NO NEED OF ALASKAN SNOW FOR GOLF, SAYS HEIT

For instance, there was no snow on the Indiana Dunes. You know they have to plan these big ski meets a long time in advance. So freight cars had to be assembled--or were they refrigerator cars?--and enough snow brought from Alaska or some other district equally cold, if not equally distant, for the performers to perform on.

Now golf is not like that. Do you remember the wheeze used in vaudeville in which the performer, rejoicing in his small and convenient stage wardrobe, remarks:

"I button my coat and my trunk is locked"?

Well, golf is something like that in its convenience as compared with other sports.

HOW SPORTS COMPARE.
Just consider for a moment how everything lies ready at hand for your sport of golf. They do not have to freight any snow from Alaska for you if the weather man doesn't oblige. To be sure your golf balls come from England and your golf clubs from Scotland; your suit is of Irish homespun--or mine is--your golf shoes are made in New England; the grass seed which clothes your greens comes from Washington and the style of your golf club from Spain or Great Britain; your pro comes from St. Andrews and your caddy master from Lancashire.

But, aside from these unimportant importations, golf is, for you and for me, homemade. It lies at our very door ready to be enjoyed whenever we want it.

Hold on a minute, I hear you exclaim how about this Winter weather? Cannot play much golf around Chicago these days. Well, I am not so sure about that. I met a member of Butterfield Country Club on Wabash av. Saturday.

THE HOOSIER METHOD.
"You know," he said to me as we grabbed each other in the middle of the street and dodged a couple of motor cars in getting back to the sidewalk for a chat; "you know, I was down in the northern part of Indiana on business last week. I called on a businessman one morning and started to 'talk turkey' with him. As soon as I got started he said, impatiently: 'You'll have to hurry up if you want to talk business with me today or tomorrow. 'Why?' I asked. 'Because I am playing golf both days,' he said."

So you see they are getting away with golf these days not very far from Chicago.

To change the subject for just a moment; I knew when I ran that articles a few days ago beginning: "What to write, what to write?" that I would not have to wait long for an answer. Almost before the last paper was off the press, I received a special delivery letter from Johnnie Dee.

TIP WITH PURPOSE.
"We sure can tell Heit what to write about" it was headed. Then it continued in explanation: "The new overgreen, manufactured by the Worthington Mower Company. Look over the inclosed booklet. Triple machine for cutting which not only will improve the greens but help even 'Heit's new putting grip'."

The suggestion may be all right but it doesn't help me out in the least. My business office wouldn't allow me even to mention the Worthington Mower Company or its "new overgreen." We have advertising columns for that kind of matter.

The Ogden Dunes Ski Club was responsible for this fame. In 1927 the Grand Beach Ski Club, which later changed its name to Ogden Dunes Ski Club, bought a strip of land on a high hill over which was later built the largest steel ski slide in the world. The rear towers of the slide were one hundred ninety-two feet high, or equivalent to the height of a twenty-story building. The first ski meet was held on January 22, 1928, and a meet was held each year for four years thereafter until January, 1932. The longest jump ever made on this slide was one hundred ninety-five feet. In 1932 the guest stars were the champions from Norway who later took all prizes at the Lake Placid Olympic meet. It was at one of these annual meets that Paramount News Reel took pictures, which were shown in theatres throughout the United States. The Ski club met with reverses during the depression. Expenses were especially heavy in the years when snow had to be imported from northern Michigan and Wisconsin. In the spring of 1935 the steel structure was sold to the Rockford, Illinois Ski club, and during the summer was dismantled and re-erected near that city. Now a road has been built to, and a home is under construction on the top of the hill over which thousands have walked and a few daring souls have leaped. Thus Nature is returning, in part, to a place where she once nearly lost her foothold.

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Posted 10th October, 2004.