Your account does not include highlighter on images.
Save Pages in Scrapbooks
Community Sponsors
| August 18, 2000 Cape Gazette |  |
|
©
Cape Gazette. All rights reserved. Upgrade to access Premium Tools
PAGE 33 (33 of 112 available) PREVIOUS NEXT Jumbo Image Save To Scrapbook Set Notifiers PDF JPG
August 18, 2000 |
|
|
Website © 2024. All content copyrighted. Copyright Information Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Request Content Removal | About / FAQ | Get Acrobat Reader 
|
Rehoboth
Continued from page 32
contractor, constructed, along
with a long maintenance building.
"I began to caddie when I was 9
years old and made a boyhood ca-
reer of it until I was 19, caddying
every day during the summer and
on weekends and holidays during
the school year. The pay was 30
cents for nine holes for a "B" cad-
die and 60 cents for 18 holes. For
"A" caddies, the pay was 40 and
75 cents respectively. For a short
time I was a B caddie, then
reached the rank of A and usually
received $1 from the players.
When a caddie received only 75
cents, he called it straight pay.
"There were about 40 boy cad-
dies in the 1930s and not all of
them were from Rehoboth. Some
came from Lewes, Georgetown
and surrounding farms; a half
dozen from Wilmington as older
teens rented a house on Christian
Street for the summer. When I
began caddying at age nine, due
to my small size I was usually
given the ladies' bags - those
lightweight white canvas bags
which usually held seven clubs.
In the late 20s, those clubs were
usually wooden-shafted and in-
cluded a driver, spoon, mid-iron,
mashie, mashie niblic,i niblic and
putter. Today, those ciubs would
be a driver, 3 wood, 2 iron, 5 iron,
7 iron, 9 iron and putter. One lady
had a house on New Castle Street
and had no car, so she had me car-
. ry her clubs back to her house at
the end of a round.
"By age 12, I was carrying the
heavier men's bags. By age 19, I
believe I knew every golfer in the
club and had caddied for most of
them. I know that some of the
boys didn't relish working for
Judge Layton or Ruby Vale. The
judge struck fear in some and Vale
had the most clubs in his bag of
any member. However, I had a
very good relationship with both
men.
"When I reached my teen years,
both men were asking me to cad-
die and fortunately, both never ar-
rived at the club at the same time.
Each paid me $1 for 18 holes.
When I joined the Rehoboth
Beach Country Club in 1946, both
Layton and Vale invited me to
play golf with them, which I did
for several years until they be-
came too old to play. Vale had a
Mary Alice and Richard
Latimer of Bethany Beach
and Potomac, Md., dance
during the Rehoboth Beach
Country Club gala.
black Lincoln and a white Cord
car and after he died, the Lincoln
was parked for some time on a
field on Route 1 near Milford
with a 'for sale' sign on it. Vale, a
corporation lawyer from Philadel-
phia, lived in Milford, while Lay-
ton, who was chief justice of the
Delaware Supreme Court, lived in
Georgetown.
"Members of the club were
very good to the caddies. When I
was young, they contributed to a
fund to send everyone on a two-
day trip who wanted to go to a
double header between the Athlet-
ics and the Yankees and we stayed
at the Adelphi Hotel in Philadel-
phia. A large group went, with
'Pope' Grier heading up the group
and we saw Babe Ruth and others
play ball.
"The club allowed the caddies
to play golf on Monday mornings,
but since there were few members
playing on Mondays, many of us
played well beyond noon, having
started at 6 a.m. Once, when I
was 17, I began at 6 a.m. and
played 72 holes, walking all the
way and carrying my bag on my
shoulder, finishing at 6 p.m.
"When we were 17 and 18,
three of us, Charlie Joseph,
Clarence Fisher and I, were shoot-
ing in the upper 70s much of the
time. Word must have gotten out
to the members, because one time
a foursome of members came to
the first tee and said 'Let's let the
caddies play for us.' Another
time, a player threw down a ball
on the second hole and said to me
'Here, you hit it.'
"In 1937, the members and
Frank, the pro, had a golf tourna-
JEWELERS
Visit us at:
4421 Highway One
Rehoboth Beach, I)E 19971 m
1-800-496-9269 • (302) 227-6200
and
Pelican Sq. Shopping Center. Rehoboth • 645-0
Between Marshall's aad Super Fresh
ment for us. It was match play
and required more than one Mon-
day. I won and received a new
steel shaft driver as a prize, a
prized possession, as I owned a
mixed set of clubs. Many times a
couple of boys, Francis Ogden
and Henry Horsey, whose fathers
were members would come out
and play with me on Mondays.
Ogden was one of the best players
in the club, and could play the
course any time he wanted while I
was hitting balls back and forth in
the rough along the fairways be-
hind our house.
"The first greens keeper was
Jerry Monahan and the first golf
pro was Frank Lucas. Monahan
was a rather old man when he
took the job and hired young Tom
Burton, who was from a Sussex
County farm, as his helper. When
Monahan retired Burton had the
job in the mid 1930s and did a
good job. The biggest problem on
the greens in those days was
brown patches and crabgrass.
They were treated with chemicals
mixed in a big barrel pulled from
green to green around the course
by a tractor.
"One summer, the crabgrass on
the greens was out of control so
many of us caddies were hied to
cut the crabgrass by hand, using
penknives. Lines were stretched
across the greens about three feet
apart and each boy was expected
to cut out the plants and roots in
his track across the green. The
pay was 15 cents an hour, but this
was during the Great Depression,
CAPE GAZETTE, Friday, Aug. 18 - Aug. 24, 2000 - 33
when first class carpenters were
paid 60 cents an hour, bread was 5
cents a loaf, a single dip of ice
cream was 5 cents and a double
dip was 10 cents.
"Membership in Rehoboth
Beach Country Club in the 1930s
was $30 per year, which included
a man, his wife and all children
under age 21. There was no initi-
ation fee and the purchase of
stock was optional. Most mem-
bers didn't buy stock. When I
joined the club in 1946, the dues
had increased to $60 a year.
"The old original course was
built on sandy soil, so it could rain
for three days and two hours after
the rain stopped, we could play
golf. The ground was high above
Silver Lake and drained toward
the lake. When developers ac-
quired the course, they leveled the
land for houses. It was difficult to
find any members who wanted to
leave the in-town location, but the
City of Rehoboth Beach wanted
more tax revenue from the area in
individual building lots, which
was the prime reason for the
move. The club ran out of city
commissioners in sympathy for
the club, although I remember one
Continued on page 34
Alan Lynch, right, of Rehoboth Beach, stands with Ed
Brown, Rehoboth Beach Country Club greenskeeper, during
the gala, while Brown's mother, Lonnie, chats with a fellow
reveler.
congratulations Toour
JU__00 super stars!
DaveKton
• .= .......... :
,. , :;:-..