Horses and (Golf) Courses: Lawn boots are a hoofnote in golf history

I just had to share this video. Can someone explain it to me? I love Nike, love their commercials, love their stores, love their branding. Yet I don't get this commercial.

But then, I'm not in the market to buy Nike golf balls, either.

Years ago I lived a few furlongs from a place called The International--just "The International". It was a golf course in Bolton, Massachusetts and a very exclusive place. Once--once!--my horses got loose and galloped over a green.

That late-night caper did not go unnoticed. Each divot looked like a crater in the morning light. In fact, the scene looked almost exactly like the closing shot of Nike's commercial.

I found out later that when my horses tore up The International, they were merely carrying on a Boston tradition.

Here's an old lawn boot. Back in the days before there were self-propelled, rubber-tired mowers, these boots were worn by horses while mowing golf courses and other lawn-like surfaces where a horse's hoofprints would be undesirable. This one requires the horse to be shoeless. This is an illustration from Farquhars Garden Annual in 1922. You could buy a set of four for $12.50.

Golf, of course, is a Scottish game. It was brought to America by some Bostonians who decided to hit a ball around at a gentleman's racing and polo retreat called The Country Club in the lush suburb of Brookline. (That's right, just "The Country Club".) Golf became so popular so quickly that they kept extending the course and cutting down trees to make more greens.

What's an endangered horse lover to do? The equestrian members of the club revolted one night in 1899 and galloped their horses across the greens in protest.

Let's just say the horses weren't wearing lawn boots.

So the next time you go to a golf course, or when Easter dinner conversation lags this Sunday, you can explain that the first country club was actually a racetrack and polo field. When it added golf, its fame spread; the name "country club" came to be associated with golf, but at those early clubs the most popular pursuits would have been horse sports and shooting. 

Golf was an upstart, but it certainly did catch on.

Boston's The Country Club is still operating, and even hosted the 33rd Ryder Cup. The club ran its last horse race in 1935, and the final sections of the racetrack were finally sodded over in 1969. 

The horses may be gone but the legends live on. 

I bet sometimes, on a hot summer night, you might even hear some galloping hooves. As long as they are not the hooves of my horses.


Thanks to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, the Public Library of the Town of Brookline, Nike Golf, and The Antique Horse blog for assistance with this story.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page).  

 

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