Indoor Golf
A 1920s Rage That Captured the Chicago High Schools
By ROBERT PRUTER
From 1924 through 1930, the Chicago Public High School League sponsored a wintertime sport called "indoor golf." The sport engaged the best high school golfers in the city, both boys and girls, and one could find the same players in the late spring in league competition. Because the sport is virtually unknown today, a little historical background is in order, from the 1920s decade and backwards to the 1890s.
The exuberance of the 1920s was at its most manifest in the many nationwide crazes that seemed to seize the public. One of the biggest fads of the decade was indoor golf, an essentially putting game conducted on courses of up to 18 holes. The sport should not be confused with miniature golf, which emerged as a craze in the late 1920s. Miniature golf was a novelty game involving putting the ball through an elaborate course made up of windmills, bridges, tunnels, and alleys. Indoor golf was a serious game that provided putting courses for a wintertime golf contests. The facilities also included driving areas to allow golfers to practice their swing form by hitting balls into a net. Indoor golf goes back to the late 1890s, when it emerged as a wintertime instructional activity for women and athletic clubs. By the turn of the century there was a number of private instructional indoor golf schools opened in the major cities. Chicago was considered one of the "cradles" of the sport. In the next two decades, the city along with New York City saw a steady growth of indoor courses in downtown areas-at private indoor golf schools, sporting goods stores, department stores, hotels, and apartment complexes. At these facilities women shoppers and businessmen on a lunch break could get instruction on grip, stance, and execution of shots from well-known golf pros. Most of the private schools were established by well-known pros, both instructional and touring.
By the 1920s, Chicago's premier indoor golf facility was Bob MacDonald's Indoor School of Golf, located on the sixth floor of the Leiter Building, at State and Van Buren in Chicago's downtown. The facility, opened around 1920, provided an 18-home putting course and the usual driving nets. Bob MacDonald was a prominent touring professional, and his school was naturally established in the downtown to provide instruction to white collar workers in the vicinity. The rage for indoor golf in Chicago was such that one course was established in a north side nightclub, the Rainbo Room (Clark and Lawrence), where "elaborate links, with carpeted fairways, sand hazards, and undulating greens, has been installed in a bower of artificial palms alongside the dance floor."
Meanwhile, instructional indoor golf had also developed into a competitive sport. Back in 1910, in Chicago, not long after the opening of a major golf instructional school, O'Neil & Fovargue Indoor Golf School (185 Wabash Ave), the facility hosted the first Western Open in indoor golf, won by H. Chandler Egan. In the East such competition also developed, as in 1915, when the first intercity match between New York and Philadelphia was staged. Indoor golf competition, which was a putting contest normally over 18 holes, was popular with both men and women, junior and senior golfers, amateurs and professionals. In 1923, Chicago hosted the inaugural "national indoor golf tourney." Indoor golf competition was clearly on the rise at this time, setting the stage for its adoption by the Chicago Public High School League the following year.
The Chicago Public High School League jumped on the craze by introducing the sport of indoor golf for boys in the winter of 1924. The competition was usually held at Bob MacDonald's. Throughout the winter, the high school boys would usually venture to the facility about twice weekly to practice. For such far north schools as Senn, Schurz, and Lake View, and such far south schools as Hyde Park and Lindblom, this entailed a considerable trip to this centrally-located facility. The impetus for the adoption of the sport came from Board of Control member Sam Gilbert, an avid golf fan who was a member of the Illinois Senior Golf Association, and the father of a top schoolboy golfer at Lake View High, Sam Gilbert Jr. Although the schools sometimes engaged in dual meet competition, the league championship was determined by one big tournament in the third week of February. The elder Gilbert donated all the prizes for the event, which included shields for first three teams in the team competition and medals for the first three individual competitors.
The first year's meet attracted ten school teams, of four golfers each. The Lake View team, captained by Sam Gilbert Jr., took the team title, and Francis Clary of Lake View the individual title. Taking second was the Tilden Tech team. The Chicago Tribune obliquely commented on the blue collar origins of the team, by saying, "Tilden Tech showed that golf is progressing in the stockyards district." In June, the Lake View team captured the league's outdoor title, showing that the putters on the team were good drivers as well.
Sam Gilbert Sr. continued is promotion of youth golf by forming the Illinois Junior Golf Association in the summer of 1924. Players were classed by age-Class C, from 15 to 16; Class B, from 16 to 18; and Class A, from 18 to 21. Gilbert promoted the group as a wholesome organization. At the association's first annual dinner in early December 1924, the forty initial members made a pledge not to gamble on their games. A few weeks later, the first indoor golf tournament was conducted by the new association. And coming out on top was Sam Gilbert Jr.
At the second annual public high school indoor tournament in 1925, nine schools participated. The Lake View team again took the team title, and Mr. Gilbert's favorite son, Sam Jr., won the individual title. A few days later, two high school girls' teams competed at MacDonald's, Schurz and Lake View, which inaugurated competition for girls. An indoor championship was held for girls in this year, won by Schurz under the leadership of the great Florence Beebe, but it does not appear there were any other city meets for girls. In May, Francis Clary, Sam Gilbert Jr., and Robert Stewart took fourth, fifth, and sixth place respectively in the state meet at University of Illinois, and in June the Lake View team went on to win the league outdoor title in June. The Lake View golfers showed they could do a lot more than merely putt. Lake View's achievements in golf were hardly accidental. The school was particularly vigorous in encouraging and training its students in golf. It golf club with more than seventy members was the largest in the league, and the school brought in a notable golf pro, Scottish-born Amber Andrews to give weekly instruction on Fridays to a special gym class of the golf club members. The class, in which students received regular physical education grades, got national attention.
In 1926, the high school boys had two indoor tournaments to compete in--the annual Chicago Public League tourney and the National Golf and Country Club Exposition schoolboy contest. In the city meet, Senn won the team title with three juniors, the school's Vernon Marklund copped individual honors, earning the title as the "city's best prep putter." The Senn team followed that win in February by capturing the National Golf Exposition prep held at the Furniture Mart (666 Lake Shore Drive) in early April. Senn's league title was the first of three consecutive.
Senn High's 1926 Indoor Golf Team Champions
The 1927 meet again attracted ten schools, but the Chicago Tribune did not see fit to report on the outcome of the meet, which was won by Senn for the second consecutive year with three veterans from the previous year. Vernon Marklund repeated as individual winner. In the league's outdoor meet, Senn dropped to fifth place, and in the state meet two of its golfers placed-Gordon Lietzow taking tenth and Warren Stromberg taking thirteenth. The sport was fading by the late 1920s, as the 1928 meet, won by Senn for the third consecutive season, went uncovered in the Chicago Tribune. Perennial golf power Lake View broke Senn's streak in 1929, beating Lindblom in second place and Senn, which fell to third. The 1930 meet was won by Hyde Park High, and was the last conducted by the Chicago Public High School League.
Indoor golf was fast fading as an activity and sport in the early 1930s. With the onset of the Depression allowing less disposable income and time for serious golfers, the sport went into decline. However, in its place emerged the inexpensive novelty game of miniature golf, which became a new rage in the early 1930s. An examination of mentions of both activities in the Chicago Tribune from the 1920s and the 1930s shows the dramatic change in interest between the two activities. In the 1920s there were 212 mentions of indoor golf and only 16 mentions of miniature golf; and the following decade saw 128 mentions of indoor golf and 233 mentions of miniature golf. Apparently interest was waning among the schoolboys, because indoor golf was the only sport to be cut out of the Chicago public schools program during the Depression. Indoor golf never caught on in the high schools in other states, and never caught on outside the Chicago Public Schools High School League. The history of high school golf is rich and varied in the Illinois, and the saga of the Chicago schools seven-year foray into the game of indoor golf illuminates that history just a little bit more.
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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Illinois High School Association.