Rock Creek Park Golf Course

Course description

Rock Creek Golf Course is known as a challenging course. The front nine holes are short par 4s and long par 3s, although the broad fairways have some elevation differences. The fairways of the back nine are tight, with dense deciduous woods on either side. Elevation changes on the back nine are even more significant, and many of the greens are quite small. The Washington Post described the course one way in 1999:

Want a unique, virtually free, profoundly humbling golf experience? Try the back nine at Rock Creek Golf Club. Rock Creek is one of two remaining public golf courses in the city, not as well known as East Potomac Park perhaps, but unforgettable once you've scrambled up the precipitous slopes in the shadow of towering trees, dodged deer and leaped deep ravines in a single bound. And that's in the fairway. The front nine is so wide open it's boring. The backside seems to have been designed by a mountain goat. Not a flat lie in the place, but one spectacular vista after another, not to mention almost comically devious golfing challenges.

Services at the course include a large putting green, snack bar, and golf school. Players have criticized the maintenance of the course in the past. However, at least one reviewer says that Rock Creek's "weedy fairways, shaggy greens, [and] no frills" clubhouse is "honest" municipal golf.

History

Rock Creek Park was established on September 27, 1890. In January 1905, citizens in the Brightwood neighborhood proposed building a golf course in Rock Creek Park. The United States Army Corps of Engineers, which controlled the city and the parks within it at the time, approved the plan in November 1906 (although there was opposition, which believed money should be spent on public health project first). Construction began in 1907, and a nine-hole course opened on July 1, 1909. The course's first clubhouse was a former farm house, and its first concessionaires were N.B. Frost and H.D. Miller. After a year, the concession was turned over to Severine G. Leoffler, Sr. His firm had first started managing Park Service courses in the city in 1921. Loeffler, who rose from extreme poverty to own a popular local restaurant and then became a noted concessionaire for the National Park Service, administered Rock Creek Park Golf Course and other city golf courses for the next four decades.

Rock Creek Golf Course proved popular in its first few years. In July 1924, the Corps of Engineers agreed to expand the course to 18 holes. However, construction needs were so extensive that the entire course was shuttered in December 1924. The course re-opened in 1926 with all 18 holes open for play. The first golfers to tee off on the new, complete course were four members of the United States Congress, who hit the first ball at 5:53 AM.

Twice in the 1930s the clubhouse suffered extensive fires. The first incident occurred in January 1933, when the clubhouse was damaged by a fire. A larger fire burned the clubhouse to the ground in March 1937. Maintenance of the course was a major issue in the 1940s. Golfers complained about the course so vehemently that U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands began an investigation and asked the Park Service to delay renewing the firm's contract. A consultant strongly criticized the Leoffler firm's stewardship of the course. The firm built a new clubhouse on the course in 1965. But in 1968, Leoffler told the Park Service to close the course, as it was making no money.

The National Park Service threatened to close Rock Creek Golf Course in 1981. The number of rounds played at Rock Creek rose from 9,500 in 1979 to 41,500 in 1980. But a Park Service report concluded that the course had been allowed to seriously deteriorate since 1965, despite about $100,000 in course repairs in the past three years. The Leoffler company declined to renew its concessions contract in 1981, and the National Park Service said it would close the park without a new concessionaire. In mid-1982, however, a management team compose of local businessmen James R. Brock, Frank Coates, and William Torpey took over course management, leading to a significant increase in rounds played. The new management team lasted only a year. In late 1982, the National Park Service awarded the concession to a new company, Golf Course Specialists, Inc.

Rock Creek Golf Course came close to closing again in the 1990s. The National Park Service began soliciting public input on a new master plan for Rock Creek Park, the first such document in 80 years. The Park Service proposed four plans for comment, one of which would have closed the golf course. After eight years of debate and study, a new master plan was adopted which retained Rock Creek Park Golf Course.