Meadowbrook Country Club
Meadowbrook Country Club is a country club in Northville Township, Wayne County, near Northville, Michigan. The idea for Meadowbrook Country Club, a private golf and social club, came about in 1916 when 23 Northville businessmen purchased 125 acres (0.51 km2) of the Fred C. Cochran Farm. The club was named after a brook, which ran through the property. Its golf course hosted the PGA Championship in 1955, won by Doug Ford. Willie Park, Jr is credited with designing the original Meadowbrook 6-hole course which are present-day holes #10, #11, #7, #2, #3, and #18.
Meadowbrook has also hosted The Motor City Open. The Motor City Open was a PGA Tour event played at various clubs in and around Detroit from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The PGA Tour record for the longest sudden-death playoff was established at the 1949 Motor City Open, played at Meadowbrook. Cary Middlecoff and Lloyd Mangrum played 11 holes at Meadowbrook Country Club and were still stalemated when darkness arrived. Tournament officials, with their mutual consent, declared them co-winners.
Meadowbrook Hosted the Motor City Open in 1948, 1949, 1954, and 1959. Winners in those years were:
An excellent recollection of Meadowbrook’s early history was written in 1954 by the club historian, William H. "Uncle Bill" Aston. Members of Meadowbrook's Historical Committee believe the original was published in the program for the 1955 US Open. Aston's history exists in several similar, but not identical, iterations. The best version hangs in a frame over the fireplace near the Centennial Dining Room at Meadowbrook Country Club.
Here is Bill Aston's article: “To be completely frank about it, I don’t believe that there is a Meadowbrook member today who would have found any pleasure golfing on our original primitive six-hole layout on worked-out farm land. There’s not much left of the brook from which Meadowbrook Country Club derived its name. The women complained about its being a hazard where it crossed in front of No. 1 green and No. 2 tee.
Every member probably can recall his first trip to the club. I remember very clearly. It was in August 1917 a month after the six holes opened. Sam Mumford, comptroller at Detroit Edison then, was a bridge partner of mine and one night we got to talking about golf. Both of us had tried the game a little. He mentioned that he had a membership at a new club, Meadowbrook, but never had been out there. So, we made a date for the next Saturday to try it.Asking around, we learned that there were two ways to reach the club. You could take the interurban railway which ran from Detroit to Northville by way of Farmington, down Farmington Road and along Base Line, now known as Eight Mile Road, passing right in front of the club. It was fast, too, took only 90 minutes from Detroit. The other means of transportation was by auto, somewhat slower, and even more roundabout. At that time Base Line was called a gravel road, but it seemed to be 95% clay and 5% gravel. Wagon wheels made big ruts in it in the spring and you risked getting stuck. Those ruts baked like bricks in the summer and it was even worse. Consequently, the safest and surest way to reach Meadowbrook was to drive out Seven Mile Road into Northville, then double back on Base Line to the club. That’s the way Sam Mumford and I went on that day.
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