Billy McGee, Co-Chair
Eastmoreland 100 Project
About Me
I moved to Portland in 2002 having growing up as a "muni-kid" at Baird State Park Golf Course in the Mid-Hudson Valley. Similar in origins to Eastmoreland - my original home course was designed by another famous architect Robert Trent Jones (senior) in 1932. It was originally to be a private course on a beautiful property, though after construction started in 1929 - the stock market crash wiped out the investors and eventually the State Park System picked up the pieces (thankfully - because as a child that course was my home away from home)
I played golf through high school, and I was pretty good eventually becoming the 4 or 5 man on the team - and the coach knew I really didn't care where he placed me so I was often paired with new guys coming up on 6th man to give them a little boost. Generally I got along with everybody, though like all golfers we are assortment of characters - not the country club boys you might imagine. For example our Captain was a farmer and hunter, literally would shoot paintballs at the team in the parking lot, and joined the marines just a week out of graduating high school - and I believe was sent directly into Desert Storm a year later.
10 years later, my time at Lewis & Clark Law School allowed me to play golf during non-peak hours and I rediscovered my love of the game. I mostly played the "muni's" of Eastmoreland, along with Heron Lakes, Rose City. I'd reluctantly play Eastmoreland because "I didn't like it" when the real reason was the course would eat me alive so that my otherwise consistent rounds of 80-84 would ballon to 90-94. Eastmoreland is a course of tight fairways and well placed trees that brings golfers, who are not well positioned, to their knees. Bad shots lead to big numbers here. There are few escapes.
In 2012 I joined the Eastmoreland Men's club and from then on began my love affair with the course that is requires the strategy of chess match. Eastmoreland will bend, but be warned, you will be the one to break. I've learned how to hit my 4 iron with a low penetrating trajectory and pretty decent control of distance. After all - when you play Eastmoreland even the best players will be in the trees at some point.
Why start the Eastmoreland 100 Project?
Summer of 2016 I was in the clubhouse nursing a cold cider after another great round decimated by a few misplaced shots and I was again out of the money. To keep my mind off subsidizing another Sunday game, which the President calls "just the tax for guys like you to play golf with the good players" Looking up to the decorative plates above the bar announcing 1918 and realize the 100 anniversary is only 2 years away. Along the clubhouse I took in more of the old photos and just marvel on how anyone with old equipment could get around Eastmoreland anywhere close to par. I started asking the oldtimers (our club age range is from 25-85) about the origins and how people played back in the day. Stories began rolling out about Benny Hughes - with the greatest hands (in golf meaning touch around the green), Frank Dolp - the tall and wiry national champion - though most only remember his in his ripe late years. Some recalled how the club played on both Saturday's and Sundays and there was a sandlot style of picking teams in the parking lot - right out of a Little Rascals movie - and if you weren't there at 7:30 AM you wouldn't get on a team.
Nobody knew about the actual origins - "the city built it" - "No it was donated by the Ladd's company, to sell houses" - "I heard the M.A.C. club started the whole idea...." and because I'm a documentary junkie I realized that this was a story yet untold - at least for a long long time. That's when I blurted out - "You know someone should write a book about this course"
"A what!?"
"A book" I said pointing up to the plates, "to celebrate the course 100th year, you know like Waverley, Baltusrol, Pine Valley... Shoot this course is older than Augusta by almost 20 years!"
"Why Billy? who's going to care?"
"A lot of people might care, look at those old photos of the City - how the course is almost links style with no trees, where did all the trees come from?"
"People do care" said Jack Schneider "Billy, that's a good idea."
"Yeah, well somebody should do it" I said.
"No, you should do it Billy, nobody else is going to..."
"Well maybe I will"
"Good luck with that"
And like every other Eastmoreland story - the adventure begins with a friendly bet.
I moved to Portland in 2002 having growing up as a "muni-kid" at Baird State Park Golf Course in the Mid-Hudson Valley. Similar in origins to Eastmoreland - my original home course was designed by another famous architect Robert Trent Jones (senior) in 1932. It was originally to be a private course on a beautiful property, though after construction started in 1929 - the stock market crash wiped out the investors and eventually the State Park System picked up the pieces (thankfully - because as a child that course was my home away from home)
I played golf through high school, and I was pretty good eventually becoming the 4 or 5 man on the team - and the coach knew I really didn't care where he placed me so I was often paired with new guys coming up on 6th man to give them a little boost. Generally I got along with everybody, though like all golfers we are assortment of characters - not the country club boys you might imagine. For example our Captain was a farmer and hunter, literally would shoot paintballs at the team in the parking lot, and joined the marines just a week out of graduating high school - and I believe was sent directly into Desert Storm a year later.
10 years later, my time at Lewis & Clark Law School allowed me to play golf during non-peak hours and I rediscovered my love of the game. I mostly played the "muni's" of Eastmoreland, along with Heron Lakes, Rose City. I'd reluctantly play Eastmoreland because "I didn't like it" when the real reason was the course would eat me alive so that my otherwise consistent rounds of 80-84 would ballon to 90-94. Eastmoreland is a course of tight fairways and well placed trees that brings golfers, who are not well positioned, to their knees. Bad shots lead to big numbers here. There are few escapes.
In 2012 I joined the Eastmoreland Men's club and from then on began my love affair with the course that is requires the strategy of chess match. Eastmoreland will bend, but be warned, you will be the one to break. I've learned how to hit my 4 iron with a low penetrating trajectory and pretty decent control of distance. After all - when you play Eastmoreland even the best players will be in the trees at some point.
Why start the Eastmoreland 100 Project?
Summer of 2016 I was in the clubhouse nursing a cold cider after another great round decimated by a few misplaced shots and I was again out of the money. To keep my mind off subsidizing another Sunday game, which the President calls "just the tax for guys like you to play golf with the good players" Looking up to the decorative plates above the bar announcing 1918 and realize the 100 anniversary is only 2 years away. Along the clubhouse I took in more of the old photos and just marvel on how anyone with old equipment could get around Eastmoreland anywhere close to par. I started asking the oldtimers (our club age range is from 25-85) about the origins and how people played back in the day. Stories began rolling out about Benny Hughes - with the greatest hands (in golf meaning touch around the green), Frank Dolp - the tall and wiry national champion - though most only remember his in his ripe late years. Some recalled how the club played on both Saturday's and Sundays and there was a sandlot style of picking teams in the parking lot - right out of a Little Rascals movie - and if you weren't there at 7:30 AM you wouldn't get on a team.
Nobody knew about the actual origins - "the city built it" - "No it was donated by the Ladd's company, to sell houses" - "I heard the M.A.C. club started the whole idea...." and because I'm a documentary junkie I realized that this was a story yet untold - at least for a long long time. That's when I blurted out - "You know someone should write a book about this course"
"A what!?"
"A book" I said pointing up to the plates, "to celebrate the course 100th year, you know like Waverley, Baltusrol, Pine Valley... Shoot this course is older than Augusta by almost 20 years!"
"Why Billy? who's going to care?"
"A lot of people might care, look at those old photos of the City - how the course is almost links style with no trees, where did all the trees come from?"
"People do care" said Jack Schneider "Billy, that's a good idea."
"Yeah, well somebody should do it" I said.
"No, you should do it Billy, nobody else is going to..."
"Well maybe I will"
"Good luck with that"
And like every other Eastmoreland story - the adventure begins with a friendly bet.