Seattle Golf Club

In the early years, about twenty wives of members played; they paid dues under a status of Lady Golfers.

In 1975, longstanding practice was formalized and any wife of a member was welcome to join as a Lady Golfer without a separate process of application.

[13] Other founders included Seattle fire chief (later state senator) Josiah Collins; former Seattle corporation counsel George Donworth; Manson F. Backus (banker, philanthropist, book and art collector[14]); Ira Nadeau, who would later serve as director general of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition,; banker Jacob Furth; Pierre P. Ferry, whose home later became the official residence of the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia; former Seattle mayor John Leary; businessman Horace Chapin Henry, whose art collection became the basis for the Henry Art Gallery; and a number of Seattle's other leading attorneys and businessmen.

[15] On September 5, 1900[citation needed] the Board approved a 10-year lease on a property in what is now the Laurelhurst neighborhood sufficient for a 9-hole course.

[16][17] In the initial years, the course doubled as pasture for landlord David Ferguson's cows and goats.

[13] A farmhouse was converted to a clubhouse; that building was later moved about a block and is still extant as a residence at 5100 NE Latimer Place.

To reach it from Seattle, golfers took the Madison Street Cable Car to the end of the line on Lake Washington, the took a naptha-powered launch called the "Sunny Jim" to a landing near the present-day Shoreline Street End 127, where 51st Ave NE hits the west shore of Lake Washington.

[21][16] (The "Sunny Jim" was operated strictly for the golf club, and riders had to give a password to board.

[21][16] (There was an alternative land route, that required a long walk from the Floyd station of the Seattle-Everett Interurban.

[23] The rest of the transaction is a bit foggy:[23] money from the Meadows racetrack (on the site of present-day Boeing Field) may have been involved.

[21][24] By 1918, members either lived in the nearby Highlands or arrived almost entirely by automobile, and the shuttle was discontinued, as eventually was the Interurban.

Chimneys were rebuilt, steel beams were added, and for the first time the building joined the irrigation system in being connected to the city water supply rather than its own well.

Palmer redesigned that hole to make it a more reasonable gamble to try to start off with a long drive in an effort to birdie.