Honey Grove Golf Club
The following is from the September 11, 2003 Weekly Gazette, written by Peggye Rogers Fulcher.
Shortly after the city of Honey Grove obtained the city lake and the surrounding land in 1926, the Honey Grove Golf Club organized, leased the land from the city, and built a nine-hole golf course on land surround much of the lake. The original golf source had "sand" greens. As Mutt Milford explained, sand was mixed with enough oil to make it heavy enough so that it wouldn't blow away. When a golfer's ball rolled onto the "green", the distance to the hole was measured and the ball was moved out of the way so the golfer could use a long, wide rake to smooth the sand from the point the ball stopped to the hole. The ball was returned to the original spot and then struck with a club, hopefully, sending it into the hole.
John Dickson remembers mowing the course one summer in 1934 or 1935. He used a Caterpillar tractor pulling three big reel mowers and it took two days to mow the course. He remembers that the WPA planted and maintained a twenty or twenty-five acre vegetable garden south of the course. The WPA had a cannery, located on South 5th St., for preserving the vegetables and a sewing factor located in the Old Ford House on the corner of Sixth and Hickory. The WPA Cannery and Sewing Factory employed many people in the area and probably kept a lot of people alive in the dark days of the depression. John remembers his father Henry, who worked for the City of Honey Grove, driving a truck to pick up workers in Windom and Dodd City.
As 1936 came and the Depression continued, the golf course was closed and the city leased the land to Aubrey and Raymond Bates for pastureland. For almost forty years the land was overgrown with weeks and Johnson grass.
In 1976, after the centennial celebration in Honey Grove, Mayor John "Hoss" Luttrell and John Ingram decided to mow a part of the pasture so they could play a few holes of golf. Shortly after, "Hoss" decided that the golf course should be reopened. He contacted thirty people and asked them to pay $100.00 each for seed money to get started. He used some government youth program employees to help clear the land. The original sand greens were covered with native Bermuda grass. The fairways were mowed with a shredder and the greens were mowed with a push lawn mower. The momentum to improve the course increased and more people became interested in helping with the project. All the work was done by volunteers. Mutt said at the time there were about 20 members and the greens were very rough but most members had never played on good greens so no one complained. Some of the members who had played on better courses wanted better grass so the club bought DwarfTiff grass and covered three of the holes. The putting improved and the next year the club bought Tiff grass for the remaining greens.