Generations of golfers have teed off, 30-plus presidents have served, there have been countless memories — including holes in one and tournament championships — and significant enhancements have been made to the course.

Newtown Country Club (NCC) is celebrating a century’s worth of achievements and changes this summer in its 100th anniversary year.

“It is a big deal to be here 100 years,” NCC Head Golf Professional Paul Miller said at the course, which is nestled between Main Street and Elm Drive, with an address of 2 Country Club Road.

From the time since original president William T. Cole — one of the founders of the country club — was in charge through the centennial year, under the leadership of current president Brian Schlier, about the only thing that has remained the same is that golfers have chipped and putted under the sun on the course.

It began as a four-hole layout in 1915, according to Joan Glover Crick, past treasurer, president, and longtime member of NCC. Geo Sparling, a former golf pro at Brooklawn Country Club, designed the NCC course, Crick says.

Expansion and alterations provided today’s nine-hole configuration.

Interestingly, the country club was also home to a softball team that played on the course back in the 1930s, recalls Mike Kearns, 91, who played on the course as part of the Newtown Softball Club before later golfing and eventually taking on an executive role with the club. Athletes swapped their clubs for bats and played on what was then the ninth fairway, which is now the location of the second fairway on the course, he says, adding that the era of softball on the golf course ended in 1939.

“That was the last year because of the draft for the war,” Kearns explains.

The course grounds apparently went to good use in the winter, as well. In the December 27, 1940, issue of The Bee, a front page article details the near completion of a skating rink built on the practice fairway by the committee in charge of the Newtown Athletic Club.

Kearns was a member of the board of directors for six or seven years in the 1960s and 70s. He built three of the tees on the course during his tenure. A strong golfer, he won the President’s Cup in 1968. NCC is a significant part of Kearns’ life.

“It’s very important to me. It’s a place to come to meet people, socialize, and I enjoyed playing golf,” said Kearns, adding, “it’s not an easy game.”

Kearns recruited his friend Edmond Farrell to join NCC, and Farrell went on to become a top golfer and serve as greens chairman and on the board of directors at the country club. Farrell, who passed away in 2009, played such a significant role during his 50 years with NCC that he earned the nickname “Mr Newtown Country Club.”

A longtime Newtown resident, Kearns is the first of three generations to be involved with the club, and notes that the course landscape has drastically improved during the decades, especially in recent years.

“There’s been a lot of improvement to the grounds, and a lot of that is due to our greens keeper [Superintendent] Joe Kocet and Paul Miller — they’re a great team,” Kearns said.

Miller is also a strong golfer. In fact, he holds the course record; he shot a 59 on the par 67 course in the early 2000s. Miller, 51, has been with the club since 1995.

Famous golfers who have played at Newtown Country Club include former PGA president Ted Bishop, former world number one golfer Fred Couples, and Gene Sarazen, who was one of the world’s best golfers in the 1920s and 30s. Sarazen, who won the Masters Tournament in 1935, is noted for modernizing the sand wedge.

Among the favorite memories for many of the longtime members, including Phil Arnold, who was a member for about a decade, and is a past president, is the memorial tournament that was held to honor those lost on 12/14.

In addition to all of the great moments and progress at the country club, there have been some setbacks. The clubhouse burned down in 1974 and was subsequently replaced.

Crick notes that many of the course documents were lost in the fire. Clint Scovill, who golfed at NCC, also was a firefighter who responded to the blaze. He has some positive memories about the country club. He notes that among the biggest improvements was the addition of a drainage system to the course.

Getting It Started

Crick said a group of prominent figures in town, including Cole, who owned the Fabric Fire Hose in Sandy Hook; Newtown Savings Bank President Arthur T. Nettleton, bank representative HC Hubbell; and military veteran Dr Charles Peck, established a corporation to purchase the land eventually developed into the town’s first country club, for golf and tennis.

The group sold stock in Newtown Country Club Realty Corp, which they had created to purchase the land, and formed Newtown Country Club, Inc. There were 100 members when the club finally opened.

After serving as treasurer for about ten years, Crick became the club’s first — and to this point, only — female president and served in that capacity from 1998 to 2004.

During Crick’s tenure, the course underwent significant change and upgrades, including rebuilding of two greens, as well as the addition of a parking area and septic system. One of the most important changes, she notes, is making Country Club Road, which splits the course, a one-way stretch. It used to be open to traffic in both directions, which Crick points out became very dangerous. Crick says her time serving as warden of the Borough of Newtown gave her some leverage in working with town officials to help gain approval for some of the changes.

Crick, who still plays at the club, reminisces fondly about her stint as its president, and her ten years as treasurer.

“I think I had it at the best of times. We had a wonderful ladies association, we had ladies tournaments once a month — very, very social,” said Crick, a two-time club champion in the 1990s.

Crick’s two sons, Michael and James III, worked in the pro shop. The country club was also very important to Crick’s husband, Jim. Back before there was a clubhouse/pro shop, Jim worked at the club and sold soda and golf balls, she notes. She recalls, upon her husband becoming a member in 1979, he wouldn’t make any weekend plans until finding out what was going on — be it a tournament or social gathering of some sort — at NCC.

“There was a time when the club was the center of everybody’s social life — that’s changed,” Miller said.

Although not the way it once was, the country club remains a place for a golfers to socialize and take swings throughout the late spring, summer, and early weeks of fall. And, for the longtime members, it brings back memories of enjoyable afternoons.

Joe Humeston, a 36-year member of the club, who served as treasurer in the 1980s, remembers playing against Jim Crick and hitting a ball out of the brook. “Mud was flying. I looked awful — I smelled worse. My shot went up, out of the brook, and into the hole,” he said proudly.

Humeston and Kearns both sank a pair of holes in one during their years playing the course. Humeston was club champion in 2003. For decades throughout the 1900s, golfers have competed for bragging rights and celebrated triumphs.

“It’s a great group of people,” Humeston said of the country club community. “I’ve gotten to know a lot of people over the years — some very close friends.”