President Eisenhower and his beloved Cherry Hills

Cherry Hills Country Club is getting a lot of attention this summer, serving as host to the 2023 U.S. Amateur, but its storied history also includes hosting one of the most prominent First Golfers in U.S. history.

The 34th President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, considered Cherry Hills his Denver golf home. Eisenhower felt a special bond with Cherry Hills during the late 1940s and 50s when he called Denver, the hometown of his wife Mamie Doud’s parents, home during the summer months.

Eisenhower became famous first as commander of the Allied troops in Europe and then as U.S. President from 1953 to 1960. The club gave him the privacy and comfort he needed as he pursued one of his favorite sports in a very relaxed atmosphere.

When Eisenhower wasn’t golfing, he spent time with member friends enjoying the sights of the Rockies from the Cherry Hills clubhouse. After Ike became president in 1948, his security detail became a regular sight at Cherry Hills.

Longtime member Dr. Homer G. McClintock once recalled “I was teeing off with my group one day on the first hole when Ike strolled down to the tee. Of course, his business was more important than ours, so we told him to go through. He had one Secret Service man walking about a hole ahead down to the green and another stood by the tee. I went over and stood by this guy near the tee and looked at the golf bag he was carrying. He had a wooden shafted two iron, some other club and a carbine sticking out of the top of the bag. I said to him, “that’s sure a mismatched set of clubs.” And he said to me, “Yes, but it will do the job.”

Marshall Norling, a regular in the President’s foursome, was 92 years old at the time he shared this story, recalling one very special match he had with the president.

“One day the president and I decided to have a wager in order to make things interesting. I remember it was a $1 Nassau, and I proceeded to go one-up on him late in the round. The president was a pretty fair golfer, and I remember I used to give him three to four strokes a side. Anyway, after I went one-up, I said to him, it looks like I’m going to win a dollar from you and if I do, I want you to write me a check. ‘A check,’ the President exclaimed. ‘I haven’t written a check in 20 years because no one ever cashes them. They like to keep them as mementos.’ Well, I said to him, you do have a checking account, don’t you?’ He laughed and said he did. As it turned out, I lost a hole later in the round, and we ended up even in the match.

“We teed it up the next day, and I reminded the president about our bet. He said to me, ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ Well, I ended up winning $2 from him that day. When he went to pull out his wallet to pay me in cash, I reminded him about the check, but he said he didn’t have one on him. I told him, ‘Here’s what I’ll do. I’lI get my checkbook out of my locker and cross out my bank’s name and you put your bank’s name in its place. Then you write the check for $2, sign it, and we’ll be square. He was nice enough to oblige my request.”

The original check was sold at auction at Sotheby’s in New York in April 1989 for a reported $10,000.