New developers of the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision in Edgartown have filed an application with the Edgartown zoning board of appeals to build a private 18-hole golf club on the site once planned for 148 houses.
Leaders in the two rival golf course development groups in Edgartown said yesterday that they will merge memberships and stop competing with each other.
Owen Larkin, the managing partner for the Vineyard Golf Club, confirmed that he has signed an agreement to offer guaranteed membership to every member of the Meetinghouse Golf Club Inc. In return, the leading developers for Meetinghouse have agreed not to reapply for permission to build an 18-hole golf course on the MacKenty family property along the Edgartown Great Pond, Mr. Larkin said.
Some 245 acres of land once planned for 148 houses in the rural perimeters of Edgartown were sold last week to a golf club development group, closing a key chapter in a complicated land transaction which began nearly two years ago.
Total sale price was $15.9 million. The sale resulted in a sharp spike in revenues for the week for the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank, which collected $318,000 in fees from the transaction.
A prominent local conservation group and a national title insurance company are among an unusual array of parties who have now agreed to sell their land in the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision to a golf course developer, the Gazette has learned.
Ending an exhaustive regional and local review that began some 15 months ago, the Edgartown zoning board of appeals voted unanimously this week to approve a plan for a private 18-hole golf club at the site of an old subdivision in the rural perimeters of Edgartown.
“I feel it complies with the vision set forth in the bylaw, and I don’t think it will adversely affect the neighborhood,” said John Magnuson, a member of the appeals board, just before the vote on Wednesday night.
Longtime basketball coach Mike Joyce is now also the coach for the girls club golf team. Later this year, he will apply to register girls golf as a varsity sport at the high school.
The newest of the Vineyard’s three golf courses is just two years old. Its nine greens checker some of the most beautiful of the rolling lands of Edgartown, well beyond the settled blocks of the town on the northwest, and overlooking Vineyard Sound, Trapp’s Pond and numerous bits of memorable landscape. In scenic quality the course was, from the start, unusual. In its technical development, from the standpoint of the golfer, it now has many claims to distinction.
The Edgartown Golf Club has opened its “Pineside Links” for the season of 1907. The nine hole course measures 2,500 yards. Every effort will be made to render conditions the best possible. Membership fees entitling to full privileges for year, beginning June 1, are: Men, $4.00; Ladies, $2.00; Families, $10.00; Families and Transient Guests $12.00; Visitors 25c per day. “No game shall be played on Sunday.” The officers are: President, Mr. John R. Hanmer; Deputy Treasurer, Mr. C. F. Shurtleff; Secretary, Rev. F. M. Cutler.
Mr. Elmes, the proprietor of the links, announces that on Aug. 20, 21, and 22, he is arranging for a ladies’ and gentlemen’s golf tournament, open to all members of the club. There will be three prizes in each contest, consisting of English pewter mugs, ladies’ and gentlemen’s caddy bags, and gun metal putters. The prizes are ordered and will be on exhibition early next week in the drug store window. Now for good work; it requires practice and the score cards dated, to hand to the committee.
Golf was first played on Martha’s Vineyard in 1893, when six holes were laid out near the West Chop lighthouse. The first golf course in Edgartown was laid out in a cow pasture in 1897, cows being numbered among the hazards. Oak Bluffs was not far behind, early courses being put in play at East Chop and also where the present Martha’s Vineyard Country Club has its eighteen hole course. In general the rise of golf was coincident with the decline of agriculture, and as cows lost their pastures, golfer gained a course.
