Leeds—no less an autocrat than H.C. Fownes, his contemporary at Oakmont—would rule Myopia for more than 30 years. When he died in September 1930, the club’s golf culture eroded. By the time the Depression and World War II had passed, golf had nearly fallen off the charts in South Hamilton, not to resume its central place at Myopia for decades.

When Bill Safrin was hired as head professional in 1980, he found that only 4,500 rounds had been recorded in 1979. Safrin jump-started the golf program. As participation increased, the members took a renewed pride in their classic golf course.

There is absolutely nothing formulaic about Myopia Hunt’s design, no cookie-cutter holes or textbook routings. The first hole is a short uphill climb to a blind green, the second a 487-yard downhill par 5 with a generous fairway. Par 4s range from 260 to 446 yards, and there’s not a single hole that reaches 500 yards.

It is an immensely enjoyable layout, rife with singular holes that you will find nowhere else in America, weaving past ancient stone walls, crossing open meadows and concluding at sequestered greens. At 6,539 yards the course is not the stout challenge it once was, but play it with hickory clubs as Leeds and his pals did and you’ll have all the mustard you can handle.

Today Myopia Hunt Club has some 370 members, about 200 of them regular golfers. The people who basically saved the club in the 1980s are the senior members who hold offices and direct Myopia’s progress today, so the future is in good hands.

The club still honors its patriarch as well. “We bring back his memory with our Herbert Corey Leeds Senior Four-Ball,” Safrin says. “And that brings the attention to Leeds and what he was like. We tell the stories.”

There are plenty to tell, each one contributing to a legacy that is bound firmly to American golf history and unique to Myopia.   

Par: 72
Yardage: 6,539
Year founded: 1894
Architect: Herbert C. Leeds