Myopia Hunt Club wastes no time displaying its
distinct and venerable virtues. A long entryway carries the visitor past Gidney
Field, the oldest polo grounds in America, then
alongside a private stable and kennel before reaching the front of the club’s
elegant, yellow-clapboard clubhouse.
There is room to breathe on this property less than
20 miles north of Boston, and the course features you initially
glimpse seem like exhibits in a museum of early-American course architecture.
Given the vintage look and feel of the buildings, it would not be surprising to
spot Herbert C. “Papa” Leeds rocking on the creaky front porch, cigar and scotch in
hand, discussing a golf game with his cronies—a vision from the days when the
club hosted four of the first 14 U.S. Opens.
When Myopia was established in 1875, there wasn’t a
single organized golf club in America. Its 30 founding members had
staked out enough land in South
Hamilton, Massachusetts,
to pursue their equestrian pleasures. But in 1894, after seeing golf at The
Country Club in nearby Brookline, Myopia leaders appointed a golf
committee. R.M. Appleton laid out nine holes; the first tournament was held June
18, 1894, and Leeds, a former baseball player
at Harvard, was the winner.
Leeds went on to the rudimentary nine holes at Myopia,
then added nine more, and by the turn of the century his control over the golf
program was complete.
It is fitting that a Harvard baseball player would
do so much to nurture golf at the club, given its name, taken from a
barnstorming baseball team organized by another former Harvard player, W.D.
Sanborn. The squad called themselves the Myopia Club because five of the players
wore glasses.
