{"id":13180,"date":"2023-11-10T08:22:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=13180"},"modified":"2024-04-30T09:02:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T13:02:12","slug":"playing-it-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2023\/11\/10\/playing-it-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing It Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With his new book about Seven Oaks Golf Club, Jim Ford MAT\u201917 honors the place that helped set him on the right course.<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Illustrations by Bernie Freytag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The quaint town of Sevenoaks in Kent, England, is near where the Colgate family\u2019s ancestral home was located in the 1700s. Its name served as the inspiration for what would become the University\u2019s golf course. In his new book, Seven Oaks: A History of Golf at Colgate University, Second Edition<\/em>, Jim Ford MAT\u201917 provides a chronology of the course as it has changed throughout the years \u2014 from 1916 until the recent renovations in 2022. Here are some nuggets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2192 <\/strong>The first clubhouse <\/strong>on the present Seven Oaks course was the former home of Deacon Charles C. Payne, the ninth of 16 sons of Elisha Payne (one of Colgate\u2019s 13 founders).<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u2192 <\/strong>In 1919 <\/strong>the golf club needed a horse lawn mower, so during commencement week, \u201cseveral generous guests of the University … contributed to a fund of $300 for this purpose,\u201d according to the Hamilton Republican<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2192 A cow named Susie<\/strong>, owned by buildings and grounds supervisor Lant Gilmartin, would eat the golf balls that landed near her pasture fence next to the course, reported Binghamton Press <\/em>in 1932.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2192 Starting in July 1954<\/strong>, women were allowed to play in shorts \u2014 as long as they weren\u2019t more than 1 inch above the knee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2192 <\/strong>The course hosted <\/strong>the NCAA Division I Golf Championship in 1977. Preparations included rebuilding the pro shop to house additional facilities, including locker rooms, as well as installing a second putting green.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u2192 <\/strong>During COVID-19 <\/strong>restrictions, play on the golf course increased greatly because it served as a safe, outdoor activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2192 <\/strong>The University began <\/strong>exploring the most recent renovations for Seven Oaks in 2010 and hired Forse Designs Inc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2192 A stone in one of the entrance pillars <\/strong>of the clubhouse patio is engraved with \u201cBelvoir<\/em>\u201d \u2014 French for \u201cbeautiful view.\u201d The stone is originally from the foundation of the old clubhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ford says he decided to publish this book as \u201ca way to give back.\u201d When he graduated from Madison Central School and was accepted to SUNY Oneonta with plans to major in history, Ford\u2019s family would have found it difficult to financially support his education. Fortunately, the Seven Oaks golf pro at the time, Tom Parnell, offered him a job in the shop. Ford worked for Parnell for five summers, and \u201cwithout that job, I could not have attended college,\u201d he says. Ford published the first edition of his book in 2013, and it served as his Colgate master\u2019s thesis project. He says he decided to write a second edition because \u201cthere have been so many changes at the course since 2013,\u201d from the pandemic to the recent renovations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seven Oaks: A History of Golf at Colgate University, Second Edition <\/em>is available at the Seven Oaks Pro Shop, the Colgate Bookstore, the Colgate Inn, and Hotel One75.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With his new book about Seven Oaks Golf Club, Jim Ford MA\u201916 honors the place that helped set him on the right course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":13807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[354,684,729,553,601,1783,165,1784,1144],"coauthors":[388],"class_list":["post-13180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-alumni","tag-author","tag-book","tag-covid-19","tag-golf","tag-golf-course","tag-history","tag-renovations","tag-seven-oaks"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-3qA","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/11\/Seven-Oaks-Book.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13180"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14957,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13180\/revisions\/14957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13180"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}