How Marvin Leonard bucked conventional wisdom to build Colonial Country Club

Marvin Leonard’s first dalliance with golf was not particularly pleasant. It happened in 1922 at Glen Garden Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. No word on what he shot that day, but just know this — it reportedly took a half-decade before his next round. “It seemed like a mighty silly game,” Leonard once explained to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “and I had no time for silly pastimes.” Trying golf again in the late 1920s, Leonard finally embraced it. He began playing regularly at Glen Garden – Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson were among the caddies – and also joined another local club, River Crest. He usually shot in the low 80s. The retail merchant also spent summers playing golf in Colorado and California, appreciating the smooth, soft putting surfaces. Curious about the type of grass being used, he made an inquiry on one of those trips. The response? Bentgrass. And that’s when Leonard came up with an idea that seemed even sillier than the game he once described: He wanted to bring bentgrass greens to his hometown. At the time, bermudagrass was the native grass of choice for putting surfaces in Texas, since it could withstand the cruel summer temperatures. But Leonard was often frustrated with the hops and bumps he encountered on his putts. He liked the true roll of bentgrass; smooth greens helped him occasionally break 80. And he did not believe that bentgrass was too fragile for Texas. He had even seen it at Glen Garden. There was a small patch of bentgrass on the 18th green, and he remembered the surface. He also remembered that it received little attention. He tried to convert his doubters – of which there were many, including the governing board at River Crest. It was not easy. He approached the club with an offer – let him convert a handful of greens to bentgrass. He would pay for everything, and if the experiment did not work, he would pay to return the greens to bermudagrass. His offer was refused, but Leonard did not go away quietly. He continued to press the board. In the midst of the Great Depression, though, it was difficult to justify any move that had the hint of risk. “The story goes that they said, ‘Well, Marvin, if you’re so hell-bent on it, why don’t you go build your own golf course?’” his daughter, Marty Leonard, told the Star-Telegram. “He did.” Indeed, he did. His new club would be called Colonial. First, Leonard found a tract of land near the Trinity River and not far from Texas Christian University. Then he hired two golf architects – John Bredemus and Perry Maxwell; the latter was working on a course in Oklahoma called Southern Hills – to help with the design. Leonard had the final call, utilizing plans from both men. According to one account, neither Bredemus nor Maxwell were convinced that bentgrass greens would hold up. But this was Leonard’s project. “Everybody tried to discourage him on the bent,” the Star-Telegram wrote in 1937. “Even the architects said it couldn’t be done. Bent is a winter grass that grows wild in the Northwestern states but in sections with hot summers, it had never done well. There were such greens in Oklahoma and Amarillo and a few experimental plots had been planted as far south as Fort Worth, but it was the consensus of the experts that the stuff couldn’t be grown on a big scale in these parts. “But Leonard just isn’t the kind to give up without a struggle. He believed that with proper soil preparation and care, bent could be grown here.” He invested a significant amount of money ($300,000) and time, and also brought in a manager, Claude Whalen, to help with the project. Together, they studied ways to help the bentgrass hold up in extreme heat. Lots of water and lots of maintenance were required. In fact, Leonard himself would drive from green to green – in his car, not a cart – to check on conditions. Meanwhile, he also recruited members to his new club, which he initially called Colonial Golf Club. In 1935, he invited friends and business acquaintances to pay $50 security deposits for membership to the club with the unique greens. When the club opened on Jan. 29, 1936, approximately 100 locals had joined. Doubters did exist, but so did curiosity seekers. Golfers from adjacent communities wanted to putt on the bentgrass greens. They were not disappointed. Word of mouth was generally positive, even after a rough first summer that left brown spots on some greens. It was, after all, still a work in progress. “The course has stirred new interest in golf here,” reported the Star-Telegram. “All the avid golfers have become members so that they may play the year around. And at last, Fort Worth has come up with something that the Dallas folks envied. Day after day, large delegations of Dallas shooters came over just to play on such greens. “The greens are easily the best in the state.” As it turned out, Marvin Leonard was just getting started with his big dreams in golf. He aggressively sought tournaments for Colonial to host, and just five years after opening, Colonial hosted the 1941 U.S. Open – the first time the tournament had ventured south of the Mason-Dixon line. Five years after that, Colonial – having been renamed Colonial Country Club – hosted its first regular PGA TOUR event. Other than 1949 when the course (along with most of Fort Worth) was flooded due to torrential rainstorms, Colonial has been a mainstay on the TOUR calendar. Not even the COVID-19 pandemic could prevent it from hosting an event; last year’s Charles Schwab Challenge was the first post-COVID tournament played, albeit without fans due to safety measures. No other single course has hosted a TOUR event for as many successive years. Meanwhile, those bentgrass greens remain – specifically A-4 bentgrass, which cover the 18 greens with an average size of 5,000 square feet, according to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. It hasn’t always been easy, especially in the oppressive Texas summers. When Colonial hosted the U.S. Women’s Open in July of 1991, the USGA maintenance crew had to dump ice on one of the greens to keep it playable. At least one observer noted that so much ice was used, the green actually turned blue. And while there are other bentgrass greens in Texas, they remain a rarity for one of the country’s most heavily golfed states. Maintenance costs are simply prohibitive for most clubs. A study by the Texas A&M horticulture department noted: “During summer months, watering practices may determine success of failure with bentgrass. Well-drained greens (permeable soil mixtures and good surface runoff) and well-designed irrigation systems give the turf manager an edge on bentgrass greens. … The turf manager must closely manage the water needs of bentgrass during heat stress periods. Excess water, or saturated soils, can be as damaging as insufficient water during heat stress.” Yet in the end, Marvin Leonard proved that bentgrass can survive in Texas. “We owe our bent greens to the little plot that grew out on No. 18 at Glen Garden for five years,” he remarked in 1938 during an appreciation dinner in his honor. “It was beautiful and seemed to grow well.” Now 85 years old, Colonial remains a thing of beauty – and a testament to a man who never wavered on this silly notion of bringing bentgrass to the Lone Star State.

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