The Challenging 18th Hole

Golf Creek and the 18th fairway on postcard, circa 1916. 

After a year of clearing the Jungle near Boca Ciega Bay, the Country Club at Davista golf course opened in 1916. Soon after, the name was changed to the St. Petersburg Country Club and in 1925 it was renamed the Jungle Country Club. It was the first championship level course in St. Petersburg – designed by renowned course architect A.W. Tillinghast and touted as the finest course south of Baltimore.

 

-- June 27, 1915

During the next three decades athletes, celebrities and notables of the era ‒ as well as residents and tourists ‒ played on the course. Hall of Fame golfers Gene Sarazen and Walter Hagen, Hall of Fame baseball players Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx, and civic leaders mayor Al Lang, H. Walter Fuller and Walter P. Fuller all played on the Jungle Country Club course. The prestige of living near the golf course and Boca Ciega Bay inspired the affluent to build magnificent homes, many of which are still standing.

In an era before golf carts, all players walked the course and it took about 4 hours to complete a round, often under hot and humid conditions. After 17 holes of golf in the Jungle, players faced a final hole that was one of the most challenging on the course with two opportunities to plop the ball into the creek and finish the day on a disappointing note.

Tillinghast's diagram of the 18th hole at the Jungle Country Club.

Source: The Bausch Archives, from the microfilm collection at Villanova University.

Concerning the 18th hole, famed baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis had this opinion:

"Commissioner K.M. Landis failed to attend the gathering pleading business as the excuse and the 18th hole at the Jungle as the other. He said he could afford to lose neither the time nor his temper." 

‒ The Buffalo News, March 21, 1927.

In this view of the golf course layout, the 18th green can be seen near the hotel:

Babe Ruth employed a risky strategy on the 18th hole in an effort to bypass the water hazards and shave a point off his score. As a lefty with a powerful drive and wicked slice, he was one of the few players who had the ability to drive the ball to the green with a single shot, but there was little room for error due to a very large obstacle.

Coming soon to the Jungle Country Club History Project:

The House That Babe Ruth Used to Hit (Repeatedly).