125 Years of Golf in New Jersey: Then (1925) and Now

Photo: George H. Crump surveying the land during the construction of Pine Valley Golf Club.

By Kevin Casey

On our 125th anniversary, New Jersey Golf is looking at what the game was like in the Garden State since 1900, in twenty-five-year increments. Last month, we highlighted the state of the game in New Jersey in 1900, the year we were founded. The new-to-America, 1900 game rapidly evolved over its next 25 years. As you’ll see below, in 1925, New Jersey continued its leading role in the golf’s development.

From 1900 to 1925, golf in America evolved dramatically. In its last years, the Industrial Revolution generated and distributed enormous wealth, which accelerated interest in pastimes and improved transportation. Industrial processes significantly changed golf, churning out steel shafts (the death knell of handmade hickory shafts) and wound golf balls that made golf easier and more fun to play. By 1925, steam shovels and tractor-drawn gang mowers replaced horse-drawn graders and push mowers, dramatically changing golf course design and improving course maintenance.

A single event, amateur caddie Francis Ouimet’s triumph in a playoff against the world’s best players in the 1913 U.S. Open in Boston, opened America’s eyes to golf’s possibilities. While still a sport of the country club set, Ouimet’s Open captured the Middle Class’s attention and its recently enlarged bank accounts. New clubs were being born, public golf was becoming a thing, and, in the Roaring Twenties, money was pouring into the game.

Nonetheless, golf in 1925 was not quite the sport we play today. An illustrative example is that in 1925, the president of the New Jersey State Golf Association (today’s New Jersey Golf) was Morris County GC’s Wynant Vanderpool, who also served as the president of the United States Golf Association in the same year. It’s hard to picture someone filling both those roles today.

New Jersey golf in 1925 was booming, and still solidly part of golf’s ground zero. Here’s a snapshot of golf a century ago, in 1925’s New Jersey.

Golf in New Jersey, by the Numbers: 1925

• Golf Courses: In 1925, there were an estimated 60 private courses in the state, one municipal course (Newark’s Weequahic Golf Course opened in 1914), and a few resort courses, including Atlantic City Country Club and Seaview Resort).

• Golfers: In 1900, there were about 10,000 golfers in the state. FYI, today, New Jersey is home to 870,000 golfers, according to the National Golf Foundation.
• Women Golfers: Around 2000 New Jersey women played golf in 1925. FYI, today, about 247,000 women play golf in New Jersey.
• NJ Golf State Championships: By 1925, New Jersey Golf conducted five annual state championships, a huge commitment compared to the single event held in 1916: 
  • The 23rd New Jersey State Amateur Championship, won by August Kammer at Baltusrol Golf Club.
  • The 5th New Jersey State Open Championship, won by Clarence Hackney at Shackamaxon Golf & Country Club.
  • The 3rd New Jersey Women’s Amateur Championship, won by Maureen Orcutt at Arcola Country Club.
  • The 7th New Jersey Junior Championship, won by Eugene Homans at Morris County Golf Club.
  • The 3rd New Jersey Father and Son Championship, won by Sheppard Homans and Eugene Homans at Morris County Golf Club.
• USGA Events: By 1925, New Jersey had hosted twelve USGA championships: five U.S. Women’s Amateurs, four U.S. Men’s Amateurs, and three U.S. Opens. FYI: as of today, New Jersey has hosted 54 USGA championships (fourth among all states).

Equipment: Then vs. Now

By 1925, golf technology had taken leaps and bounds in just a few years. The game finally evolved past the gutta-percha, hickory-shaft days of Old Tom Morris.

• Golf Clubs: In 1924, the USGA legalized steel shafts, paving the way for their broader adoption. More durable, consistent, and stronger than hickory shafts, steel shafts revolutionized golf, leading to changes in swing techniques and club design. Still, it took another decade before wooden shafts were only a memory in top-flight competition.

• Golf Balls: The most popular golf ball in 1925 was the Dunlop Maxfli, which had evolved from the gutta-percha-covered Haskell Flyer, the dominant ball in the beginning of the 1900s. The Maxfli, like the Haskell, had a wound rubber core but used balata, a more durable natural rubber than gutta percha.

• Golf Tees: Dr. William Lowell, a new golfer from Maplewood Country Club, invented, patented, and marketed the wooden “Reddy Tee,” the now-familiar, one-piece wooden peg with a scooped-out top. Sales of the Reddy Tee took off once popular touring professional Walter Hagan used them during a 1922 exhibition tour. By 1925, the Reddy Tee was golf’s standard.

Golf Courses and Maintenance in 1925

Golf in the Garden State exploded in the mid-1920s. Some of the most impressive changes in the game in 1925 came in the design and maintenance of golf courses. The steamshovel changed the way golf courses were built – and how the game way played. New greens were springing up everywhere. Pine Valley Golf Club, Baltusrol Golf Club (both Upper and Lower), and dozens of the country’s finest courses came online in NJ in the ‘20s. 

• Architecture: By 1925, New Jersey’s place in the Golden Age of Golf Course Architecture was cast in stone. Most of the country’s best designers did more than have a cup of coffee in New Jersey, including A.W. Tillinghast (e.g., Somerset Hills Country Club), Donald Ross (e.g., Plainfield Country Club), C.B. Macdonald/Seth Raynor/Charles Banks (e.g., Essex County Country Club), Walter Travis (e.g., Hollywood Golf Club), Herbert Barker (e.g., Arcola Country Club), and Robert White (Manasquan River Golf Club). All these courses came to life in the 1920s.
• Southern New Jersey’s Pine Valley Golf Club, the course that George Crump envisioned and set out to build, came to life in 1922, four years after his untimely death – only through the teamwork of many of his friends, family, and fellow architects. The result is a course that is consistently ranked the best in America, a century later.
• Maintenance: By 1925, the introduction of mechanized gang mowers – multiple reels pulled by tractors – revolutionized fairway maintenance, providing smoother lies and more uniform grass length. Gasoline-powered mowers like the Toro Standard, introduced in 1919, quickly became standard equipment. Clubs in New Jersey eagerly adopted them to maintain large courses with greater speed and precision. It’s no coincidence that the same era saw an increase in course size and complexity – without machines, such ambitious designs would have been unsustainable.

In Full Swing

In 1925, golf in New Jersey embodied the forward momentum of the age – technologically advanced, socially dynamic, and increasingly accessible. What had once been a rustic, hand-hewn game played by elites had become a sophisticated sport shaped by machinery, modern design, and growing public interest.

On fairways once trodden by horses and hand-mowers, gasoline engines now hummed, carving out the manicured landscapes we recognize today. The transition from muscle to machine didn’t just change how courses looked – it changed who could play, how they played, and what golf meant to New Jerseyans of all stripes. The game, like the era itself, was in full swing.

Kevin Casey is the author of Remarkable Stories of New Jersey Golf. To learn more about Kevin's book, visit njgolfstories.com.