‘Father of Sarasota' was perhaps the first to take a swing in America
In the long-ago day when golf club shafts were made of hickory and were dubbed niblick, lofter, mashie, mashie niblick and midiron, and the sport was practically unknown in America, there arrived a young gentleman from Scotland named John Hamilton Gillespie.
He brought with him a fierce love of the game and his Sabbath sticks, so called because golfing on Sunday in the old country was frowned upon. (A club could be easily disguised as a cane with the golf head being the handle, easily hidden in the palm and quickly reversible for a few discreet swings before church.)
It was 1886 and Gillespie, remembered today as the Father of Sarasota, had been given the daunting task of reversing the fortunes of the moribund Florida Mortgage and Investment Company and the failed Scot Colony.
Very early on, Gillespie saw that golf could be a boon to the success of a community by attracting snowbirds, who, like him, would quickly fall in love with the sport and come back for more.
He had taken up golf at the tender age of eight when he inherited from his grandfather some McEvan and Philip clubs.
He was a good player, developing a reputation throughout Florida for his skill and knowledge of the game. The Sarasota Times called him “perhaps the most ardent of golfers . . . (he) spends hours every day in the winter season practicing difficult hazards and making famous shots.”
The paper noted that “his judgment is the criterion to which all disputes are taken for settlement.” After he was elected the first mayor of Sarasota, he became known throughout the state as “the golfing mayor.”
His friend and servant Leonard Reid wrote of his technique: “He'd always win his match because he could shoot straight. Colonel Gillespie only took a half a swing and the other men always could out hit him. But they would end up in the woods while the Colonel got in the hole.”
Coming to America
Shortly after arriving, Gillespie laid out a two-hole practice course on a natural clearing near today's downtown post office building where he played almost daily. In May of 1886, Alex Browning, one of the original Scot Colonists, recalled that as he passed Gillespie taking a shot, he was asked if he played the game. When Browning replied that he did not, Gillespie advised him, “Mon, y're missin' half ye life.”
This may have been the first time a golf ball was hit in America as the Yonkers course, commonly considered the first, was not established until 1888.
Gillespie also preached of golf's virtues in other towns and cities throughout Florida. He laid out courses in Kissimmee, Jacksonville, Winter Park, Tampa and Cuba. He was quoted in the Sarasota Times, “It was not until Bellaire became famous as a golf course, that Tampa wakened up to its responsibilities and now what a change we do find.”
He was a regular contributor to New York Golf and The Golfers' Magazine, and liked to relate the story of being mistaken for a suspicious character when he was designing golf courses in other Florida towns. He was reported as a miscreant to the constabulary for slapping a ball around with a stick. In another town, he was nearly shot by “an excited and inebriated cowboy who spied me as I passed the saloon in my red (golfing) coat.”
The two-hole course made way for a true nine- hole course complete with a clubhouse that was built in 1905, and with dues- paying members.
Reid recalled that he and Gillespie walked for miles through palmettos and scrub bush while Gillespie sketched out the course. Fifty men were hired to grub out the palmettos and set up the fairways. The first hole went from Links Avenue toward today's Sarasota County Terrace Building, the second further east, the third near Ringling Shopping Center, the fourth near Tuttle Avenue, then north to the fifth and back west for the remaining holes with the ninth hole directly in front of the Gillespie's home, Golf Hall.
When Owen Burns came to town in 1910, he bought out the remaining holdings of the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company from Gillespie, which included the golf course. In 1915 the clubhouse burned down, but the importance of golf was not lost by the townspeople. As the Sarasota Times noted: “A golf less tourist resort in Florida is in much the same class as a production of Hamlet with the star character left out.”
So popular had the sport become that Siesta Key developer Harry Higel chimed in, “The tourists will not come to Sarasota unless we have a golf course because every town in Florida is getting golf links.”
Burns put the course back in shape with a formal opening tournament on Jan. 13, 1917. Twenty contestants entered, women “with their varied colored dresses,” and men “in their white duck trousers, going to and fro over the course. The winner was awarded a golf stick.”
In 1924 Charles Ringling bought the property and platted his Court House subdivision, along with building the Sarasota Terrace Hotel and some office buildings. Shortly thereafter, the Bobby Jones Golf Course was dedicated, with some thinking it should have been named to honor Gillespie.
On the morning of Sept. 7, 1923, Gillespie left Golf Hall to give instructions to his workers, and as he was returning he collapsed on the links. He was mourned throughout the state, with the Sarasota Times eulogizing: “The Colonel was a great man. His passing leaves us lonely, mournful, and filled with grief.” It ended, “Good bye ‘Jim,' ye were a bonnie laddie and your heart was young.”
Although singular at the time, his vision of how golf could draw snowbirds proved to be prophetic.