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DID YOU KNOW?
A sizable crowd lined up opening night of the Village Theater on March 18, 1947. Although the studio previews that were screened that night didn’t receive much coverage in the newspapers, the modern, air-conditioned showplace was a hit. Over its 75-year history, the theater has hosted thousands of film screenings and special events. In 1961, the Village Theater, along with the Hotel Del Coronado, played host to Coronado’s first film festival, the Coronado International Film Festival. The festival was attended by several notable celebrities such as Van Heflin, Dennis Hopper, Barbara Eden, Michael Ansara and Jackie Cooper. While the festival was successful, it only ran for one more year before going defunct. The Village Theater continued to attract audiences for another four decades before owners Bob and John Siegel closed it in 2000 for retirement. A community group, spearheaded by the Chamber of Commerce, worked to save the theater despite the overdue maintenance needs. Village Theater remained closed for 10 years while a $3 million renovation and restoration project took place. It reopened on June 23, 2011, with three screens and is a favored venue of the current Coronado Island Film Festival, which runs Nov. 9 through 13 this year. ■
— Vickie Stone, curator of collections, Coronado Historical Association
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GORDON SKINNER / CORONADO HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
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Early golf courses drew top players, championships to Coronado
By DAVID MACKESEY
“The growth of the game (of golf) is something marvelous in this country. It is as firmly intrenched as the national game itself. But it has not become fully acclimated, and players still look with awe on the people of merry England and canny Scotland who have the mysterious twist of the wrist that makes success.” — San Diego Union, November 21, 1897
America in 1897 was a country on the rebound. The devastating financial crisis, coined The Panic of 1893, was a retreating memory, and by the late 1890s, a new, enthusiastic traveling class had emerged. Those travelers had also found a new infatuation — golf.
To keep with the times, the Hotel del Coronado decided to add a golf course; but finding a golf expert west of the Mississippi River was no easy task. But luck would have it that Coronado resident Thomas Wilkerson Tetley, known as T. W., was raised with the game of golf.
Born in Cheshire, England, Tetley worked for The Del, welcoming important guests. He was educated at Oxford and had dabbled in everything from journalism to public works to banking.
Beginning in May 1897, Tetley and E. S. Babcock, Jr., one of the founders of the Hotel Del, planned out the new course. A parcel of land in the southeast corner of Coronado known as the mud flats was selected. Tetley used his playing experience to lay out nine holes covering 2,730 yards. The course included natural bunkers, road hazards and fences, and went through eucalyptus and pepper trees.
By November, the links were ready for the winter traveling season, which ranged from January to April each year. But to have a high-quality golf course, you needed someone experienced to care for it. The solution again was Tetley. Touting his choice to the press, Babcock said: “Mr.
COURTESY OF CORONADO HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION The clubhouse, constructed in 1898, was moved to the new links in 1900 and expanded to a two-story structure.
What: Wine & Lecture: Coronado Golf & Its Champions (1897-1905) with speaker David Mackesey Where: Coronado Historical Association, 1100 Orange Ave. When: 5:30 p.m., Nov. 17 Admission: $18; $15, CHA members Information: (619) 435-7242 or coronadohistory.org Tetley played golf on his native heath, and knows the ancient rules of the game, which, like the constitution of England, are not written.”
The links opened in early 1898, and what the local players lacked in skill they made up with enthusiasm. Plans for a proper clubhouse, designed by architect R. C. Reamer, were quickly approved, and construction started along what is now San Luis Rey Avenue. The completed clubhouse was featured in the May 1898 issue of Sunset magazine.
With the success of the 1898 season, Babcock wrote a contract to lease the clubhouse and grounds to the Coronado Golf Club, which was headed by his son, Graham Babcock. The lease, which ran to Jan. 1, 1904, was $1 per year.
Although Tetley had laid out and cared for the course, in championship golf terms, he was simply little more than a duffer. Coronado resident Walter Hamlin Dupee, the only son of the ultra-wealthy, highly successful businessman John Dupee, wanted to up the game.
Walter Dupee arrived for the 1899 season with a special guest named Alex Smith, a Scotland native who was among the top golfers in America. Smith, the 1898 U.S. Open runner-up, brought a new level of golf prowess and teaching to Coronado and was quickly embraced. That same year, he became Coronado’s official golf professional.
Smith didn’t take long to fulfill his promise to bring the best golfers in America to Coronado.
“Alex Smith of the Coronado Golf
COURTESY OF HOTEL DEL CORONADO In this photo from 1903, Alex Smith (white shirt) takes a shot on the golf course he designed in the Country Club area.
Club has made an arrangement with the crack golf professionals Horace Rawlins, Willie Anderson and James Melville, for an exhibition tournament to take place on the Coronado links … under the auspices of the local club,” a story in the San Diego Union on Jan. 22, 1900, announced.
Rawlins was the 1895 U.S. Open Champion and Anderson would become a future four-time winner. Anderson won earning $100 of the tournament’s $225 total purse, an impressive prize in 1900. At the time, the U.S. Open prizes only totaled $750.
With that success, Smith scheduled a rematch the following month with an even larger purse and viewing gallery. Coronado golf now held a champion pedigree. The next step — create a true championships golf course.
“Prof. Alex Smith, golf instructor of the Coronado club, announces that he will be unable to give lessons today, having most urgent and important business on hand — the laying out of a new 18-hole golf links. Think of it, dream of it, golfers, great and small!! This season has proven that the present Coronado links are not equal to the number of players. The crowded condition during the past few months has settled it — the location and size of the links must be changed. The coming links, 18 holes, that are to be without equal for beauty of location and excellence of course, are to occupy the space of ground from K Street to Spanish Bight, and from the ocean to the bay, with perhaps a little trespassing on the racetrack grounds. The present links have needed “fixing” for some time, and they are to be taken care of in the way Coronado folks do things generally.”
— The San Diego Union, March 22, 1900
COURTESY OF HOTEL DEL CORONADO Coronado’s first golf course, built by the Hotel Del, drew an enthusiastic crowd. The course, which opened in 1897, was closed a few years later.
The new 18-hole course was unveiled on Feb. 22, 1901, to great fanfare.
In mid-March, Alex Smith hosted more top American golfers on the new links. Smith, his brother, the 1899 U.S. Open champion Willie Smith, and David Bell, the top American finisher in the 1900 U.S. Open, played in the first professional exhibition on the new course to a loud and supportive gallery.
The original golf course closed at the end of March, and the clubhouse was moved to the new links, remodeled and enlarged.
By the early 1900s, Coronado hosted some of the country’s top golf events. But after the 1903 season, Coronado golf’s two dominate forces, Smith and Babcock, both left Coronado to pursue other interests.
Smith returned for the 1905 season, bringing his brother-in-law, James Maiden, as his assistant. He moved the Southern California Open Championship from the Los Angeles Country Club to Coronado and won the event in front of his many admirers.
It was his final season at the Coronado course, but his friends continued to follow and cheer his efforts. In 1906, Smith won his first U.S. Open. It was a family affair: his brother, Willie, finished second, and Maiden finished third. In 1910, Smith won his second U.S Open.
The course’s original design was partially rerouted before World War I to accommodate the relocation of the clubhouse as well as to expand the course to more than 5,800 yards. Just after the war, it was lengthened again, to over 6,200 yards.
In 1944, the course was again rerouted. This time it was shortened to nine holes to make way for the military expansion on North Island. By the early 1950s, the course and golf club closed.
The city of Coronado stepped in, committing funds to build a new course on acreage added by dredging San Diego Bay to accommodate Navy ships. The current par-72 Coronado Golf Course opened in December 1957 and was only slightly altered with the building of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge.
The tradition of golf in Coronado continues. ■
David Mackesey is a freelance writer.