‘PORTRAIT of a Golf Club Edmondstown GC 1944 -2014’ is the story of Edmondstown Golf Club, from its origins as the Maccabean Golfing Society through its 70-year history to today.
Launched by golf journalist, Dermot Gilleece at a reception in the club, it is more than simply a history of a golf club, it provides a window to an Ireland past and present from Bronze Age burial tombs through to the arrival of the M50.
It evokes different eras from the anti-Semitism of the late thirties and forties through the
‘Emergency’ and onwards through the Celtic Tiger years, to developers and a country emerging from those consequences today.
In doing so it provides a decade-by-decade chronicle of the 20th and 21st centuries as seen through the eyes of its members, staff and visitors.
Edmondstown Golf Club has its origins in the establishment of the Maccabean Golfing Society in 1933, a group who played golf as Green Fee players.
From the initial purchase of 72 acres, two rods and nine perches of farmland in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains through to today’s 18-hole championship course, Portrait of a Golf Club is an illustrated tribute to both its founding members and the generations that followed and nurtured the club over its 70 years.
It takes the reader from the original farm and outhouses through the Nissen hut (now owned by Blackrock Rugby Club at Stradbrook) with the Metropole Hotel’s maple ballroom flooring through to today’s vibrant club with its contemporary clubhouse, modern pro facilities that includes a 2,000 sq ft Pro Shop, a state of the art swing room and a large club and trolley storage area.
The book features interviews and anecdotes as recounted by founding members such as the late Geoff Ellimann, Honorary Life President Stanley Handelman and the recently deceased Louis Jacobson and many other members including Mark Bloom and Joe Bryan born on Edmondstown lands where his parents Gerry and Molly were Course Superintendent and Club Steward.
Former captains, students and indeed members of other sporting interests and entertainment from personalities such as Hal Roach through to contemporary sports commentators are all featured. It recounts the early days when one lady golfer regularly walked from Fitzwilliam Square to the club in an era when transport and fuel were both in short supply. It traces the history of equality legislation as lady members moved from being co-opted onto subcommittees to being full ordinary members elected to committees.
Peppered with anecdotes from controversial EGMs through to highly sociable Captain’s dinners, Portrait of a Golf Club is as much about the dedication and commitment of individual members to their club as it is of its 70-year history.
?¢ Portrait of a Golf Club Edmondstown GC 1944-2014 by David White and Howard Jacobs can be purchased from Edmondstown Golf Club tel: 01-4931082 or online from info@edmondstowngolfclub.ie