Dreams of My Grandfather: The Gearhart Golf Course
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Friday, August 07, 2015
Arran Gimba, GoLocalPDX Contributor
Just a few miles north of Gladstone, Michigan, nestled within acres of state forest, lies what my grandpa would describe as the most beautiful place on earth:
the Gladstone Golf Club. The golf course is surrounded on all sides by tall, green trees as the Days River cleaves through the middle of the course. The very slopes of the course were used as skiing hills in the past when snow blanketed upper Michigan during the long, cold winters. The clubhouse is nice, clean, with good food and even decent beer, something a little harder to find around there. You would not be disappointed to pay a visit or play a round of golf here.
To understand my grandpa’s love of this place is to understand two things he loved in life: golf and Gladstone, Michigan. A Korean War veteran, Richard “Dick” Louis Stade grew up, fell in love, married, lived and eventually passed away in Gladstone. He moved to Oregon for a short period of time in the early 90s, but the call of the Yoopers eventually drove him back to the Upper Peninsula where he would live for the remainder of his years.
I thought about my grandpa and his love of golf while visiting the Gearhart Hotel and Golf Links this past Father’s Day weekend. My grandpa never got to visit this serene golfer’s getaway, but I think he would have loved it. The Gearhart Hotel and its accompanying golf course has everything he would have been smitten by; picturesque views, 18 holes of golf, and a beer cart to make sure your cup is always full.
The Gearhart Hotel is just a few short miles north of Seaside, Oregon. Originally built in 1890 as a summer retreat on the beach, it was destroyed twice by fire, rebuilt at least three times before becoming a McMenamins property in 2012. The golf course may have originated as early as 1891, making it one of the oldest golf courses west of the Mississippi. The golf course eventually became the Gearhart Golf Links we see today.
With the beach to its west and the golf course to its east, the Gearhart Hotel is a small little piece of paradise for golf and beer enthusiasts. The entire hotel has a feel of stepping back in time. Old pictures line the walls of every hallway of what the hotel used to be during all its incarnations as well as black and white photos of people riding on horseback across the beach and golfers captured in the past enjoying a day on the course. The guest rooms of the hotel all have unique names, most taken from a book called “The Mystery of Golf” by 19th-century author Arnold Haultain. The artwork surrounding the hotel is classic McMenamins, a sort of dream-like Alice in Wonderland meets the real world, in this case: the golfing world. My grandpa would have found a small little piece of paradise right here in Oregon as you literally fall asleep and wake up to the golf course surrounding you.
The earliest memories I have of my grandpa involve the world of golf. It flowed through his veins like little Scottish midi-chlorians. As a little boy, I helped caddy with him around the golf course with his cronies. Though I have never witnessed one in person, it is said he achieved six hole-in-ones throughout his golfing career. For a time, he owned his own business making custom golf clubs, both when he was here in Oregon and when he moved back to Michigan. Perhaps more importantly, he introduced me to the movie Caddyshack at a young age. I remember him telling me we were going to watch a movie one night, a golfing movie. I was horrified. How boring is this thing going to be? Could this possibly be the worst two hours of my life? It wasn’t, of course.
I was delightfully wrong about my expectations of Caddyshack, which remains a favorite comedy of mine. I don’t think I ever would have bothered to view it without the insistence of my grandpa. While he reveled in telling anyone and everyone how he threw four touchdown passes in one game during his high school football career, essentially making him the Al Bundy of the Upper Peninsula, golf was his one true passion.
More than any other sport, golf is the most beautifully frustrating game. No other sport can have you brimming with confidence one moment only to have you using the foulest string of words ever put to one sentence the next. Very few times in life will you find yourself playing amongst fields of scenic greens topped with blue skies surrounded by sand and water that will have you cursing the very layout like it was something out of Dante’s Inferno.
Personally, I like the comradery you find in team sports, which may be one reason I never really picked it up. In golf, there are no teammates to help you. There are no coaches on the sideline to cheer you on and no halftime speeches to motivate you through another nine holes when the first nine don’t go your way. There is just you, the course ahead, and your own thoughts. I haven’t played golf in years and quite frankly haven’t given much thought about playing again.
Which bring us back to Gearhart. If ever there was a place I would pick up a club again, it would be a place like this, where the ocean is just a quick stroll away and a beer is never far. Golf is a sport steeped in tradition just as Gearhart is steeped in Oregon history. It is a place that willingly tries to slow down time just as golf requires all the patience of it. Where every other sport is trying to find new, inventive ways to speed up the game, golf just keeps going at its own pace, set by those who play it and are in no hurry to rush a swing. Up and down Highway 101 you’ll find many places to play a round of golf, but none may be as inviting.
Maybe one day, I’ll pick up a club and experience the euphoric feeling of a great tee-off and the stomach-churning nausea of a short, missed putt for birdie. But whatever happens and however I play, at the end of 18 holes I shall have a beer, raise a glass and toast Richard Stade, knowing that while he might have loved a place like Gearhart, he will most certainly be swinging away at his own paradise -- someplace way up north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Here, he is surrounded by tall trees, rolling hills, and a river that runs through the Gladstone Golf Club.
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