employed O.E. Smith and Wendell Miller, a nationally recognized course construction firm, to install nine new creeping bent greens on the new nine holes, at an expense of $15,000. The new course would be 6100 yards in length, said an article in the Western Golfer.
Eddie Guettel went to the semi-final round of the Broadmoor Invitational at Colorado Springs before losing to N.C. Morris of Denver, in 1928. On May 10th of that year, David Werby and Dr. Julius Frischer were struck by lightning at Oakwood. They were unconscious when put in ambulances and sent to Research Hospital, but were revived en route. Both recovered eventually. Planning for a new clubhouse began in the same year.
In the middle of 1929 the old clubhouse was razed to make way for a new one of English architecture designed by Greenebaum, Hardy, and Schumacher. E.B Berkowitz was club president. Bonds were sold through Arthur Fels to help pay for the construction. With a grand party, the new clubhouse opened on June 28, 1930 giving the club an opportunity to forget for a moment the start of the Great Depression.
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