GOLF:

As one of the area’s oldest golf courses, it is nice to see Mesa Verde Country Club is celebrating its 50th anniversary in style.

The private club, which opened, Jan. 17, 1959, is filled with history and I was fortunate enough to be able to chronicle the club’s milestones in a book that will be given to club members.

Finding out how the club came to be was a fascinating journey and one that definitely surprised me along the way.

It was land that was occupied by an Indian tribe, Spanish soldiers and settlers who came here from the Midwest.

From the early 1900s until 1953 the land would pass through developers and banks, who leased them to local farmers who grew everything from watercress to lima beans. That changed when three brothers, with help from their father, bought the land that was in the middle of a flood plain.

Dwight Schroeder, who is a member of the club today, along with his brother’s Kenneth and Lowell, bought the area and were going to farm on it.

“When we bought it there was a man who had leased the property to farm and he grew alfalfa to transport to the dairies,” Dwight Schroeder said. “The majority of the people in the upper land were growing lima beans but in the lower land there was a different type of soil, it was silty. When we bought it there was about 40 acres of alfalfa on it and the rest didn’t have anything on it. When we came we were interested in growing sweet potatoes, which we did down below and up top we grew lima beans.”

The Schroeders sold to a land developer who started to plan a development from Harbor Boulevard east and from Baker Street north.

Ted Robinson was hired to do the site map and the then-budding young land architect drew out a complete development, complete with an 18-hole golf course.

Robinson thought he would also build the golf course, but the developers instead went with William F. Bell.

The course opened as a 6,575-yard private course that was to be one of the premier clubs in Orange County.

It certainly impressed Dick Lassen, who was one of the charter members of the club and lives in Costa Mesa.

“It was a $25 annual fee,” Lassen said. “You could play as much as you wanted to. I liked the golf course,” Lassen said. “I was still living in Garden Grove and I would come right down Brookhurst. I think there were two traffic lights the whole way down.”

The club got on the national map when it became the first golf course in Orange County to host a PGA event, the 1959 Orange County Open. The tournament was won by Jay Herbert. The club hosted the event three more times with Billy Casper, Bob McAllister and Tony Lema winning.

Lema’s victory was where the nickname “Champagne Tony” was born. Lema had the lead going into the final round and promised the reporters covering the event he would serve them champagne if he won. He made good on his statement.

The club has had a history of hosting prestigious events. It hosted an LPGA tournament six times, two of which were won by Nancy Lopez, and the senior tour event in 1995 that was won by George Archer.

Mesa Verde Country Club has also hosted many amateur events. It was the site of the U.S. Junior Girls Amateur in 1993 won by Kellee Booth.

The club thrives today and with a new clubhouse built in 2003 should continue to flourish for another 50 years.

JOHN REGER’S golf column appears Thursdays.