Father of American Golf
The story of the Scots in Sarasota was a sad one considering most of the immigrants had to abandon their sunny Sarasota sanctuary and go back to damp, dreary Scotland. But the story does have a silver lining!
THE FATHER OF SARASOTA
Back in Edinburgh, Sir John Gillespie, the land developer who sold the package to the Scots did the decent thing and sent his son, John Hamilton Gillespie to try and remedy the matter - albeit a bit late for the initial settlers.
The young Gillespie went on to become the founder of Sarasota and US golf’s great-grandfather!
John Hamilton Gillespie was a keen golfer. He’d been playing the game since the age of 8 around his home town of Edinburgh. He grew up on Northumberland Street in the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town and had easy access to the golf courses of Edinburgh and East Lothian including Royal Burgess, Bruntsfield Links and the old links of Musselburgh.
So, at the same time as building his first house in the fledgling township of Sarasota, Gillespie created one single fairway with greens at either end to ‘keep his hand in’.
FIRST GOLF COURSE IN THE US?
Having lived in the States, I grew used to the hyperbole. The argument regarding the first golf course to be built in the US rages on, everyone wanting a piece of that old pie.
Dated May 1886, this was quite probably the first golf course construction in North America. Foxburg Country Club in Pennsylvania, considered by most to be the oldest golf course in continuous use in the USA, was only established in 1887.
Gillespie took to his new Florida life and in 1905 he constructed a further 9-hole course. He also called his Sarasota home ‘Golf Hall’, located on the corner of Golf Street and Links Avenue. You get the impression Gillespie was a bit of a golf nut!
It's been paved over and now known as Links Avenue. And this statue of 'An Unknown Golfer' marks the spots. Looks a little like James Braid.
He went on to lay out more courses in Tampa, Winter Park near Orlando and Havana, Cuba - at the same time serving as Sarasota’s first mayor, a post he held for a subsequent five terms. Gillespie went on to construct a 9-hole course on a site which is now the Sarasota County Courthouse. He also developed further courses in Tampa, Winter Park and Havana, Cuba.
Gillespie grasped that his Florida land development enterprise was not going well and so the following year, 1886, sent his son to put things right. John Hamilton Gillespie set about building the township and establishing the City of Sarasota with fervour.
But even better than that - Gillespie was a mad keen golfer. He'd played since the age of 8 and attended university in St Andrews. Need I say more? But there were no fine fescue fairways in Florida so Gillespie built his own - two holes carved out of the scrub right here in Downtown Sarasota, the first golf course in Florida and the second in the United States.
Gillespie played almost every day even throughout his considerable period serving as the Town's first Mayor.
John Hamilton Gillespie came from Edinburgh, the capital city situated on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth in East Lothian. His home was also home to golf's Royal Burgess Golfing Society, its motto "Far and Sure", founded 1735 and the oldest golfing society in the world; Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society of 1761, the fourth oldest in the world; to Musselburgh Links, The Old Course and host of The Open Championship six times from 1874 to 1889. His home would also become home to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, when Old Tom Morris laid out Muirfield in 1891.
And his new home, Sarasota, would become Florida's "cradle of golf."
Nobody in the small village of Sarasota knew what John Hamilton Gillespie was doing when, in May of 1886, he built a practice course consisting of two greens and one long fairway.
In 1904, John Hamilton Gillespie laid out a nine-hole golf course on 110 acres east of his original course. This new course was located on present-day Main Street, east of present Links Avenue, where Gillespie practiced daily for many years. In 1905 he added a clubhouse that he maintained with the course at his own expense until he sold the course to Owen Burns in 1910.
John Hamilton Gillespie continued to help support and take care of the course because upkeep could be quite an undertaking. Then Gillespie came up with the idea of organizing a golf club to help with expenses.
On December 13, 1913, a meeting was held at the Sarasota Yacht and Automobile Club to organize the Sarasota Golf Club. Gillespie stated that maintaining a golf course without support from residents, as well as visitors, is difficult. The group agreed to pay $10 per person ($236 today) to become Charter Members; the money would go toward upkeep of the course. The course's owner, Owen Burns, would allow members to play for free, with the use of the clubhouse, as long as they made necessary repairs to the windmill and lavatories in the clubhouse.
The first members of Sarasota Golf Club read like a who's who of prominent early Sarasotans: early politicians Hugh Browning, Harry Higel and, of course, John Hamilton Gillespie; physicians Jack and Joseph Halton; landowners Owen Burns, Ralph Caples, Honore Palmer and J.H. Lord. The club drew up by-laws for the organization and rules for playing golf on the course. To play golf for the winter season cost $10. For those who did not want to commit to an entire season, the fee structure was $5 for one month, $2 for one week and 50 cents for a day. Although Gillespie encouraged everyone to play, the course was rarely crowded.
Over the years, John Hamilton Gillespie was commissioned to design and build six other Florida courses and one in Havana, Cuba. He was one of Florida's championship golfers and an authority on the sport.
John Hamilton Gillespie never stopped in his campaign to promote the game of golf. In a 1921 newspaper article, he wrote about how golf barely existed in the state at the turn of the 20th century. He said "there was no East Coast golf in Florida then, the Jacksonville Country Club being in its infancy, and, to the credit for making golf well and favorably known in Florida and in the southern state. Tampa for a long time did not take to the game, although Mr. Plant spent considerable money on an endeavor to foster the game. It was not until Bellaire [Country Club] became famous as a golf course [Designed by Donald Ross] that Tampa woke up and took notice."
Although John Hamilton Gillespie knew that the game would grow in popularity, it was not until the Florida Land Boom of the mid-1920s that it became a popular sport, with two new courses built in Sarasota during the boom.
John Hamilton Gillespie died on the golf course near his home September 7, 1923. He is buried in Rosemary Cemetery on Central Avenue in the City of Sarasota. His course was sold in 1924 for development and no trace remains today.
The John Hamilton Gillespie Historic Marker was dedicated in 1995 by the Sarasota County Historical Commission on the site of the golf course he built.
It is John Hamilton Gillespie's stewardship of the City of Sarasota and of Golf in Sarasota, his place in golf history in Florida and in America, and his continued relevance today that we celebrate in the JOHN HAMILTON GILLESPIE INITIATIVE.
