HISTORY OF CAPE NEDDICK COUNTRY CLUB

Cape Neddick Country Club began very informally about 1900 as three country golf holes on John Pickering’s family estate. Over time the three short holes were expanded to six and then, at the time of the United States’ entry into World War I, the course went to nine holes. It is not clear who served as architect during this early period, perhaps no one. However, in 1919 the little club was incorporated as Cliff Country Club, and hired legendary golf course architect Donald Ross to lay out a full 18 holes. Ross’ expansion reached completion by 1925 and became a focal point of interest for many summer visitors to Ogunquit and York, for John Pickering’s friends, and particularly for the local artists and business owners who wished to practice the growing sport of golf.

Although in those early days the course did not benefit from today’s agronomic knowledge or from the advanced equipment that is now available to manicure and irrigate greens, tees, and fairways, Cliff Country Club’s course lay out was apparently well received and well regarded, according to the reminiscences of several of the caddies who worked at the club from 1925 through the 1940s. One such caddy, Richard Boardman, long a member of the club, recalls a full-day caddy 1939 caddy strike aimed at procuring an increase in caddy wages from the then prevailing 35-50 cents for nine holes and 50-75 cents for 18 holes.

In 1942 the club decided to abandon the back nine holes because wartime and the residual effects of the long depression cut back revenues to the point where all resources were needed just to keep the basic golf operation afloat. Perhaps also as a result of the decreasing revenues, in 1949 John Pickering asked 15 men who summered in Ogunquit to invest $1,000 each and “take the property off his hands”. These 15, later joined by a 16th, formed Cliff Realty Corporation, which has continued to own and operate the golf course to the present. After a period during which the corporation leased the property to the club members, Cliff Realty reassumed management in 1990, renamed the club Cape Neddick Country Club, and began to invest in machinery and personnel sufficient to improve the condition of the course and the clubhouse to the level expected by the many members and guests from Massachusetts and Florida with summer houses in Ogunquit and York. The largest step was the expansion to 18 holes and the installation of an irrigation system in 1997-98 at a cost of almost $2 million. Since then, the corporation has expended another $2 million to upgrade the clubhouse, driving range, parking lot, aesthetics, and general ambience as well as to combat drainage problems and to add cart paths on many fairways.

One element of club life has not changed over the decades: Cape Neddick Country Club remains, by all indications, the friendliest and most hospitable that its members and guests and the public players have experienced anywhere.