Hallowed Ground

HALLOWED GROUND

Throughout the Yale Golf Course, past and present players and friends of the course are remembered. For some, it is their unmarked last resting-place.

[note: click to enlarge images]

Hole # 1 Eli

The flagpole that stands on the first tee box was donated by Dr. Allan Brandt, a graduate of Amherst College and the Yale School of Medicine, Class of 1951. He practiced medicine in Milford from 1955 to 1995.

Senator Thomas Dodd sponsored Insoo Hwang’s immigration to the United States. The Senator had toured Korea after the Korean War, in his capacity as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Insoo, as president of the Soeul University student body, had been his tour guide. He taught judo and taekwondo at Yale for more than 20years, and was an avid and accomplished golfer. In fact, he passed away while playing golf. The donor Higab Moon, Mayor of Taegu South Korea, was Insoo’s hometown friend since childhood. They played golf here many times, especially when Higab was an exchange student at Yale.

This gift, by William Beinecke, was the first automatic in-ground watering system. From 1926 to 1968, watering of only the tees and greens was done manually, using an above ground gravity fed system.

Hole # 2 The Pits

Dr. Allen “Chet” Chetrick was an avid golfer who always turned in his score to maintain a proper handicap, but also kept a written record of his daily match play results.
Hole # 3 Blind

Bob Tettelbach began playing the course in 1937 as a 10 years old, sneaking on with his younger brother Dick. Later he caddied and finally became a member of the club in the 1950’s.

Hole # 4 Road

Sid Kalison joined the golf club, through the Eli club, after WW II. He was an avid low handicap golfer until he developed a debilitating neurological illness and had to stop playing in 1990. A highlight of his golfing life was accompanying David Paterson, Bill Beinecke and other on a golfing holiday to Ireland in 1981.
His twin brothers spread the ashes of Joe Sullivan, club pro and golf coach 1937-1955, along the 4th fairway after he died in 1977.

Hole # 7 Lane

Burt Resnik was a member of the golf teams that won the national championship in 1931, 1932 and 1933. He played for the rest of his life here and in Florida, often with Sam Snead. His son-in-law, Dick Siderowf, twice won the British Amateur Championship.
Hole # 9 Biarritz

This hole has been named for Widdy Neale, who also lends his name to the “19th” hole in the Clubhouse.

Dr. Hugh Dwyer played on the same high school golf team as Tom Watson’s father in Kansas City. He graduated from Northwestern School of Medicine, did his residency at Yale and worked as a physician assigned to care for atomic scientists in WWII at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Hanford. He was an avid, walking, single digit handicap golfer. When his left was amputated to remove a cancer, he continued to play, carrying his bag, and his handicap only rose to 12. We believe he is the only one-armed golfer ever to have a hole in one on the 9th hole. That he did in an Eli Club tournament in 1985. As requested, Hugh’s ashes were cast, by his son, from the 9th tee over Griest Pond toward the green.

Hole # 11 Valley

At age 80 Fritz has been playing the course for 55 years. He had his bench placed here so that those who walked from the 9th green up the 10th hill would have a place to rest. This is the hole on which Fritz [so far] has had two eagles!

In 1995 Dick Tettelbach’s family spread his ashes in this area and along the trail behind the ledge that leads to the home of Dick’s golfing friend, Arnie Whitten. The plantings behind the bunker reminded him of places that he liked to go hiking in western MA & Vermont.

marker30 Dick played left field for Yale & for 2 years was a teammate of George HW Bush. He was captain of the 1950 team. He spent 5 years in the NY Yankee minor league organization, and then played 2 games for the Yankees in 1955, before he was traded to the Washington Senators. On opening day in 1956, against the Yankees, and with President Eisenhower in the stands, he hit his only major league home run off Don Larsen [*]. Because of his friendship with Whitey Herzog, from their minor league days, he was invited to spring training with the St Louis Cardinals for several years while Whitey was the manager. He was very active with the Connecticut State Golf Association [CSGA] as a tournament official, course rater and president. The Tettelbach award now goes to the CSGA “Amateur of the Year”. For 40 years, at the Yale Golf Course, he was he was the president and the spirit of the Eli Club. He was 6-time Yale Golf Course champion. In 2006, he was made a member of the Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame.
[*] Later that year Larsen pitched a perfect game in the World Series, a feat that had never been done before nor has it been done since. Attending that game was a young Scottish golf professional, David Paterson. It was the first baseball game he had ever seen and he couldn’t figure out what everyone was so excited about.

Hole # 12 Alps

The bell is a gift of Dr. Irving Glassman, who practiced Radiology for 40 years. He began playing the Yale course, when he was associated with the Yale Health Plan, in 1985. He still plays 3 days a week at age 85.

Hole # 13 Redan

“Fore Steve” is in memory of Steve LaMantia, who played in the Beinecke Tournament with Chris Moran ’86, Ted Moran ’86 and Joe Glancy on September 9, 2001. Two days later, at age 38, he perished in the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. Chris Moran says, “it [the bench] was placed at the top of the 13th tee, as an informal acknowledgement of some golf magic that happened at 13 that Sunday.”
Like the Warecks, most of the evergreen yardage markers are gone.