Serendipity.
The Oxford dictionary defines it as, “the occurrence and development of events by change in a happy or beneficial way.”
When it comes to historical research, a stroke of serendipity is always welcome. Oftentimes investigating a person or an event leads down a rabbit hole that stops at a dead end.
This happens frequently.
However, there are other times where an investigation of one thing, let’s say, for instance, the construction of a new department store by two Scottish immigrants in downtown Syracuse in 1894, leads to another story, arguably even more fascinating than the first one.
Sunday is Father’s Day.
For decades now, Father’s Day and the game of golf have become inextricably linked.
According to the United States Golf Association (USGA), Father’s Day is consistently one of the busiest days of the year for golf courses across the country. Moreover, the U.S. Open, our national championship and one of the game’s four “Majors”, concludes on Father’s Day every year.
This year, the USGA hosts the 125th U.S. Open Championship at historic Oakmont Country Club.
Golf lovers know well the storied history of the Pennsylvania club where the great Arnold Palmer, who grew up across the street, learned the game as a young caddy. My late grandfather loved Arnie, and he introduced myself and my brothers to the game of golf as youngsters.
We all love the game of golf, despite its unique ability to make you want to quit playing it all together from one hole to the next.
I think I have passed this affliction on to my own son.
Coincidentally, the USGA was founded in 1894; the very same year Donald and Robert Dey opened their magnificent new store on South Salina Street.
Donald Dey stands with three of the clubs he brought back from Scotland in 1885.Courtesy of the Onondaga Historical Association
Like the modern version of golf, the Dey Brothers were born in Scotland. Thus, it is exceedingly appropriate and rather serendipitous that Donald Dey brought the game to Syracuse.
According to an interview Dey gave to a reporter in the 1890s, he started playing the game as a teenager and claimed to be acquainted with two Scottish golfing legends, Tom Morris and Archie Simpson.
In 1885, Dey returned to Scotland to see family. He returned to Central New York with a very curious and historic package: six funny looking clubs with even funnier sounding names. There was the masher, the brassie, the mid-iron, the lofter, the putter, and the niblic.
Dey showed the clubs to several of his friends, a group that included some of the most well-to-do Syracusans, hitting them in the yard of his Highland Avenue home, some three years before a small group of men in the Hudson Valley played what is recognized as the first real holes of golf in the United States in the modern era.
Dey, however, was far too busy building his business, and his clubs eventually ended up in closet. However, the cat was already out of the (golf) bag.
Talk of forming an Onondaga Golf Club surfaced in the press as early as 1895.
In 1896, the first true game of golf ever played in Onondaga County took place on the massive estate of Maj. Alexander Davis, known today as Thornden Park.
The original Onondaga Golf Club Clubhouse built on Hiscock’s Farm. In 1902, it was sold to the University Hill Golf Club. The University Hill Golf Club was founded in November 1899. The clubhouse sat near the Ostrom Ave entrance to Thornden Park. The course, which ran through and around the University, was removed in 1904.Courtesy of the Onondaga Historical Association
Davis’ son-in-law, Capt. William Harris had become enamored with the game, and he set up a small course on the wooded, hilly property where members of the city’s elite gathered. Unfortunately, Maj. Davis would not allow any trees on his property to be removed and, as such, as the number of players grew, the site became untenable.
For a short time, the Hon. Charles Andrews and a few of his friends played a round in Pompey near the Hill Top House, but according to several recollections, the Hill Top course was “the worst imaginable.” This was probably true considering the “holes” were said to have been old tin cans.
To remedy their problem, Andrews, Charles Halcomb (Halcomb Steel), and James Randall formed a committee to select a new site for a proper course.
Into the fold stepped Mr. Albert Hiscock suggested that the group use his uncle’s farm on the city’s eastern edge and conveniently located on the Syracuse & Suburban Railroad (The site is currently the home of Elmcrest Children’s Home).
On April 20, 1898, the Onondaga Golf Club was formed at the law office of Knapp, Nottingham and Andrews, just four short years after the founding of the USGA.
The small but growing group began playing on the makeshift nine-hole course on Hiscock’s Farm that same spring. They set a membership limit of 100 men and 75 women, with annual dues of $20 for the men and $5 for the women. They built a small clubhouse for club storage.
As was custom, grazing sheep were used to maintain the fairways.
In June 1901, the Onondaga Golf Club opened a brand new nine-hole course on the former Van Shaick homestead on the Fayetteville Turnpike, designed by Mr. David Campbell, one of the club’s charter members. In the ensuing decades, the game’s popularity exploded.
The city of Syracuse opened the first municipal course at Burnett Park in 1913.
By the time Donald Dey passed away in 1946 there were 15 courses in the Greater Syracuse area. Today, there are almost 50 golf courses within a 20-mile radius of Syracuse, every one of them inundated with fathers, some playing with their kids and others escaping from theirs.
As a testament to Dey’s influence, several of his original clubs are on display in the clubhouse at the Onondaga Golf Club, where he was, of course, a charter member.
Robert Searing’s weekly articles are supported by the William G. Pomeroy Public History Media Series. To learn more about the William G. Pomeroy Foundation’s work to promote public history, visit wgpfoundation.org.