1955 1964 1992 Irving Middle School, which contributes to the neighborly backdrop of Hole 13, was completed in 1927. Since then, four generations and hundreds of members and their children have attended the school. 1930s & 1940s During this time, the Club operated at a deficit and few changes were made to Hole 13. Until 1953, there was a ditch in front of the Hole 13 green that carried storm water and from Woodsdale to the pond in front of Hole 14. 1950 Joe Hadwick was hired as golf course superintendent and remained in the position for three decades. 1953 The City of Lincoln built a sanitary sewer system from 24th and Woodsdale to 14th and Lake Street. They dug a sewer line through four holes between the ponds on Holes 6 and 14. The ditch in front of the Hole 13 green was filled. 1961 Architect Pete Dye from Urbana, Ohio, was contracted to rebuild Hole 13 and Hole 14 greens. This was one of Pete Dye’s first architecture jobs and two decades passed before he returned to Lincoln to build Firethorn. From photographs of that time, the green that Pete Dye created was much different than the round saucer that was there since the course was built. Dye added bunkers and buried the creek with a large concrete culver. Editor of former Golf Digest Architecture, Ron Whitten, worked on the grounds crew a decade later and recently recounted a few things about Hole 13 and Pete Dye’s work. Ron Whitten in his words: “Pete Dye did Holes 13 and 14. I don’t know if many of your members know that. There used to be a creek that crossed over where the pond is on Hole 14. And it just kind of meandered around there and they had a drainage problem. So, Pete buried the creek, enlarged the pond, rebuilt Hole 13 green, and rebuilt Hole 14 green. This was 1961. It was one of his very first projects. They are a great set of greens. I always thought Holes 13 and 14 greens had more character than the other greens at the Country Club. “One story about this … in 1971, I’m riding down to rake the bunkers early one morning on Hole 13, and I noticed a gopher hole in the middle of the fairway. So, I stopped and took my hand rake and pushed it down to see how deep the hole was. And it just swallowed the rake. It was four or five feet deep. So, I went up and told Joe, ‘I think we’ve got a leak here.’ “So, one guy got on a backhoe and started digging it up. And by God, it was the old culvert that Pete Dye had put in to bury the creek – a concrete culver. And it cracked and was literally carving out an underground cave in front of Hole 13 green. But as they keep digging with the backhoe towards the lake, they suddenly hit the irrigation line, and it just started firing straight up in the air. So, Joe grabs me and says, ‘Get up and hit the main water shutoff in the maintenance building.’ So, I hop on a Cushman — the very expensive three- wheel Cushman with the hydraulic bed — and I spun around on this wet grass and smacked right into a tree … literally t-boned the front of that Cushman. “You know, I figured that was going be my last day there because I just destroyed a $1,500 Cushman. But they later told me, If Joe fired you, he’d have to fire the guy who was on the backhoe busting the irrigation line open. I don’t think Pete Dye ever made it back to the Country Club. I remember talking about that when he was working on Firethorn.” 1992 John Lafoy rebuilt the tees, bunkers and green and reshaped the pond to the left of Hole 13. The statue of the Sower, modeled after the traditional method of hand sowing grain for planting, is a symbol of the importance of agriculture to the development of civilization. Agriculture is the foundation upon which Nebraskans have built a noble life. The monumental sculpture, with its 12 1/2-foot pedestal of shocks of wheat and corn and 19 ½ foot-tall figure, was created by New York sculptor Lee Lawrie. He represented the timeless symbol of agriculture as a barefoot man, shirt sleeves and pant legs rolled up as he works, wearing a sun hood. The 3/8” thick bronze sculpture is reinforced by an interior steel framework and weighs nearly 9 1/2 tons. 18
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