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Dresden Golf Club, Reick. (1896 - 1915)
On 22 November, 1896, Dresden Golf Club was founded by members of the local Anglo-American Club. According to “Golfing Annual 1896-97” the course consisted of 9-holes, but it is not known where exactly this first golf course was to be found. Scotsman, Mitchell, was the green-keeper and golf professional. The entrance fee was 40 marks and the club had already 97 members. Reverend J. D. Bowden was president and G. A. Dunning the treasurer. C.S Hanks from the Anglo-American Club in Dresden was the honorary secretary.
The Golfing Annual 1896-97.
Joe Mitchell from Edinburgh, later Cleveland, Ohio, who was also the pro at Berlin GC 1896-1898 is mentioned as greenkeeper here.
We do not know what exactly happened to this first Dresden Golf Club (above) and how long it existed, but it was in 1907, the year the German Golf Federation was founded, a “Dresdener Golf-Club was established und under the guidance of Robert “Bob” Murray from North Berwick a 9-hole golf course was laid out on Dresden-Reick racecourse. When war broke out Murray was arrested and interned at Ruhleben near Berlin in the so called “Engländerlager”. Eventually the golf course closed down and did not reopen after the war.
Following is a report on the later Dresden club and course a couple of years after its opening:-
From the Golf Illustrated (UK) 1 October 1909 page 34 - “For the benefit of present and future members of the Anglo-American colony in Dresden, and for the more enterprising and sporting members of the German community, a most interesting course has been laid out in the open country belonging to the Race Committee of the city. A membership of about seventy ladies and gentlemen, under the presidency of His Excellence Graf Hohenthal und Bregen, at present forms the club, and seeing that the links are less than two years old, their condition is most promising, and provides excellent sport. The chief hazards consist of various “bahns” or tracks which wind round the spacious racecourse; the sand track, where the “pretty creatures” take their gentle exercise, and the less beautiful golfers take theirs more strenuously, the steeplechase track, with its hedges and bullfinches; the Flach-bahn (flat race track), “which is always out of bounds,” which must be crossed four times in the course of the nine-holes, and which always lies in wait at no great distance for sliced or pulled balls. The ninth green lies in the midst of bewildering series of sand tracks, flat race and steeplechase tracks, roads, and spinneys. The possibilities of going wrong at number nine are very considerable, while, of course, the delights of going right and getting down in three are considerably great. On the whole, the Dresden Golf Links, with its delightful little clubhouse, is an invaluable addition to the arts and sciences which here abound, and is doing much to enhance the already existing good fellowship in this gathering ground of all nations.”
Christoph Meister, November 2023
Poster by JOSEF GOLLER (1868-1947), Circa 1909.