NORTH MANCHESTER — Along with celebrating Independence Day this weekend, the Sycamore Golf Club will also be celebrating an important milestone — its 50th anniversary.
The course, located four miles east of North Manchester on Ind. 114, opened on July 4, 1961.
This weekend it will host an open house, present a new monument and fountain and also hold a golf scramble Saturday, while a Twilight Tournament will also take place at 8 p.m. Sunday, followed by fireworks.
“We’re looking forward to it,” said Todd Sandow, who, along with his wife Kathy, owns Sycamore Golf Club. “It’s taken a lot of work and preparation, but we knew it would take a lot of work. Kathy is very organized and detailed, and she’s done a great job. I’m just enjoying the celebration. It’s great.”
The Sandows are the fourth owners of the course, having bought it from Quinn Griffing on Jan. 2, 2007. Griffing purchased the course from Jim Draper on March 5, 1993, after Draper bought the course from its creator George Merkle on Jan. 1, 1974.
Prior to becoming a source of recreation, the property was first the Merkle’s family farm. But after routinely taking his sons Gene and George Jr. to Columbia City’s Crooked Lake Golf Course, the idea to build his own was spawned.
“I remember thinking it took a long way to play,” Gene Merkle said about those trips to play golf with his older brother and father. “I think that’s what ignited the entreprenuer in my dad. He saw the opportunity to do something meaningful for the community.”
With help from course architect Dr. William Daniels from Purdue University, a nine-hole course was developed on the family’s old farm. Six years later, another nine holes were created and the present-day course was built.
Now, 50 years after those original nine holes were built, the Merkle children are returning to the course to celebrate what their father accomplished.
“All three of my siblings will be there,” Gene Merkle said. “Also, 10 of our parents’ 12 grandchildren will make the trip, as will some great-grandchildren. Also, there will be people who helped build and helped maintain the course in the early years there as well. It’s going to be an unusual kind of family reunion.”
The idea for the celebration had been in the back of Gene Merkle’s mind for a few years, but it wasn’t until last summer that he approached the Sandows with the idea.
“I laid it out for them and they just jumped on it right away,” Gene Merkle said. “They’ve been fantastic to work with.” According to Gene Merkle, there were three reasons he wanted to celebrate the course’s 50th anniversary: 1. To honor his parents for the sacrifices and contributions to the community; 2. To elevate the golf course and give it more visibility; 3. To help give North Manchester some more visibility.
“We all grew up there and graduated from high school at Manchester,” Gene Merkle said. “Two of my siblings also graduated from Manchester College, as did my dad. We really have roots there.”
As a present to the course, the Merkle Family will also be unveiling a monument on the first tee, which will showcase a graphic design of George Merkle’s great grandson, Eric Myers, a golfer at Homestead High School, mimicking the course’s creator after he sank a hole-in-one on the course’s fourth hole.
The unveiling of the monument will take place at approximately 11:45 a.m. Saturday, which will precede the Sycamore Scramble, which is slated for 12:30 p.m. The scramble, as well as Sunday’s Twilight Tourney, has open spaces for anyone who would like to take part. Reservations may be obtained by calling 260-982-2279.
And it’s this weekend’s events that made the Sandows want to become owners of a golf course.
“Jim Draper, who sold the course in 1993, has told me he doesn’t remember the place so much, as he does the people and relationships,” Todd Sandow said.
