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1909. "Stevens House golf links, Lake Placid, Adirondack Mountains, New York." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
You can mow lawns neatly with a scythe - I've done it on an acre for almost two decades. It's fun but not fast. The major annoyance is transporting the cuttings, which form a windrow pile to your left, to somewhere else.
Think of it as an alternative to golf as a hobby.
About this time, steam tractors were first utilized to pull a line of "gang mowers" about 20 feet wide for the better courses, as this one was. And around the same time smaller, gas-powered hand mowers had just been introduced and made greens maintenance much better and economical at the same time. This per a golf turf grass expert and friend of mine at Michigan State University here in town where I live.
[And before self-propelled equipment, horse-drawn reel and sickle-bar mowers. - Dave]
How do you mow in 1909? Too much to push mow, I can't imagine a horse pulled mechanism mowing closely enough to do. Ideas, Shorpists?
Check out the shoes of tall lad in the middle. Are they really his or did his father pass down his old shoes?
The kid's expression pretty much says it all.
Apparently the wind is coming straight down the fairway into the face of the tee box. There's very little chance of making the green in two strokes on a day like this!
I think you will be hard pressed to find a picture of another gentleman from this era without a hat on. (Not child or teen, but adult) I realize its windy, but I think it is very unusual to see a man outside without a hat. And how about those golf boots the ladies are wearing!
The lake may well be placid, but the atmosphere looks subject to overzealous zephyrs, with the local greenery providing several instances of a tropism of sorts that one encounters in such persistently windy environments. (Not altogether unlike the preceding sentence).
I'm pretty sure the girl on the left was a close relative of Jimmy Durante.
For the uncropped version of this scene, click here.
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