Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

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Clubmakers

C A W Fox
Hartsdale/Nassau etc

I had thought Carl Fox (though all mentions of him and markings on his clubs use C. A. W. Fox), professional to many clubs in the Long Island area was one of the earliest home-grown American golf professionals but a 1940 newspaper article in the Glen Cove Echo, recounted in the Centenary Book of the Nassau Country Club, states he was an Englishman and H B Martin lists him as one of the foreign pioneers in 50 Years of American Golf.

There is little about his life to be learned from the local press in Long Island. I am sure the current Scarsdale Inquirer is of Pulitzer-winning proportions but in Mr Fox’s time it was more a nosy neighbour than a source of journalistic insight, From it one learns Fox had a wife, with her sister married in Cincinnati, and a spaniel he intended exhibiting in the New York dog show.

The official record is more helpful. Scotland’s 1881 census shows an English born Carl Fox, born in 1870, living in Russell Square, North Berwick. The 1920 US census ties up with this, C. A. W. Fox, with the same birth year, living in Eastchester, Westchester County, New York with his Dutch-born wife Josephine. The entry states he was born in Scotland but, being English-born, might a little lie not help in being a golf professional?

The census shows him as first coming to the United States in 1895 but he was professional to the Meadow Brook Hunting Club in 1894 and the New York Times notes him acting as handicapper and starter for ladies competing in the Meadow Brook Golf Cup in October of that year.

In 1895 he supervised the renovation of the Meadow Brook course and also laid out a 12 hole course on the 1190 acre estate of one of the members, August Belmont, ‘The greens when complete will cost about $6,000 with an additional outlay of $2,000 per year to keep the grounds in proper condition for golf contests’

That same year he took up the professional’s post at the Queen’s Country Club (now the Nassau Country Club). He was only here for a year and I think at this point he went to the Rockaway Hunting Club, deadly polo rivals of the Meadow Brook club. So, for the second time, the Fox was in charge of the Hunt Club.

He moved to the Scarsdale club in Hartsdale, probably in 1898. The Scarsdale Inquirer of 1928 says he was here from 1902-1906 but an earlier article in the same paper states he was there when the club first opened in 1898. One of his pupils was Mrs N Pendleton Rogers for whom he caddied in the 1900 national championship.

In 1904 he played in a foursome against Alec Smith who had taken over Fox’s old job at Nassau and, in April 1906, Smith replaced him at Scarsdale.

Fox spent 1907 at Bellport Golf Links before a spell at the Ocean Country Club in Far Rockaway from 1908.

His next stop was Woodmere from 1911 from whence comes an amusing anecdote on greenkeeping. In April 1915 the Huntington Country Club incorporated as Huntington Golf and Marine Club with Fox as manager, He was responsible for the new 18 hole course which opened on 1 June of that year. The 1915 Spalding Golf Annual had a picture of him at Huntington and proclaimed him the “oldest golf professional in America, played 1st championship in 1894”. The poor chap was only 45: I think they meant longest-serving. He ended the year saving the lives of two men living in a scow which crashed onto the rocks opposite the golf course in a fierce December storm.

He became first professional at the Leewood club near Tuckahoe in 1922 and worked with architect Devereux Emmet on construction of the course which opened in 1923. He seemed inclined to stay in the area as he advertised his nine bedroom house in Hartsdale for sale in 1925 from a Tackahoe address.

His early clubs are marked “C A W Fox Hartsdale”, later ones have a “false” cleekmark of a running fox.

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