Shenecossett Golf Club
Groton, Connecticut

Page 3

Glenna Collett Vare, a national champion who took golf lessons from Alex Smith at Shenecossett, won the tournament seven times. She credits her first victory in 1920 with having fueled her competitive spirit and having stimulated her desire to play championship level golf in the United States and in Europe. Dorothy Hurd Campbell, Edith Cummings and Marion Hollins, other national champions, were also winners of the Griswold Cup. Maureen Orcutt, another nationally recognized player, was three-time medalist; and Jean Bauer was a multiple winner in the 1930s. Alexa Stirling and Edith Leitch, other renowned international players, competed as well.  16

Just as the upswing in the business cycle had stimulated the game of golf in America throughout the 1920s, financial decline the following decade halted growth and, and more importantly, irrevocably altered the golfing landscape nation-wide and locally at Eastern Point. While the value of sporting goods manufactured in 1937 was 24 percent less than in 1929, the value of golfing equipment manufactured declined a disproportionate thirty-four percent during the same time interval. Consumption expenditures for golf decreased nearly 30 percent between 1929 and 1941, from 91 million dollars to 64 million dollars, or from 2.4 percent to 1.7 percent of the total expenditures on recreational activities.

New golf course construction, which had grown at a rate of 12 percent per year from 1925 to 1929, dropped to 8 percent in 1930. Of existing clubs, private ones, with their expensive and ostentatious clubhouses, the former social centers of the American golfing world in the 1920s, were severely impacted; and that impact was long lasting. Their numbers, for example, decreased from 5,291 in 1930 to 3,288 by 1941, as national productivity and individual disposable income declined and as unemployment reached double-digit levels. With fewer pretentious clubs available to them, golfers learned to do more with less, and gradually the game became progressively less aristocratic, a trend that would contribute to preservation of Shenecossett thirty years later.   17

Purchased in 1928 for a reported one million dollars, the owner of The Griswold and Shenecossett Country Club mortgaged the properties for fifty thousand dollars in 1932. A year later, at the low point in The Great Depression, the Town of Groton and four local businesses each attached the hotel and golf course properties. That same year both properties were sold to the Griswold Hotel Corporation, and shortly thereafter the former owner committed suicide. Also in 1933, the first mortgagee initiated foreclosure proceedings. The following January, a Superior Court judge ordered The Griswold Hotel Corporation to pay back taxes or face foreclosure at public auction. Hotel and golf course properties had changed ownership once again by 1935.  18

Not surprisingly, participation in the Griswold Cup declined during the financially tumultuous period of the 1930s. Glenna Collett Vare won the Griswold Cup in 1935 by defeating Jean Bauer and seventy-nine other participants. Five years later Helen Waterhouse won the twenty-second and final playing of the tournament by outplaying forty-nine competitors.  19

The twenty-second playing of the Griswold Cup marked the end of a golfing era at Shenecossett. It also signaled the end of Eastern Point colony as a swank summer resort. From 1940 onward, change, initiated by the economic depression and augmented by local events, became a constant at Eastern Point, affecting all elements of the summer colony in varying degrees, and reminding one of Tennyson’s line, “the old order changeth, yielding place to new.” More importantly, the whole that was Eastern Point began to fragment. The Branford House and grounds, for example, were transferred to the State of Connecticut in 1942 by trustee’s deed and to the United States Government by quitclaim deed that same year. The United States Coast Guard, in occupying the estate on a war footing, used the mansion for administrative purposes and officer housing, replaced the gardens with barracks, and plowed tons of carved ornamental pink marble into Long Island Sound. The estate reverted to Connecticut in 1967 and is now a branch campus of the University of Connecticut and center of the university’s internationally recognized marine research program. Branford House, has been restored under the direction of the Connecticut Historical Commission and now is an integral part of the university’s branch campus.  20

The population of Groton, though stable between 1920 and 1940 at about 10,000 persons, doubled during the next ten years, increased an additional thirty-six percent by 1960 and by thirty percent more over the following decade. That growth was largely in response to increasing labor needs of an expanding Electric Boat Company, a defense-related industry, and development of research facilities of Pfizer, Inc., a pharmaceutical house, both in the vicinity of Eastern Point. In addition, to satisfy new housing needs of the expanding workforce and families, at least in part, small ranch and cape style houses were built on open land surrounding the summer colony, and in some instances, replaced existing cottages within the boundaries of the colony. Industrial expansion and new housing construction diminished the previous geographic isolation and privacy of the colony, thereby lessening its former elegance, exclusivity and therefore attractiveness to social elite (Fig. 10).

High maintenance costs of summer cottages, the impact of the hurricane of 1938 and vandalism also contributed to decline of the colony. Gradually, the colony was transformed from an exclusive summer retreat to pleasant year-round residential community. The grouping of houses comprising the colony, however, has been preserved intact in both scale and appearance through the initiative and efforts of homeowners. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the collection of houses represents a prime example of a turn-of-the century seaside resort that provides a window through which one is able to glimpse an earlier facet of American culture. 21

Fig. 10. Land usage in neighborhood of Eastern Point in 1976
Compare with Fig. 1).
Map, prepared by Raymond, Parish and Pine, Inc
of West Haven, CT and Tarrytown, NY for Town of
Groton Planning Department.

The Griswold, the former social center of the colony, on the other hand, no longer exists. As a huge wooden structure costly to maintain, it became increasingly unprofitable to operate following WWII and it soon became a relic. It and the golf course were sold in 1945 and again in 1959. Milton Slosberg, a local businessman who purchased the hotel and golf course in 1959, was quoted as saying, “I’m not a hotel man. I like to play golf and my friends like the game.” Following WWII, increasingly more local residents, both professional and nonprofessional, played golf at Shenecossett, including those of the Jewish faith. In 1959, when the owner of the hotel and golf course decided to sell the properties rather than upgrade the hotel to comply with the fire code, a question in the mind of Milton Slosberg, a member at Shenecossett at the time, was whether or not a new owner might restrict play at the golf course to hotel guests. To insure a golf course amenable to Jewish members, Slosberg purchased hotel and golf course as a place for himself and his friends to play golf. According to his son Paul, Milton Slosberg intended to sell the hotel immediately while retaining the golf course. Instead he operated the hotel as a business. In an interview with him, Paul Slosberg noted that business at the hotel was good, but that the age of the building and its high maintenance costs necessitated that profits be continually turned back into the business. Because of operational expenses, Pfizer, Inc. was able to acquire the hotel in 1967 and two years later demolished the building.  22

Shenecossett golf course continued to be recognized as a fine test of golfing skill post-WWII , and as a result, it was chosen as site of the 1960 Connecticut Open. Although a new competitive course record of 65 was established during that championship, only five of the ninety-three professionals and amateurs competing bettered par in the three-round event. An amateur and full time college student, Allan Breed, won the championship with a score of five under par.  23

Fate of Shenecossett, however, came into question shortly after completion of that tournament, with the rumored impending demise of The Griswold. In 1964 the chairman of the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Groton (and resident of Eastern Point) suggested action be taken to preserve the golf course, if not the hotel, to guard against the possible advent of “undistinguished” housing. Not for the first time, neighborhood residents were concerned that the golf course would be sold to a developer and the land used in building tract-style houses. Earlier, in 1942, federal surveyors had staked out the golf course as a potential site for defense worker housing. At that time, members of the athletic club at Electric Boat expressed dissatisfaction with the plan. Groton officials described the proposed destruction of Shenecossett as “an act of extravagance”, arguing that the golf course was a source of much pride to the town, and that its conversion to tract housing would depreciate existing property values and thereby diminish town revenue long-term. The issue of property use was resolved only unofficially when the government built defense-worker housing elsewhere. The specter of Shenecossett as a housing site, however, persisted as an undesirable possibility in the minds of neighboring home owners.  24

Disposition of the golf course was resolved during the latter half of the 1960s through the interaction of several events occurring nationally. The play of President Eisenhower, along with the skilled performances of golf’s new heroes, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and the charismatic Arnold Palmer, again stimulated mass appeal for golf in America. More leisure time, more discretionary income, together with democratization of the game begun during the depression of the 1930s, allowed more Americans, representing a broad range of social and economic strata, to play golf than forty years earlier. Again, golf became increasingly more important to the nation’s economy. Those circumstances, along with an emerging concern for environment and the role of municipalities in acquiring parks and forests fostered by the former Work Projects Administration, provided the Town of Groton with a context for purchasing Shenecossett. With the encouragement of Connecticut’s governor, the personal involvement of Groton’s mayor and much negotiation between local and state administrators spanning three years, the Town of Groton bought the golf course from Milton Slosberg in 1967, whose earlier experience with religious bigotry fueled his interest in having the golf course available to all through municipal ownership.

Under the auspices of an open space agreement, the State of Connecticut contributed 435,000 dollars of the 900,000 dollars sale price. As the first purchase of a course under the open spaces program in Connecticut, the transaction was precedent setting. The Connecticut Commissioner of Agriculture and Natural Resources noted at the time of the transaction, that had the town not bought the golf course, it would have been developed as housing lots. Groton’s acquisition thus effectively preserved a golf course rich in history and tradition, one representing a significant piece of landscape design. It also provided employees of Electric Boat and Pfizer, Inc. with a recreational facility and the town with an anticipated revenue-generating resource.  25

The golf course the town purchased was essentially Ross’ remodeled version of 1918, to which had been added over the intervening years new tees and a new sixteenth green to lengthen the course to 6,512 yards, and to which more bunkers had been added, bringing the total to ninety-four (Fig. 8). Twenty years after its acquisition, however, the town remodeled the golf course in 1998 to accommodate growth of Pfizer, Inc, the town’s largest taxpayer. Groton swapped the parcel of property, including holes five, six and seven, for a corporate owned one at Eastern Point adjacent to the Thames River. Holes fifteen, sixteen and seventeen in the new routing of holes were laid out on the newly acquired property.

Of the remaining holes of the Ross design, new tees were constructed in converting the eighth hole to a par five and the thirteenth to a par four. In the new routing, holes eight and thirteen became numbers five and ten, respectively. Shortening the latter hole made room for the new ninth hole and eliminated the long carry required of tee shots across the heavily traveled Plant Street (formerly North Street), thereby reducing danger to pedestrians and motorists. In addition, hole 18 was converted to a par five with construction of a new green. Holes eleven and twelve, a par three and a par five, were replaced with a par five (hole 8) and par three (hole 9), respectively, in the remodeled version. The new course measures 6,546 yards in length and plays to a par of 71 (Fig. 11).  26
Fig. 11. Shennecossett Municipal Golf Course in 1998
showing changes by Town of Groton: holes 15-17
created to replace 5-7 lost in land swap;
8 and 9 new holes; holes 8 (now No. 5),
13 (now No. 10) and hole 18 modified.
Compare with Fig. 8.
(Town of Groton photograph)

Homeowners at Eastern Point endorsed the land transaction, as use of the land as golf course eliminated the nagging uncertainty of how it might be used by a corporate owner, thereby stabilizing property values. The land swap satisfied the pharmaceutical company’s need for additional property contiguous with existing land holdings on which to expand. The town, in satisfying the corporate neighbor, achieved its goals of improving vistas and in repositioning the ninth green closer to the clubhouse. Certainly, views of the Thames River and Long Island Sound from the new sixteenth green and seventeenth tee are spectacular and recapture those that encouraged Albert Avery to develop the “pleasant point.”

Regarding architectural aspects of the remodeling, interpretations appear to be mixed. Bob Ross, a noted club professional, who had grown up playing Shenecossett. commented, “even with the changes, the character of the course is still there.” Bradley S. Klein, architecture editor of Golfweek, in reviewing Ross’ body of work, described the modifications as “disappointing” and the new holes as being a part of a golf course, “otherwise brimming with visual and strategic interest.” Moreover, replacement of holes eleven and twelve with two new ones, in order to re-position the ninth green, may have contributed unnecessary disruption to the internal flow of the Ross design.  27

The town, to its credit, has continued the Shenecossett tradition of hosting tournament play. The Sara Polinsky Memorial Tournament, a women’s invitational event, sponsored by the women’s club to celebrate one of its charter members, has been played annually since 1971. It typically has a full field of at least 130 competitors from throughout Connecticut as well as from Rhode Island. A sectional qualifying tournament for the USGA’s Public Links Championship and a mid-amateur championship sponsored by the Connecticut State Golf Association have also been played there. More recently, a strong working relationship has developed between the Town of Groton and the Connecticut Section of The Professional Golfers’ Association, resulting in play of the Connecticut Senior Open Championship at Shenecossett since 1998. Highly successful, in 2002 for example, applications for play in the event were received from golfers in 13 states. Through its continued involvement in tournament play, the golf course, now the Shennecossett Municipal Golf Course, continues to be a significant element in organized golf in America.  28

Eastern Point was not unique in providing golf to visitors summering along the shoreline of Southeastern Connecticut in 1900. Across the Thames River, guests of the Pequot House in New London played at Quaganopoxett Golf Club in adjacent Town of Waterford, Connecticut and those of the Oswegatchie House located at the head of the Niantic River in Waterford, played at Konomoc Club. Both courses predated Shenecossett; and both closed shortly after the turn of the century. Given that more than forty percent of the golf courses listed by Cornish and Whitten as opening during and before the year 1898 no longer exist, their demise is not surprising. Unlike the latter two golf courses, Shenecossett, as playground of America’s social elite, thrived during the first three decades of the twentieth century as a stage where the best professional players of the day demonstrated play of the game of golf; and on which the best women players competed in a nationally recognized tournament.

It persisted during a period of limbo in the history of American golf, beginning with the depression of the 1930s. Finally, the golf course was transformed from private to public facility at the time of the game’s revitalization in the 1960s, insuring its preservation and use by the common citizen. Now a self-sustaining enterprise fund project, Shennecossett Municipal Golf Course is a product of human effort in response to interactions of changing social and economic conditions near- and far-field. As such, its history exemplifies the significance of individuals in creating, developing and preserving in the context of a changing social and economic environment. As a final note, Geoff Shackelford in his recent book, Grounds for Golf, identified Shennecossett as one of America’s golf courses worthy of restoration by an organization such as the USGA, because of the enduring value of its Ross design.  29

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