The People

Burr W. Freer's ties to Belvedere go back at least to July 1906, when he took a quitclaim deed to lot 7 of block 6 on the Belvedere Land Company's map.¹ Late in 1912 he signed a contract with the builder Donald Currie for "a two story and basement frame residence" on that lot and part of the next, to cost $7,500.² In 1914 he deeded the lot to his wife, Avarilla A. Freer.³ The papers never say how he earned his living, only that he went to Los Angeles on business.^4,5

He was a boating man as well as a golfer: in 1913 the Pacific Motor Boat Club, which had its headquarters at Belvedere, elected him a director at large.⁶ The Freers were part of the island's summer society. Mrs. Freer gave one of the dinners before a club dance in 1915 and sat on the golf club's house committee in 1916, and the couple gave $100 to the 1917 Red Cross subscription.^7,8,9 In March 1919 Mary Freer, whom the papers call their daughter, was married at "the beautiful country seat in Belvedere of Mr. and Mrs. Burr W. Freer."¹⁰

President

That September the Belvedere Golf and Country Club elected Freer president, with F. Somers Peterson as vice president, Harrison Atwood as secretary and M. Pierce Cook as treasurer.^11,12 The same report gave the club a fine notice: "The Belvedere course is now looked upon as one of the best around the bay district."¹² In April 1920 he played in the club's first match against Mill Valley, in a team picked by Charles F. Preusser, and lost his single to A. B. Ambler.^13,14

He was back in the chair a few years later. The American Annual Golf Guide for 1923 and The Green Book of Golf for 1923–24 both list Burr W. Freer as president, and the Green Book gives his handicap as 27.^15,16

Later years

Freer stayed on the island long after the club was gone. In 1932 he sat on the honorary committee of the Tiburon–Belvedere Work Council, set up to find jobs for the unemployed.¹⁷ When war came, Red Cross volunteers met at the Freer home to make bandages, and in 1942 the Freers gave the use of a fully equipped room in their Golden Gate Avenue house for surgical dressings.^18,19 He celebrated a birthday on 5 December 1947, and early in 1948 he sailed on the Matsonia for Honolulu.^20,21 The local papers do not record his death.

Charles Frederick Preusser was a native of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. As a young man he joined the H. E. Heacock Company, wholesale jewelers, and built it into the largest firm of its kind in the Orient.¹ In 1914 the papers called him "a prominent young business man of Manila."² On 8 September 1914 he married Serena Bland at The Anchorage, her mother's house in Belvedere; among the ushers were Somers Peterson, Harry Atwood and Frank Simons, all names that would turn up in the golf club's story.^3,4 The couple meant to live in Manila, but he came to Belvedere in 1916, and the family made its home on Corinthian Island. They had two sons, Karl Richard and Henry Miner.^3,1

Champion and president

In June 1919 the Call named Preusser a possible dark horse in the club championship.⁵ The next spring he picked Belvedere's team for its first home-and-home match with Mill Valley, the start of a rivalry that ran through the decade.⁶ Soon afterward he was "acclaimed champion" of the club after a win over Henry Q. Hawes that took thirty-one holes "under a scorching sun."^7,8 By September 1920 he was president.⁹ He captained a Belvedere side against Mill Valley in 1921 and that year served on the Northern California Golf Association's tournament committee.^10,11 He was still president when the club was elected to the United States Golf Association on 1 February 1922, and that March he left on a long business trip to Manila.^12,13

The Green Book of Golf for 1923–24 lists him as the men's golf captain, with a handicap of 13, and calls him the "best home bred at Belvedere."¹⁴ He went on playing for the club for another decade, and in 1930 he captained its team in the Marin County Cup.^15,16

The reorganization

Around 1930 Preusser managed the San Francisco office of a company that sold an "indestructible" watch crystal, and he organized a jewelers' golf tournament on the Belvedere links; in 1931 his firm sent him to run its store in Reno.^17,18,19 Back home in the hard autumn of 1932 he was the field man for Belvedere's unemployment committee and chairman of its Work Council.^20,21

Just before Christmas 1932 the Record reported that the golf club was reorganizing and had made Preusser its president; the Oakland Tribune said he had been elected president of the "recently organized" club.^22,23 He opened the course to the golf teams of Tamalpais High School, Marin Junior College and San Rafael High School, and he arranged with the Work Council for young men without jobs to play on weekdays in return for work under the greenkeeper.^24,25 In March 1933 the club linked up with the San Francisco Yacht Club and issued a new prospectus for non-resident members, available through Preusser.²⁶ By September the Record was again listing Effingham Sutton as president, and the papers never explain how the two presidencies fitted together.²⁷

Preusser later worked for Granat Bros., the San Francisco jewelers. He died in November 1941, aged 63, after suffering a stroke at his Corinthian Island home. His obituary credited him with building up the golf club into an active organization in the 1920s.¹

Frank T. Bowers first appears in the papers as a motor-boat man. In 1913 the Pacific Motor Boat Club, "which has its headquarters at Belvedere," elected him rear commodore, and Burr W. Freer, another future golf-club president, sat on the same board.¹ In 1922 he bought a Belvedere parcel jointly with John W. Mailliard and Edgar M. Wilson, and that December the three men and their wives divided it among themselves; the deeds name his wife as Sophie M. Bowers.^2,3 The papers do not say what he did for a living. The Green Book of Golf for 1923–24 gives his handicap as 25.⁴

President

At the annual meeting in the summer of 1927 the members elected Bowers president, with Britton Rey as secretary, A. J. White as treasurer, and M. A. Gale and E. M. Wilson as directors.^5,6 He played as well as presided: in May 1928 he and Carleton Hyde made up the last pairing when Belvedere beat Mill Valley 12 to 5 on its own course.⁷ In June 1929 the Bowerses had the singer Regina Kahl and her sister as house guests, on Miss Kahl's way to a film engagement in Hollywood.⁸

His term ended warmly. On 25 July 1929, his birthday, he and Mrs. Bowers gave a dinner at the club, and the members presented a cake with a golf design, "partly in recognition of Mr. Bowers' term as president of the club, an office he has filled acceptably for two years."⁹ Two days later, at the annual meeting, he stood down and made "a graceful address of appreciation" for the support he had been given; Maurice A. Gale was elected in his place.¹⁰

He stayed involved for a while, sitting with C. F. Preusser and Britton Rey on the club's nominating committee in 1930.¹¹ By November 1931 the Record noted that the Bowerses were "in Belvedere for Thanksgiving holidays," which suggests they no longer lived there all year.¹²

Maurice A. Gale was a Belvedere insurance broker with offices in San Francisco.¹ By 1923 he and Mrs. Gale were among the island's hosts for the annual Night in Venice.² In 1926 he urged the town trustees to have the fire underwriters survey Belvedere again, in the hope of lower rates, and he was the town's insurance broker until Fred Boole replaced him in 1938.^1,3 He was a boat man, too. In 1926 he took delivery of a new 45-foot cruiser built at Stockton, and in 1931 he was a director of the San Francisco Yacht Club.^4,5

The hole in one

On the golf course he was no star. The Green Book of Golf for 1923–24 put his handicap at 30, the top of the club's list.⁶ That made his great day all the better. On Sunday, 21 February 1926, Gale, by then a director of the club, holed the fourth hole in one stroke, "a clean pitch directly into the cup without any roll."⁷ The shot earned him a place in the Eastern "Hole in One Club," and the Record noted that he was "still a young man."⁷

President

The members re-elected him a director in 1927.⁸ At the annual meeting on 27 July 1929 they elected him president unanimously, and he told them he wanted tournaments "of interest and worth while" and a livelier social life.⁹ He delivered. He presided over Thursday-night club dinners with moving pictures afterward, and his Hallowe'en dinner dance drew sixty guests.^10,11 On 4 January 1930 he gave a dinner and a film in the clubhouse for the club's caddies, "eighteen boys who come from the community."¹²

The Gales planned a trip to Europe in the spring of 1930, but they put off their sailing.^13,14 At the annual election on 9 August 1930 E. H. Belcher succeeded him, and the Record said that Gale had "given most acceptable service to the club, introducing several new features of interest."¹⁵ The Gales finally left for several months in Europe in February 1931.¹⁶ He was back on a committee planning the club's season in January 1932.¹⁷

Mrs. Gale was a soprano, and the Belvedere Musical Club held its first meeting at the Gales' home.^18,19 In later years the couple travelled widely and kept a mountain place near Sonora as well as their house on Golden Gate Avenue.^20,21 The papers do not record his death.

E. Howard Belcher had a house in Belvedere by 1913, when he and his wife, Mabel J. Belcher, took out a building loan.¹ During the Red Cross drive of June 1917 he led one of the teams that canvassed Belvedere and Tiburon.² He served as a trustee of Tamalpais Union High School until 1926, when he declined another term "on account of being away on business so much of the time."³ The papers never name his business. In 1928 he was one of three hosts at the club for members of the Textile Association, which may hint at his trade.⁴ His daughter, Helen Whitely Belcher, was married at her parents' Belvedere home in February 1929.⁵

Golfer

He played for the club in an inter-club match at Santa Rosa in March 1924, and that month he entered the first Del Monte seniors' tournament, going round in 102, or 81 net.^6,7 The Green Book of Golf for 1923–24 gave his handicap as 27.⁸

President

The members elected Belcher a director in July 1929, when Maurice A. Gale became president, and at the annual election of 9 August 1930 he was "made president."^9,10 He began with an improvement the members had long wanted, a new first tee.¹¹ In March 1931 he and Britton Rey won the member-guest tournament that opened the season, with twenty teams entered.¹² He was re-elected on 12 September 1931.¹³

Much of his presidency went into finding members. In March 1931 he was inviting non-members to call on him about enrolling, and in January 1932 the club declared a moratorium on initiation fees, with inquiries to President Belcher.^14,15 At the annual meeting on 27 August 1932 he declined to stand again; the Record praised his presidency as efficient, and Effingham Sutton was elected in his place.¹⁶

He remained a public-spirited figure on the island. He sat on the honorary committee of the Tiburon–Belvedere Work Council in 1932, and in 1933 on the committee fighting to keep the ferry Marin.^17,18 The Belchers kept a cottage on the Russian River.¹⁹ He last appears in the papers in 1944, as a sponsor at the baptism of Laurie Evans Angel, probably a granddaughter.²⁰

Effingham Sutton married Maude Wilson at Trinity Church, San Francisco, on 17 May 1911; her father, Edgar M. Wilson, gave her away.¹ Wilson was a San Francisco lawyer with a summer home in Belvedere.² He was very probably the Edgar M. Wilson who served the golf club as vice president for many years.^3,4 The young Suttons lived at first in Los Angeles.⁵ From 1914 they spent their summers in a Belvedere cottage near her parents.⁶ They had three daughters, Maud, Barbara and Mary Louise.⁷ The papers never say what Sutton did for a living.

On the links

By 1929 the family was living in Belvedere again after some years in Saratoga.⁸ That autumn an "E. B. Sutton," almost certainly Effingham, took second place in a club tournament.⁹ In March 1931 he and a guest from the Presidio club won second prize in the member-guest tournament that opened the season.¹⁰

President

At the annual meeting on 27 August 1932, when E. H. Belcher declined to stand again, the members unanimously elected Sutton president. Carleton Hyde was elected vice president, Harold Connolly secretary, Ben T. Sewell treasurer and Britton Rey director.¹¹ Four months later the Record reported that the club was reorganizing under C. F. Preusser as president, and Preusser was still using that title in February 1933.^12,13 The papers never explain the change. In September 1933, though, the Record again listed Sutton as president. The annual election, put off until 17 September, returned all the officers, with Sutton at their head.^14,15 It was the club's last recorded election.

The spring of 1933 also brought a family occasion. In March Maud Sutton married Frank J. Cobbs Jr. of Portland at Trinity Church.¹⁶ When Edgar M. Wilson died in 1937, his daughter was described as "Mrs. Effingham Sutton of San Francisco."² The local papers do not record Sutton's own death.

Mills Pierce Cook, known in the papers as M. Pierce Cook (the Green Book of Golf spells it Peirce), was the son of William Hoff Cook, a well-known San Francisco lawyer.¹ At Stanford he met Elizabeth Hoadley Morgan of Belvedere. The two married in 1908.² By 1917 they were living in Belvedere, and he was head accountant for H. M. Newhall & Co.^3,1 By 1925 he was a San Francisco bond man.⁴

In September 1919 the club elected him treasurer under Burr W. Freer.⁵ He still held the post when Belvedere joined the United States Golf Association in 1922,⁶ and again in the Green Book of 1923–24, which also made him chairman of the men's tournament committee.⁷ He captained the club's first inter-club teams. Before a match with Marin in May 1921 he argued that playing on their own short, hilly course would give Belvedere the edge in the "breaks."⁸ In the spring of 1922 his team beat Marin eleven matches to one,^9,10 and that June he took a side to Santa Rosa.¹¹ In October 1923 he and E. F. Halloran won their match when Belvedere beat Santa Rosa 10 to 2.¹²

His wife was part of the club's life too. Mrs. Cook was one of the authors and principal players of "Belvedere Blues," the 1922 burlesque of the club's members.¹³

Britton Rey was Belvedere born and bred.¹ His father, V. J. A. Rey, was among the families on the island's hillside around 1900,² and his great-uncle was Joseph Britton, the lithographer who helped found the Belvedere Land Company and gave Britton Avenue its name.³ An old neighbor remembered him as a schoolboy taking "an unauthorized swim" in the family water tank.² In the First World War he served as an ensign on the Navy's 100-foot subchasers.⁴

He was on the golf club's handicap list by 1923, at 24.⁵ At the annual meeting of 1927 the members elected him secretary under President Frank T. Bowers,⁶ and in May 1928 he played in the team that beat Mill Valley 12 to 5 on the island.⁷ In March 1931 he and President E. H. Belcher took first prize in a member-guest tournament of twenty teams.⁸ When Effingham Sutton became president in August 1932, Rey was elected a director, and he was returned at the club's last election in September 1933.^9,10 He and his wife were regulars on the tennis court as well.¹¹ When the Belvedere Beach Club took over the empty clubhouse in 1934, he was its vice president.¹²

Before the Second World War he made his living as a commercial crop duster, working from an airplane. In 1941 he rejoined the Navy, served in the South Pacific with an amphibious boat pool, and rose to commander.⁴ In 1947 the council made him Belvedere's city clerk,¹ and in 1955 he became the town's first city manager.¹³ When the Record wrote about Britton Avenue in 1978, it remembered "the late Britton Rey" as a lifetime resident.³

Ben Sewell came to Belvedere in 1927 as manager of the Tiburon–Belvedere branch of the American Trust Company, newly married and moving over from Mill Valley.¹ He brought the school savings plan to the Belvedere and Tiburon schools, and he called each week to collect the children's deposits.^2,3 In 1929 he persuaded the town council to keep Belvedere's money in "the home bank."^4,5 He also served as treasurer, and later a director, of the Tiburon–Belvedere Chamber of Commerce.^6,7

In August 1928 the Record reported that he had "joined the golf links addicts of Belvedere Country Club."⁸ At the annual meeting of July 1929 he was elected a director and re-elected secretary.⁹ That November, at a tournament at the Meadow Club, he "hiked twelve miles with his golf sticks."¹⁰ He was still secretary in 1931 and early 1932, and anyone who wanted to join was told to see him or President Belcher, including during the moratorium on initiation fees.^11,12 In August 1932 he was elected treasurer.¹³

By then the club had become his home. In the summer of 1931 he was making the clubhouse his headquarters,¹⁴ and for his last year on the island he and his mother lived there. In April 1933 the bank sent him to manage its Saratoga branch, and the Record said he would be missed.^15,16

Carleton Hyde was already playing for Belvedere in May 1928, when he and Frank T. Bowers won their foursome against Mill Valley.¹ He and his wife were then living in Mill Valley, and they lost their home in the fire of early July 1929. They bought a house in Belvedere from the Adams family, and the Record explained the choice: Hyde was a member of the Country Club, "which attracted him to the community."^2,3

He soon took a hand in running it. In January 1930 he and Emery Mitchell brought twenty members of San Francisco's Wednesday Night Club over for an afternoon of golf and dinner.⁴ He was nominated to the board that summer,⁵ and in the autumn he and Miss Carmen Tarleton won the club's tennis tournament (the Record once printed his name as "Clarence").^6,7 He played in the 1931 county series,⁸ and that September he was re-elected recording secretary.⁹ In August 1932 the members made him vice president under Effingham Sutton, and they returned him in September 1933.^10,11

When the club was gone, Hyde helped Balzar Peterson start the Belvedere Beach Club in 1934, and he served as its treasurer.^12,13 The family spent part of 1937–38 in Oakland and then came back to Belvedere.^14,15 His middle initial appears as both W and D in the club reports. The property records give W.^3,16

Harold Connolly and his wife moved back to Belvedere from San Francisco in December 1931.¹ The next August he was one of the five members who played for Belvedere in the Marin County championship at the Meadow Club.²

At the annual meeting of 27 August 1932, when Effingham Sutton became president, the members elected Connolly secretary.³ The treasurer, Ben Sewell, left the island in April 1933,⁴ and by September Connolly was listed as secretary-treasurer.⁵ At the club's last election, later that month, he was returned as secretary and treasurer.⁶

He worked for the town in those hard years too. In the autumn of 1932 he was secretary and treasurer of the Belvedere Unemployment Committee under Alex Bolton.^7,8 In 1934 he and his wife were sponsors of the new Belvedere Beach Club.⁹ In December 1938, after about ten years in Belvedere, the family moved to Napa because of a change in his business.¹⁰

R. C. Ralston, known as Russ, married on New Year's Day 1929 and settled in Belvedere.¹ A year later he and his wife celebrated their anniversary with a dinner at the Country Club.² By 1939 the Record called him a coffee and oils importer, sailing on his regular trip to Rio de Janeiro.³

He made his mark on the course quickly. In July 1930 he and R. F. Engert, both new members, reached the final of the men's tournament.⁴ That autumn he ran a two-ball foursome for members,⁵ and he played in the 1931 county series.⁶ In January 1932, as the club worked to draw new members, it made him chairman of its tournament schedule.^7,8 That April he and C. F. Preusser outlasted a field of sixteen and were still level after 36 holes.^8,9 He captained Belvedere in the 1932 county series, in which the club finished fourth of four,¹⁰ and that August he led its entrants in the Marin County championship.¹¹

Ralston moved to Sacramento in late 1932,¹ but he was back in Belvedere by 1936. In 1938 he was elected to the town council, topping the poll.^12,13

John Black was born in Troon, Scotland, and was a carpenter by trade before golf took over his life.¹ By 1916 he was the professional at the Claremont Country Club in Oakland, and the San Francisco papers came to call him the "old master."^2,3

He came to Belvedere for the club's Red Cross day on 16 June 1918. In the professional foursome he and the Belvedere professional, R. C. Clark, played Mike Brady and Willie Locke over thirty-six holes.^4,5 Black's 127 was second only to Brady's 125, and the Sausalito News reported that Black and Clark won 2 up on the last hole.^6,7

He won the California state open at Del Monte in 1919 and the Northern California open at Ingleside in 1920.^8,3 In July 1922, at Skokie near Chicago, he tied Bobby Jones for second place in the United States Open, one stroke behind Gene Sarazen.⁹ About two weeks later he was badly hurt when the car taking him home from Del Monte overturned, an accident that killed his companion, and golfers raised a fund for him.^10,11 His brother Bob, the Sequoyah professional, is probably the "Bob Black" whom one 1919 item mistakenly placed at Belvedere.^12,13

Mike Brady was one of the best-known professionals in the country, a Boston man who spent the winter of 1917–18 in Southern California and won its open championship.¹ In the spring of 1918 he enlisted in the navy, the first professional golfer of note to do so according to the Call, and served as a yeoman in San Francisco.^2,3

On Sunday, 16 June 1918, he was the star attraction of the Belvedere Golf and Country Club's Red Cross tournament, billed as "Mike Brady, U. S. N., one of the country's best golfers of the professional variety."⁴ Partnering Willie Locke against John Black and the club's professional, R. C. Clark, he had the best medal score of the day, 125 for thirty-six holes, and the Sausalito News singled out the length of his drives. Black and Clark still won the match, 2 up.^5,6 It was his first golf since enlisting, and afterward he told the Call that the navy had not hurt his game; he thought it might even have improved it.^6,2

He spent the rest of 1918 playing charity matches around the bay, among them a mixed foursome that raised about $10,000 for an ambulance fund.⁷ In January 1919 he set a course record at the San Francisco Golf and Country Club in his last round before going east, and that June he lost the United States Open to Walter Hagen in a play-off.^8,9

Bob Clark, who appears in the sports columns as R. C. Clark, is the first professional the newspapers name at Belvedere. In May 1918 the San Rafael Tocsin reported that Mr. and Mrs. Robert Clark had moved to Belvedere, where he had been chosen instructor of the club.¹ He may have known the course earlier, since a Sacramento paper listed a "Bob Clark of Belvidere" among visiting professionals in June 1917.² The Call called him "youthful," and his brother Harold was also a professional, at San Rafael.^3,4

A month after he arrived, Clark played in the exhibition that crowned the club's Red Cross day of 16 June 1918, partnering John Black of Claremont against Mike Brady of the navy and Willie Locke.^5,6 His 137 was the highest of the four medal scores, but the Sausalito News reported that he and Black won the match 2 up on the thirty-sixth hole.^7,8

In June 1919 he arranged a tournament for thirty players "in sort of Chinese fashion—backward." A week later he told the Call of a freak shot at a ninth hole, where his ball ran into the cup and out again: "Couldn't do it again in a thousand years."^9,10 He was still listed as Belvedere's professional in August 1919.¹¹ (A February 1919 Call item naming a "Bob Black" as Belvedere's professional is almost certainly a slip for Clark, since Bob Black was then the professional at the Sequoyah club.^12,13)

By January 1920 he was the professional of the new Mill Valley Country Club, where, the Record said, he had been "since its inception." When Belvedere challenged Mill Valley to a home-and-home match that April, Clark picked the Mill Valley side against his old club.^3,14,15 He won the Byron Hot Springs invitational in March 1921 and resigned from Mill Valley in October 1922.^16,14 In 1924 a "Bob Clark, well-known professional," probably the same man, was teaching beginners at a golf shop in Oakland.¹⁷

Willie Locke (the papers also spell him Lock) was one of the senior professionals around San Francisco Bay. In 1917 he was at the Sequoia club, and by 1918 he was at Ingleside, the California Golf Club.^1,2

At Belvedere's Red Cross tournament on 16 June 1918 he partnered Mike Brady, the Boston professional then in the navy, against John Black and the Belvedere professional, R. C. Clark.^3,2 Locke scored 131 for the thirty-six holes, and he and Brady lost by 2 holes.^4,5

From 1919 into 1921 he was the professional of the San Francisco Golf and Country Club, and a ranking of coast professionals in January 1919 put him sixth.^6,7,8 The Call called him "silent Willie Lock" and, in 1921, "the dean of local pros."^9,10 A successor at the San Francisco club was named in July 1921.¹¹

When the club sent its particulars to The Green Book of Golf in 1923, it named its professional as J. W. Muirhead.¹ He did not stay long. By January 1925 a Scottish professional whom the Sausalito News called T. J. Muirhead was at the new Fort Baker Golf Club, and he listed the Belvedere Country Club among his past posts, along with the Automobile Golf Club of Detroit, the Vancouver Country Club and the California Golf Club.² The initials differ (the papers spell them variously), but he is probably the same man.

At Fort Baker he took the post's officers round the course every Wednesday and wrote a short instruction column for the News, which he introduced with "This is the way they do it in Scotland."^2,3 A Healdsburg paper said he had come north after completing the building of the Fort Baker links.⁴ Early in 1925, as Tom Muirhead, he was taken on by the Santa Rosa and Healdsburg country clubs after an exhibition round of 36, one over par, at Santa Rosa.^5,4 His father, Thomas Muirhead, a native of Scotland, died in San Francisco that June at the age of seventy-five.⁶

A. D. Mills of Mill Valley (Arthur D. Mills in the Landmarks Society's history) photographed Marin's golf courses in the 1920s.^1,2 He had photographed the Mill Valley Country Club from its first months. In March 1920 its column in the Record praised his "classic work in photography and caricature" of members and scenes at the club, and Pacific Golf and Motor gave half a page to his view from the club's eighth tee toward Mount Tamalpais.^3,4

In January 1925 the Record reported that Mills was preparing golf-course pictures for Pacific Golf and Motor and The Fairway, and that he was "also at work on illustrations from the grounds of the Marin Golf Club at San Rafael, of the Belvedere Club."¹ According to the Landmarks Society's history, the 1925 golf photographs of the club in its collection are all his work.² One of them reached a national audience: in June 1926 The American Golfer printed his view of "the third green on the Course of the Belvedere Golf and Country Club" in a spread called "Fairways That Lure."⁵

In June 1929 the club engaged F. H. Nagel (the Record first spelled him Naegle) as caddy master. He "will supervise the grounds to see that they are kept in perfect condition and will give instruction in golf playing," the announcement said, and members could book lessons.¹ By the spring of 1930 the Belvedere page was calling him the club's golf specialist, and for C. F. Preusser's jewelers' tournament that April he made sure there were enough caddies for the day.² When Andrew Taylor White began teaching one day a week in October 1930, Nagel stayed on as the weekend instructor.³

The Nagels lived in Belvedere. His wife, Elyda, taught at Tamalpais High School, and their daughter, Faith, won the girls' swimming race at the 1931 Nights in Venice fete.^4,5 Their son, Frederick Jr., a musician, came home in April 1930 from a round-the-world voyage in a ship's orchestra.⁶ The papers do not say when Nagel left the club.

Andrew Taylor White, "Andy" to the Belvedere page, was a golf teacher who had learned the game in Scotland.¹ In the spring of 1930 the Mill Valley Record described him, then living in Sausalito with his wife and young daughter, as well known around the bay as a golf specialist.² That October the Belvedere Country Club took him on to give lessons one day a week, with F. H. Nagel keeping the weekends.¹

The Whites settled in Belvedere. In 1931 they were managing the household of Mrs. C. Edward Holmes, and in August 1932 they moved into the Dunnigan cottage.^3,4 By the end of May 1933 Mr. and Mrs. Andy White were in charge of the club, which the Record found busy over Memorial Day.⁵ In October the Record reported that the couple who had looked after the grounds and clubhouse for several months had moved to San Francisco. It called them Mr. and Mrs. A. J. White, but that was probably a slip for the Andy Whites. Alfred J. White, the club's former treasurer, was a different man, and he was still Belvedere's town treasurer that November.^6,7 Andy White was back in Belvedere by April 1934, when he rented a cottage for a year, and in 1938 he bought a house in Tiburon.^8,9

The John Ward Mailliards were among the San Francisco families who moved each spring from their town house on Gough Street to a summer place on Belvedere.^1,2 In 1913 the Belvedere Land Company deeded John W. Mailliard a lot next to the Ferdinand C. Petersons', and the family's San Francisco business was the commission brokerage of Mailliard & Schmiedell.^3,4 They were at the club's formal opening on 1 August 1914.⁵

Their son Ward married Kate Peterson, the Petersons' daughter, whose engagement was announced in 1912.^6,7 In 1916 Mrs. Ward Mailliard was chairman of the women's house committee, whose members acted as hostesses at the club's monthly dances.⁸ In November 1919 Ward Mailliard helped search the shore for Frank Simons, a Mailliard & Schmiedell man who had vanished after a round on the links.⁹ J. W. Mailliard Jr. played in the first Mill Valley match of 1920, and he was the club's secretary when it was elected to the United States Golf Association in February 1922.^10,11

The family's best golfer was Ernest C. Mailliard. He won the home cup at the Red Cross tournament of June 1918 with a net score that equalled par.¹² On 19 September 1920, in a competition for Sir Harry Lauder's fund for wounded Scottish servicemen, he won the Lauder gold medal with 76 gross and 59 net, "one better than par."^13,14 In 1922 he sat on the tournament committee and arranged the season's events.¹⁵ Tom Mailliard played on the county team in 1923, and Miss Marian Leigh Mailliard reached the final of the club's women's tournament in July 1920.^16,17 The papers do not say exactly how Ernest and Tom were related to the John Ward Mailliards. The elder Mailliards were still summering on the island in the 1930s.¹⁸

Frank P. Simons belonged to the young Belvedere set of the 1910s. He was an usher at the September 1914 wedding of Serena Bland and Charles F. Preusser, and he was often at the club's dances with the Ward Mailliards and his brother Stuart's family.^1,2,3 He registered for the draft at Belvedere in 1917.⁴

On Sunday afternoon, 2 November 1919, Simons finished a round at the Belvedere Golf and Country Club and said he was going for a swim.^5,6 The Marin Journal reported that he "was last seen as he left the links of the Belvedere Golf and Country club Sunday afternoon."⁵ When he did not reach his office on Monday, Stuart Simons and Ward Mailliard found his clothes, with his watch and money still in the pockets, near the Union Fish Company's wharf.⁵ Boats dragged Richardson Bay, and his family offered a reward for the body.^6,7

He had not drowned. In January 1924 the papers reported that Simons, mourned as dead since 1919, had been found alive and working in Washington state.^8,9 The Sausalito News recalled that he had been "popular in club circles at the time of his supposed death."⁹

Harry Halliday crossed from Sausalito to play at Belvedere.¹ The Green Book of Golf for 1923–24 lists him on both the green committee, under E. F. Halloran, and the men's tournament committee. It also credits him with the club's President's Cup and its Eclectic prize, and gives his handicap as 17.²

He was a dependable team man. In the June 1923 three-club match on the island he went round in 73, behind only Eric Stewart.³ In March 1924 he and Duncan won their match at Santa Rosa.⁴ For the trip to Stockton that April he was listed at a handicap of 12.⁵ In April 1926 the club put him in charge of its men's tournament.⁶

His best year was 1928, when Belvedere won the Marin County Cup. He and Irland won their match in the May victory over Mill Valley.⁷ In the cup's final round on the home course he was printed as scoring "09," almost certainly a 69. That tied him for second-best card of the day, behind George Ritchie's 66.⁸

George Ritchie learned his golf with his brother James ("Babe") on the municipal links at Lincoln Park.^1,2 In May 1920 "Little George, as he is known around the links," beat the defending champion Sam Conlan Jr. and then Wilbert Edwards to become champion of the municipal links.^3,4 The following February, representing Belvedere, he reached the semifinals of the Northern California amateur.^5,6

From then on the brothers anchored every team the club sent out. Before a 1922 match the Santa Rosa paper called them "regarded as two of the best players on the Pacific coast," and they beat the Santa Rosa professional and his partner.^7,8 George won the Olympic Club championship in December 1922 and the Northern California amateur at the Berkeley Country Club in April 1923, beating John J. McHugh 7 and 5.^9,10 That June he missed the county match on the island to play the Pacific Northwest amateur in Seattle, and in September he reached the semifinals of the state amateur.^11,12 The Green Book listed him at scratch on Belvedere's handicap list.¹³ In 1924 an Oakland paper described him as "of the Belvedere and Olympic clubs," and in 1925 he won the northern California municipal championship.^14,15

He came to the 1927 triangle match at Belvedere just after winning northern California honors at Del Paso and shot 68.¹⁶ In the last round of the 1928 county series his 66 was the best score of the day, and Belvedere took the cup.¹⁷ At the first Marin County championship in August 1929 the Record called him "Olympic champion, representing the Belvedere Club"; he tied for the medal and reached the semifinals.¹⁸ His name last appears on a Belvedere team in May 1930.¹⁹

On Sunday, 5 July 1931, a chartered plane carrying San Francisco golfers to exhibition matches at Lucerne, on Clear Lake, lost its engine and struck a mountainside, and all six aboard were killed. Among them was George Ritchie, 25, a former northern California champion and twice San Francisco city champion.^20,21 The Lake County reports do not mention Belvedere, but the record they describe is his.

Dr. Thomas Addis lived in Sausalito,^1,2 and for more than a decade he played his team golf for Belvedere. In June 1922 the captain, M. Pierce Cook, picked him for the side that went to Santa Rosa.³ That September he and Ralston Page played for Belvedere at Mill Valley.⁴

With W. F. Stewart he twice beat Santa Rosa pairs. They won their match when Belvedere beat the Santa Rosans 10 to 2 on the island in October 1923, and they won again at Santa Rosa the next March.^5,6 The Green Book of Golf for 1923–24 records his hole in one at the second, the 180-yard Hillside. It also names him winner of the "Best Five Net Scores" prize and gives his handicap as 14; Mrs. Thomas Addis played too.⁷

He went on playing for years. He shot 76 for Belvedere in a 1927 triangle match.⁸ In March 1930 an old foursome reunited on the links, and one of the four was printed "Dr. C. J. Addis," probably a misprint for him.⁹ In May 1933, in the club's last county series, "Dr. Tom Addis" was still in the Belvedere side.¹⁰

Harry P. Braddock was, in June 1919, "one of the club's leading golfers," the man the Call expected to win the Belvedere championship.¹ The result has not been found. In April 1920 he played on the team Belvedere sent to Mill Valley for the first match between the two clubs, and that September he finished second to Ernest C. Mailliard for the Lauder gold medal.^2,3 The papers say nothing of his business.

Mrs. Harry P. Braddock was the better-known golfer. In April 1920, as "Mrs. Harry P. Braddock of the Belvedere Country Club," she won a Harry Lauder medal competition on the municipal links at Lincoln Park.⁴ At Del Monte on the Fourth of July she went out in 44, a nine that other women were "still talking about," and the San Diego Union added that she was "a southpaw" who had been playing for only a year and a half.^5,6 One onlooker called her "one of the most promising women golfers on the Pacific coast."⁵

In July 1921 she led a combined Mill Valley and Belvedere women's team against the California Golf Club, and early in 1922 she was named women's captain at Belvedere, just back from playing the Waverly Country Club course in Portland.^7,8 That April she and Mrs. Charles F. Preusser made up Belvedere's entry at the Mount Diablo invitational.⁹ She was still playing in the state and northern California women's championships in 1926.^10,11

W. F. Stewart Jr. is known almost entirely from the scoreboards. He played for Belvedere against Marin in May 1921, when the Marin side included a W. F. Stewart Sr., probably his father.¹ That September he was one of Belvedere's eight in the deciding round of the first county series, and in April 1922 he and his partner won their foursome as Belvedere beat Marin eleven matches to one.^2,3

On 4 July 1922 he won the club championship, beating P. S. Moulton when he "holed out in par" on the thirty-seventh green.⁴ In the 1923 championship he had the lowest qualifying score, 77, but went out in the first round to W. A. Bredin, 1 up.⁵ He won his foursome with Dr. Thomas Addis when Belvedere beat Santa Rosa 10 to 2 in October 1923, and played at Stockton the next spring.^6,7

In August 1925 the Mill Valley Record called him the Belvedere club's champion (printing "W. P. Stewart"), when his 66 matched the day's best score.⁸ In the triangle match on the island in May 1927 he shot 69, second on Belvedere's card only to George Ritchie.⁹ The papers say nothing of his work or family, and they never make clear whether he is the "Eric Stewart" who also played for Belvedere in these years.

Mrs. J. Bruce Adams came to Belvedere as an experienced tournament golfer. Her husband, J. Bruce Adams, made his living from the game: in 1919 Belvedere's professional, Bob Clark, played a round with his "boss," Bruce Adams, and Adams went on to run the golf departments of the City of Paris and the Emporium before opening his own Adams Golf Company on Kearny Street.^1,2,3,4 In 1928 he moved it to Post Street and advertised "the largest and finest golf school west of Chicago."⁵

In the early 1920s she played for the California Golf Club. She won the second flight of the Del Monte women's tournament in September 1921, and in January 1922 she was elected the California club's women's captain.^6,7 By the end of 1928 the Oakland Tribune was calling her "of the Belvedere club" and "the former Californian" when she won low net, 87–7–80, in a field of fifty-eight at Claremont.⁸ In March 1929 the Tribune photographed her at Castlewood in knickers and described her as "a firm believer in women's golf rights, from breaking par down to wearing knickers."⁹ That December she was medalist at Sequoyah with a 95, the only score in the nineties.¹⁰

She was a hostess as well as a player, entertaining sixteen women from San Francisco clubs to lunch and golf at the Belvedere clubhouse in June 1929.¹¹ When Belvedere's women held their open day on 6 May 1931 for players from Claremont, the California Club and Sequoyah, she took first honors with 79.¹² She was still winning prizes for Belvedere in July 1932, with low net at the Claremont invitational.¹³

James A. Ritchie was "better known as 'Babe' around the Municipal links at Lincoln Park," San Francisco's public course, where he and his brother George learned the game.^1,2 At the end of 1919 he reached the final of the city championship, losing to Sam Conlan Jr., and in June 1920 he won the Lincoln Park open amateur at the thirty-seventh hole.^3,4

In February 1921 the Call announced that the Ritchie brothers would represent the Belvedere Country Club in the Northern California amateur championship.⁵ That spring Babe won the club's "at home" day with a 67, and in June the Call listed him as a member of both the Belvedere and Lincoln Park clubs when he came from behind to win the Lincoln Park invitational.^6,7 On 10 July 1921, in the first Marin County triangle match, he went out in 29 on the island course and shared the amateur record of 65 with Tom Patterson of Mill Valley, although the paper printed his total as 63.⁸ At Mill Valley in August his 69 was "one that will not soon be equalled by an amateur."⁹ A Los Angeles writer called him a dark horse for that year's state amateur, "still in his teens."¹⁰

The next year he beat George in the final of the Lincoln Park club championship and won the Olympic Club's Directors' Cup, and the Olympic Club named him one of its two entrants for the national open.^11,12,13 In December 1923 he took the Olympic Club championship from his brother.¹⁴ The Green Book of Golf for 1923–24 rated both brothers at scratch and printed one line under Belvedere's card: "Amateur Record of 58 made by J. A. ('Babe') Ritchie."¹⁵ No newspaper has been found describing that round. In March 1924 the Santa Rosa paper introduced him as the present municipal champion of California.¹⁶

He kept turning out for the island. In the 1928 county series he and George had Belvedere's two best cards at Mill Valley and San Rafael, and Belvedere won the cup.^17,18,19 In 1929 the Belvedere page noted that the brothers were honorary members of the club.²⁰ A James A. Ritchie, by then of Stockton and in his early thirties, was runner-up in the Northern California amateur of 1934; he was probably the same man.²¹

Serena Bland was the daughter of Mrs. F. G. Bland of Belvedere and the granddaughter of the late Captain Goodall of Goodall, Perkins & Co.¹ On 8 September 1914 she married Charles F. Preusser at The Anchorage, her mother's house; the Sausalito News called her "a striking-looking girl."² The family was musical. Her sister, Mrs. Thomas D. Parker, sang as Madame Rose Florence, and Mrs. Preusser sang at her own luncheons on Corinthian Island, where the Preussers lived by 1924.^3,4

A golfer of the first rank

She was one of the best women players around the bay. In December 1917, playing off a handicap of 2, she won the women's tournament at Lincoln Park, beating Miss Beatrice Sweeney, "acknowledged to be one of the best local golfers in these parts," by 3 and 2.^5,6 That summer she had also played in the Red Cross tennis tournament on the Belvedere club courts.^7,8 She played in the club's women's invitational of 1920 and for the combined Mill Valley–Belvedere women's team in 1921.^9,10 By May 1922 she was "captain of the club" and hosted the visitors at the women's invitational, and the 1923–24 Green Book of Golf gives her handicap as 17.^11,12

In 1930 she was in charge of the club's women's activities.¹³ When the club began family memberships that winter, the Preussers joined with both sons, and she and her son Richard won the family's Christmas foursome against father and younger son.¹⁴ She was Belvedere's captain for the women's North Bay get-together of December 1931, and she chaired the arrangements when Belvedere hosted the Women's North Bay Counties Golf Association on 14 July 1932.^15,16,17 That June she had been a Class A runner-up at the association's day at San Rafael.¹⁸

Away from the links

In March 1930 she was elected to the Belvedere board of education without opposition, and that same month she opened a real-estate office beside the Town Hall, later adding insurance.^19,20,21 In 1931, as secretary of the Tiburon–Belvedere Chamber of Commerce, she was one of the witnesses who testified before the Railroad Commission in the successful case for direct ferry service to Tiburon.²² After her husband's death she gave up the Corinthian Island house early in 1942 and went to Ames, Iowa, to look after her grandson.²³ She came back to Marin in 1948, settling in Mill Valley.²⁴

Joseph Britton was a San Francisco lithographer, a founder with his brother-in-law J. J. Rey of the firm of Britton and Rey.¹ He was also one of the founders of the Belvedere Land Company in 1890 and served as its president. Britton Avenue, the short street that "crosses the ridge of the old Belvedere golf course," carries his name, and his great-nephew Britton Rey served the golf club as an officer.¹

The Land Company owned the north end of the island, where the course was laid out, and it built the clubhouse. In April 1914 it filed plans and a building permit for a clubhouse costing about $3,500, and signed a contract with George M. White for the "golf club building" on lot 4 of block 26.^2,3 That building still stands at 1 Britton Avenue as a private house.⁴

The company remained the club's landlord, and its other work sometimes reached the links. In 1924 it raised the road from Alto toward Tiburon and removed a culvert, flooding the marsh at the north end of the island and sending mosquitoes over the course.⁵ In 1926 it joined talks about dredging Belvedere Cove and filling the lagoon, the plan that would have given the club room for nine more holes.^6,4

According to the Landmarks Society's history, on 18 October 1933 the company decided to take over the abandoned clubhouse and install a caretaker, and four months later it voted to sell the club's personal property to offset $7,950 in unpaid rent.⁴ In May 1936 the Record reported that the company was improving "the golf club," presumably the empty clubhouse.⁷

The Hotaling family's link to Belvedere was water rather than turf. In 1906 R. M. Hotaling bought four tideland lots in Richardson Bay and passed them on to the Bay Counties Railway, a venture later remembered as "the Hotaling road."^1,2 By 1929 the Hotaling estate owned shore land on the Belvedere Spit, where it licensed clam diggers, and the Sausalito News reported that "the Belvedere Land Company and the Hotaling interests at Belvedere" had been asking high prices for a bridge across their submerged lands.^3,4 In 1930 Jane H. Swinerton and her husband, with Mr. and Mrs. George H. Hotaling, deeded tideland lots to Edgar M. Wilson and to the Land Company.⁵ In 1936 George H. Hotaling, whose family owned extensive submerged lands, asked whether a proposed dredging plan would reach private holdings.⁶

In November 1937, four years after the golf club failed, Mr. and Mrs. George H. Hotaling and Mrs. Albert Swinerton asked the court to force removal of the Casper, a waterlogged 175-foot vessel. It had been towed in 1935 onto the tideland west of the old club and left in twelve feet of water, and they asked $405 in damages.⁷ The report says the property was owned by the plaintiffs. That most probably means the tideland, where the family's holdings lay, rather than the club ground, which the sources leave with the Land Company.^7,4