I recently played Lebanon Country Club, in Lebanon, Pennsylvania with my good friend Roger.
Lebanon Country Club is one of my favorite courses in south-central Pennsylvania, known for its beauty, charm, stone walls and postage stamp greens.
Notes:
- Founded in 1920
- Alexander Findlay, Architect
- Estimated Cost: $60,000
- Blue: 72.1 / 136 / 6,562 Yards / Par 72
- White: 71.2 / 135 / 6,361 Yards / Par 72
As we exited the tee box from the Par 4, fifth hole, my playing partner (one over par at the time) asked if I knew the name of the narrow strip of grass (pathway) that is customarily mowed from tee boxes to the fairways. As usual, I was clueless. Roger responded, “It’s the Hogan Pathway. As the story is told, due to Ben Hogan’s fastidious manner (detailed in Bad Golf Guy’s post, “The Craft”) and his innate ability to hit fairways, Hogan saw no reason why his shoes or pants should get wet from the dew in the high grass, as he traversed from the tee box to the fairway. He suggested a pathway to circumvent the injustice! “
Digging a little deeper, I found Brett Kelly’s “Thought Company” article (3/8/2018), “Hogan’s Pathway: On the Path Between Tees.” Kelly’s research suggests the Hogan notion is more myth than fact. He explains in his article that the path was mowed for efficiency purposes. Prior to hydraulics, superintendents would need to manually raise and lower the mower deck each time they moved a mower from a mowed area through a non-mowed area, back to a mowed area.
I somehow feel cheated by the real answer. I was much happier visualizing the conversation between Hogan and a superintendent: “My shoes are handmade in England, my pants are tailored by the finest tailors in the world, not to mention I routinely hit fourteen out of fourteen fairways. Nary a blade of grass should adhere to my hems!”
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