About
In the year 1899, Mr. R.P.C Sanderson, an Englishman, introduced to Roanoke a collection of queer and freakish looking shinny" sticks. He explained to the curious that instead of a general scramble between two opposing side to swat one ball across a goal line, that each player used his own ball in an endeavor to entice it into some tin cups surreptitiously hidden in a pasture lot. The mysteries of the driver, brassie, mashie, jigger, niblick and putter were unfolded to an amazed and credulous audience.
The curious liked, listened, and 'got the bug'. And so it came to pass that the Roanoke Golf Club was formed . So was written many years ago in the Roanoke World News (4/23/24) by one of the original founders of the club, Walter A. Carpenter.
Roanoke Country Club traces its history to March 1899 with the association of a golf group, which played on a rudimentary course in South Roanoke, and tennis groups with two courts just off Franklin Road near the present Christ Episcopal Church. Roanoke Country Club" whose certificate of incorporation recorded on November 3, 1900 included the stated purposes of "golf, tennis, gunning and other games and sports" succeeded this unincorporated association.
In 1901 the Club purchased property just northeast of the present South Roanoke fire station, consisting of a remodeled frame Club House and six adjoining lots with a bowling alley and other out buildings. The golf links were located on adjoining land leased from The Crystal Spring Land Company at $30 per year. The first club professional, a Mr. Croke of Waterbury, Connecticut, was hired for four months in the summer of 1903.
