It was the end of the track … literally. Riverside was a citrus mecca in the late 1800s, the birthplace of the navel orange and an economically powerful area thanks to it. Little did anyone know, however, that the city would also be home to a golf course that not only helped set the standard for private country clubs, but was also a founding club of the SCGA.
The concept of Victoria Club, one of just seven courses more than a century old in the Southland, was something that made sense, as will be seen when it hosts the 108th SCGA Amateur Championship in June, the second time for the club (the first was in 1966).
The growing popularity of the railroad system in the 1880s shuttled new settlers — as well as vacationers — into a state that had grown in population more than tenfold by the turn of the century. Many of them landed in what is now called the Inland Empire.
Those new residents, many of British and Canadian decent, wanted the social activities that they had heard about or seen in other areas of the world. In 1893 Riverside Polo Club was formed, with future (and first) SCGA President Charles Maud, manager of Riverside Orange Company, as one of the founders. In 1896 golf was added and the club’s name was changed to Riverside Polo & Golf Club. The course was not for the faint of heart, if hole names had anything to do with it: The Goal, The Grave, The Styx, Sudden Death, Hades, and The Devil’s Own all challenged players.
When RPGC’s location moved in 1900, many of its members joined other area clubs and were instrumental in forming both the SCGA in 1899 and the Victoria Club (named in homage of Victoria, Queen of England) in 1903.
Victoria Club’s new location was ideal, strategically placed between downtown and the valley in the Tequesquite Arroyo and about a 10-minute streetcar ride from downtown. The Riverside-Arlington Electric Company completed a rail extension of the Victoria Hill line to the entrance of the club for city folk. For those in the valley without access to street cars, a carriage shed and stables were located at the club’s tri-level, Swiss chalet-style clubhouse.
Victoria soon became the social center for the city, and golf became the most popular activity around. “The Victoria Club is made up of representative Riverside men and women,” said the editor of the Daily Press at the time. “The Clubhouse is one of the best equipped in the south, and it is one of the show places of the ‘City Beautiful.’”
Victoria Club double-teamed its competition with its golf and tennis, but Victoria was only a nine-hole course with oiled and packed sand greens. In 1917, in order to maintain the quality members and visitors were accustomed to, golf pro Pete Suter and member Frank Miller commissioned Walter Fovarque, who had recently completed the 18- hole Annandale Golf Club in Pasadena, to complete the Victoria layout, complete with all-grass greens. Miller personally purchased the land needed up the arroyo at no charge to the club, and in November 1920, Victoria’s new 6,320-yard, 18-hole course came to fruition.
Max Behr soon left his print on the club, when the acclaimed architect refined Fovarque’s design and added some touches of his own. Behr even had his 15th hole praised in George Thomas Jr.’s Golf Architecture in America: “A novel and interesting arrangement with well-balanced areas.”
The Great Depression took its toll on the entire country and nearly caused Victoria’s doors to close. Old-time members could no longer afford the luxury of the club. Thanks to the financial security and generosity of Robert Skelley, Bailey Patterson and Errol Fleming, the club was salvaged and the spirits of its members buoyed. Skelley would go on to lead the club as president for 25 years and is the namesake of the Skelley Cup matches, which began in 1994.
Competitive golf kept morale afloat during the trying time. The first annual Riverside city championship was played in 1939 at Victoria, and SCGA Inter-Club (Team Play) matches continued on with Victoria playing against Coronado, Chevy Chase, Oakmont, San Diego, Red Hill and Redlands, among others. “Paid-To-Play” tournaments — thanks to the Twenty-Thirty Club — also gained popularity as purses were big enough to encourage some of the greatest professional and amateur golfers to test their skills in Riverside. Victoria’s first pro-am tournament took place in January 1934 and in 1936, the PGA-sanctioned $3,000 Pro-Am Open, featuring Byron Nelson, gained many people’s attention.
Members depended on the sport even more in the future. Despite a devastating clubhouse fire in 1944 that destroyed all of the club’s early archival records, players were out on the course the next day, not missing a beat. Clubhouse fires were all too common then; only a couple of years before, Hillcrest and Oakmont lost clubhouses and, equally importantly, valuable historical records of early Southern California golf, as well.
“[Victoria] was well covered by insurance,” said the editor of the Victoria Bulletin in 1944, “but insurance cannot replace the trophies it contained, nor the memories of the old-timers who could sit in the big windows overlooking the first tee and recall 40 years of golf in Riverside.”
When the club voted to rebuild its facility in 1948, then-president A.B. West convinced members of the importance of a family focus at the club where men, women and children could all consider Victoria their home away from home. This mentality led the club into the future. Complete with a competition-sized pool, Victoria’s new home base, built on the footprint of its former clubhouse, was completed in 1950.
The club’s two honorary members, 2002 U.S. Senior Open Champion Don Pooley and Champions Tour player and television golf analyst Gary McCord, grew up in Victoria’s strong junior golf program; both played against each other in the many tournaments that were held there. Pooley learned to play golf at Victoria, being introduced to the game in 1958 through the Thursday morning swing line for juniors. Four generations of the Pooley family have been (or are currently) members of the club. “The driving range, with the huge eucalyptus trees and the Victoria Bridge as a backdrop, is still my favorite place to hit practice balls,” Pooley said. “The Victoria Club was a wonderful place to grow up.”
Victoria has seen its share of changes in both the course and the clubhouse to stay in tune with golf’s changing times. The layout has been redone frequently but always kept the qualities it was known for in the past: “The stroke-devouring layout is well trapped, fortified with hazards on every hand, and places a premium on accurate, not longdistance, hitting,” said Riverside Enterprise reporter Wilbur Fogleman in 1936. The same can be said for today’s modern course.
Billy Bell Jr. would redesign greens and tees in the mid to late 1960s and Pepper trees and Monterey pines, which still decorate the course, were planted. Unlike many clubs today, Victoria was able to consistently bring in club renovations for below estimated costs. In the 1990s, with the help of UC Riverside turfgrass consultants, Victoria replaced all of its turf with Tifway II Bermuda. In late 1993, the club’s new 37,000- square-foot clubhouse was built.
To quote legendary golf course architect, Dr. Alistair MacKenzie, “The finest courses in existence are natural ones” because of their ability to be timeless. If Victoria Club is any indication, it will continue to last for a long time.
MORE Facts about Victoria
- Although the club was segregated in its early years, Victoria took great pride in its black caddie master Cliff Strickland, who not only held the course record of 65 for a number of years, but also won the 14th annual National Negro Open championship in Los Angeles in 1939. He went on to play well in many regional and national “Negro” tournaments. His brother Eddie Strickland, a fire department captain, salvaged the caddie shack and all of the members’ equipment during the fire that consumed the rest of the clubhouse in 1944.
- When the clubhouse first opened, the kitchen remained open until 2 a.m. daily and the club served scotch under its own label.
- The Porter Cup, still contested today, is named for William E. Porter, a nonresident member of Victoria Club in the 1920s who donated a silver punch bowl to the club to encourage competitive golf.
- Bonnie and Johnny Holmes, wife and son of SCGA President Ed Holmes, were the third pair of mother-son club champions when they won their respective tournaments in 2002.
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