Soon, names were called for caddying positions. Even though a list existed with the caddie master, it was really Tony who ran the assignment of the caddies to their bags for a small commission of twenty-five to seventy-five cents. He assured us new recruits that we would not need to pay anything this time because our fates were predetermined. As a kind of initiation, we would be caddying for the Judges at 11:00 a.m., a group notorious for their wretched behavior to their caddies.

Right on cue, Dave called for the rookies and assigned us to the Judges. After brief introductions, a small, rotund man dressed in a moth eaten rusty red sweater named Judge Sergeant instructed us to head down the first fairway to the crest of the hill about 225 yards from the tee and act as fore-caddies. This seemed logical, at first, in case the ball sliced into the woods. On each hole, Judge Sergeant waved us into position down the fairway, though I never quite understood his reasoning given that none of the Judges hit the ball over 125 yards on their best drive. “Must be training for the future,” I supposed. As Tony had indicated in the morning, we received no tips from this group. Judge Sergeant rationalized the lack of tip by telling us that were still in training.

Most new recruits did not return to the “hole” after their initial experience, but I was smitten by the course, the members, and the money. After a month, I devised a strategic plan to by-pass Tony’s commission and the unpleasantness of the “hole:” Arrive at the course by sunrise to caddy for the dew-raker golfers who began play at first light. By summer’s end I had become an “A” caddie and gained a new status at the course and the right to play golf on Monday mornings at 7:00 a.m. I was in heaven.

Over time, I became an eager fixture around the clubhouse, undertaking any tasks that were asked of me, especially those involving the Pro Shop. Because the assistant professionals wanted to play golf all the time, I happily accepted the opportunity to change club grips, rewhip woods and clean and refinish clubs for them. In fact, without the head professional, Jock Mckinnon, knowing it, at age fifteen I ran the golf course after 5 PM, selling merchandise, teeing players off, and cleaning clubs. No one complained, and I felt I had everything running smoothly.

Caddying, playing golf and earning money had transformed a shy country boy into an independent entrepreneur. For those eleven years I practically lived at the golf course. The ethos of the private club at that time was still alive and kicking, and remaining aware of my appropriate place within that system paid huge dividends towards my future. After all, the members did eventually sponsor me for a Chick Evans Caddy Scholarship to the University of Washington and paid all shortfalls in funding for my education.

MY FIRST HICKORIES

In spring 1962, one of my tasks required me to clean out a crawl space under the clubhouse where a twenty-five year accumulation of golf clubs lay. I crawled into the unpleasantly warm pit and turned on the single bulb that was hanging from the ceiling. There before my eyes were hundreds of clubs, piled one on top of the other like a giant pile of pick-up sticks. I was astonished at the sheer number of them. I began to drag the clubs towards the door, starting with the steel shafted ones that were on top. As the pile diminished I noticed the clubs begin to change, their shafts going from green to brown to black. I felt like I was excavating an archaeological dig as each layer I removed took me further back in golf history. Finally, at the very bottom I found about a hundred wood shafted clubs, resting on packed dry clay. In the poor light and with sweat running into my eyes I attempted to read the markings on the antique clubs; stars, birds, hands and arrows on the iron backs, dots, slashes, Morse code symbols and smooth faces on the hitting surfaces. Some woods even had strange oval shaped hosels.

When I emerged from that ancient hole I was still fascinated by those wooden shafted clubs and I muttered to myself that I needed to investigate them more closely. I made a point to talk to Jock about it before the trucks left for the landfill. “Shouldn’t we keep those wood shafted relics?” “Let me take a look,” he responded. “Perhaps some of these scared head woods would be nice for the wall in the new shop.” Seizing my opportunity, I asked him if I could have some of them. “Certainly,” came his answer, “help yourself. But you must take them home. I don’t want them lying around here.” 

I picked out about a dozen. With no prior experience, I choose ones with symbols that appealed to me; a star on the face, a hand, an arrow.  But one club caught my attention. Etched in the oval on the back were the words, “Alex Duthie JCC Vancouver.” Having never heard of that golf course, I resolved to ask Jock about it later. With my new treasures stored in my bedroom, I started querying Jock about hickory-shafted clubs in general, afraid to overstep my bounds with him with any more specifics. He told me that before arriving at Capilano he apprenticed at Monifeith next to Carnoustie in Scotland. Part of his training required him to make a scared head wood and repair hickory shafted clubs. With my interests even further aroused, I began searching junk shops in Vancouver for hickory shafted clubs. That simple discovery in a crawl space had begun what became a twenty-year golf collecting habit, though on my limited caddying budget I could only afford to pay a maximum of twenty-five cents a club.

THE BOOK
Golf books were one of my fascinations from my first discovery of them. For school book reports I always chose a golf book, much to the consternation of my teachers. Golf became my passion and, also, my obsession. In 1965 I found a small pamphlet entitled “Jericho and Golf in the Early Days in Vancouver,” by one F.M. Chaldecott. In the private publication, the author speculated that the first golf club on the Pacific Coast was founded at Jericho in November 1892.  The idea stimulated my imagination, and I was full of questions” Where was this course? When did it close?” Jock would know.

When queried, Jock began to relate stories about the Jericho course being an inland as well as a links course just like in Scotland. He advised me to talk to some of the members, as they were offered free memberships to Capilano after the Jericho club closed during the Second World War. With a list in hand, I began to pick my spots while acting as a starter on the first tee, the perfect place to broach the subject while the targeted players waited for their turn. No one knew if the theory was correct, but each who knew Chaldecott’s personality and law background speculated that he at least diligently researched the question.

I began a forty-year search to prove that Chaldecott’s statement was indeed true. In the process, my golfing interests gradually shifted away from the realm of collecting towards the realm of golf history, with a particular focus on the Pacific Northwest. To support Chaldecott’s claim required documented evidence of the roots of every golf course ever constructed on the Pacific Coast. To acquire this evidence meant finding and then reading articles and clippings from local newspapers about each and every golf course’s opening day, as hearsay and speculation would not withstand scrutiny. I traveled many miles and spent countless hours in front of micro film readers, but, having now uncovered the historical clippings for the basis of Chaldecott’s claim, I still believe that that his original assertion to be correct and that the Jericho course was the very first Golf and Country Club to be opened in B.C.

THE GOLF MUSEUM
As I accumulated more stuff, and Jock inherited balls and clubs from members, we began dreaming about establishing a golf museum some day. Somewhere the Jericho story and the Ken Black PGA tour win could be recorded for future generations. For the enterprise to be successful we needed other things besides clubs and balls. My accumulation expanded rapidly when I began recruiting pickers for postcards, china, paper ephemera, and all sorts of other golf memorabilia.

In 1985, the possibility for a home for that golf museum arose when the University Golf Course abandoned its old clubhouse in their renovation process. A group of concerned individuals formed the BC Golf House Society to convince the British Columbia Government to donate the building to the fledgling group. Our mission statement was simple: To preserve, to collect, and to display BC’s rich golfing heritage. Eventually, the campaign was successful, and the B.C. Golf Museum was inaugurated in 1986.

Without Dorothy Brown, the newly minted museum’s director, we would never have survived to this day. She guided the organization from very lean times when we had little status within the golfing community to our present position as an equal partner with it. I remember particularly when Dorothy first came on board and asked what we had for artifacts to place in displays. Walking into the basement of my sister’s home and opening the door to an unused bedroom, we surveyed a twenty-year accumulation of golf memorabilia. With this as raw material, Dorothy directed the construction of six historical displays outlining the general history of golf. It was these displays and our library which greeted visitors when the museum officially opened for the public May 6^th, 1989.

HISTORIAN
Because of my thirty years spent researching the history of golf in the Pacific Northwest, I willingly tackled the construction of the museum’s archives. Today, this area contains information on the courses, players, and tournaments of British Columbia compiled from original newspapers. We are presently creating a database to list every player who has won a district, provincial, national or international event. It is an ambitious project, but one that has incredible value, especially as a tool to aid in fulfilling requests pertaining to family roots.

Indeed, as the volunteer historian for the Museum I have the gratifying task of answering such requests. One started a ten year journey to unravel the life of Arthur Vernon Macan at the request of his daughter, who had not seen her father since she was ten years old. Was he a drunkard and a remittance man as her family legend indicated? In actual fact, Arthur Vernon Macan constructed the finest golf courses in the Northwest from 1912 to 1964. One reporter printed the following tribute upon Macan’s death: “Whether the golfers of the Northwest believe it or not for fifty years Vernon Macan determined how they would play the game.” At present, I am writing a biography outlining his life and golf design principles. This project has consumed me in many ways, but it is also the most fulfilling project I have undertaken during my twenty years of service to the museum.

Michael Riste