Published: September 30, 2009 10:36 pm      

Mark Maynard: Going over Hill and Dale: 10/1/09

Every week, it seems, a little more history about the area comes my way.

An e-mail from Windy Morris on Monday provided me with some history that was right in my own back yard — literally.

The Hillendale Golf Course was where Morris caddied as a young boy and where local golf legend Al Atkins learned the game.

Morris said the original clubhouse was on what is now Grandview Drive, to the right after leaving Division Street. That area he’s talking about is smack dab in the neighborhood where I grew up. The clubhouse was down the street from us.

What I remember about the area, also called “The Orchard” by some, is the countless apple trees in our back yard that made cutting the grass a nearly impossible chore. We’d usually had to bag the apples not only so the lawnmower would run more smoothly but also so the bees wouldn’t swarm us.

Near the Hillendale Golf Course was the Crum Family Cemetery, although Morris said he doesn’t know what happened to it. All that land in the area was the Crum family farm several years ago.

“They only had about 55 acres as a pasture left when I was a boy down at the end of Gartin Avenue, where Bradley Drive is now,” Morris wrote.

Morris remembered the Crum family being friendly and having a well for drinking water and an outhouse for a bathroom.

He said the lone surviving Crum was who taught him how to hunt.

Jimmy Anderson, who is more famous as the coach of the Ashland Tomcats 1928 national championship basketball team, owned and built the golf course, along with the clubhouse on top of the hill. He also put in a driving range with lights for night driving next to the old clubhouse. The boys collected balls while the customers were launching shots into the night.

“We carried a container to collect balls and a large wooden frame screen to protect us,” he said. “We were paid a small sum per bucket.”

Morris remembered the course layout. “It was a nice little nine-hole course but it was challenging,” he said. “And some of the parties they had out there ... I remember once when a big bunch from Huntington came out. They had games going on in the clubhouse and a big wheel, and there was some alcohol involved.”

When the course eventually closed, the land there became the site of the Boyd County Fair, Morris said.

“Where Court Street is, they had a riding track for show horses,” he said. “They came from all around.”

The clubhouse on the hill was where Morris started caddying, for 50 cents a round on weekdays and 75 cents a round on the weekends. When they hosted weekend parties, Morris and his buddies double-caddied (carrying a bag on each shoulder). The caddy house was a log structure behind and to the side of the log clubhouse.

Atkins was one of the caddies and Anderson took a liking to him and began to teach him how to play. Atkins, who was known to have a temper, became one of the best golfers around and could have made a living at golf if he’d had the right backing.

Atkins won several big-name tournaments, including the Kentucky Open three times, the State PGA three times and the Paintsville Open several times. Atkins missed the U.S. Open cut by one stroke once in a qualifier and also missed the 1964 PGA, which Bobby Nichols won, by a single stroke.

Atkins was the Elks Sports Day honoree in 1978 and called it “the greatest honor I’ve ever received in my life.”

Atkins also won three consecutive Hillendale Golf Course club championships in the 1940s.

Morris, who is 77, said he later worked with Atkins in the Hot Strip Mill at Armco.

Morris is another from the area who remembers going to the exhibition baseball game between the Yankees and Dodgers at the old Armco field.

“My dad took me down there in our Model-A Ford,” he said.

Morris said what he remembered the most was when Yankee outfielder Jake Powell crashed into the wall and laid motionless on the ground.

“I heard the ambulance coming and wondered how it was going to get to him when suddenly a section of the outfield fence opened as a gate and the ambulance drove in,” he said. “As a boy, that somehow fascinated me and left a vivid memory.”

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.