The second nine arrived midway through the 1925 season, and in 1928, the club contracted well-known Chicago architect Leonard Macomber to revise and expand the full layout.

​

The redesign incorporated an additional 11 1/2 acres of surrounding land the members had purchased, and a 1930 review of the course in the Daily Times of Davenport noted the club held options on another 10 acres for further development.

​

“The course is an interesting one to play,” sportswriter Ralph DePorter opined in that piece. “It is not too difficult for amateur players, and yet offers a wide variety of shots for the more skilled players on account of the hills, the nature of the layout, and the many ravines. Hardly two holes are alike.”

​

Some 90 years and several course revisions later, that would be a fair description of Short Hills today.

​

DePorter reported a membership total of 297. With three more new certificate holders expected within a matter of weeks, the fledgling club’s originally targeted 300 was in reach. Major improvements that spring included the planting of 200 trees and the addition of a new electric refrigeration plant in the kitchen. Plans were also on the drawing board for more wooden bridges to span the expansive ravines.

​

The Daily Times said members also boasted of “the finest battery of tennis courts in the Quad Cities.” And a busy social agenda for the summer of 1930 included six “dancing parties.”

​

Stable Staff Arrives

​

As the Great Depression dawned, Short Hills roots already were growing deep and strong.

​

In 1930, the golf course was in the earliest days of a long run of stable staff leadership under dapper Head Professional Waldo Johnson and industrious Superintendent Earl Miller.

​

Johnson was a Moline native whose first exposure to the game was as a caddy at age 17 at Arsenal Country Club. He later served as a personal caddie to such prominent local businessmen as W.L. Velie — who shortly would become QC golf’s answer to Samuel L. Ryder. (Think Cup.)

 

Johnson launched his career as a professional in 1922 at Davenport’s new municipal course, Credit Island, and he came to Short Hills in 1928, where he would remain until his retirement in 1953.

 

A skilled golfer who honored the traditions of the gentleman’s game by always playing in a long-sleeved white shirt and tie, Johnson followed a pair of Short Hills pros whose roots reached back to the birthplace of golf.

 

The first head professional at Short Hills, James Langlands, was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, where he came up as a caddie at the famed Old Course alongside future Open Championship winner Jock Hutchison.

 

Like his famous friend and many other fledgling Scottish professionals, Langlands found his way to the States after World War I. He left Short Hills in 1926 for an assistant pro’s job at the toney Owentsia Club in Lake Forest, Illinois, and was replaced by another Scottish son of St. Andrews, James Aitchison, who also left East Moline after two years for a higher profile job near Chicago.

 

Earl and Christine Miller were hired to manage the clubhouse in 1925, and  Earl stepped up to the role of groundskeeper the following year. Christine cooked and supervised the dining room until she left the club shortly before she died at age 50 in 1943. Earl maintained the course until his own tragic death in a car-truck collision barely a mile from Short Hills in 1948.

​

Weathering History

​

Short Hills had emerged in the midst of a Roaring 20s boom in the growth of country clubs across the United States. An article published in the Spring 1998 edition of the Journal of Architectural Planning and Research said the number of clubs in America grew from 1,000 to 5,500 between 1915 and 1927.

​

The Great Depression then took its toll. By 1939, more than 800 clubs nationwide had closed their doors, with a loss in memberships estimated at a staggering 78 percent from 1927 numbers.

​

Short Hills weathered the storm, but not without challenge.

​

In 1933, The Dispatch reported annual dues would be reduced by 25 percent, from $75 to $56.25, and daily fees would drop from $2.50 to $1. Still, the newspaper said, the financial condition of the club was “reported as good.”

​

A Rock Island Argus preview of the 1936 season indicated memberships had dropped well below the 300-plus reached eight years prior, but, with new club manager Alex Lind recruited from the Butterworth estate, painting and clubhouse cleanup were underway, and a new entertainment committee was created to help restore numbers.

 

In April of 1940, The Dispatch noted 37 members had been added over the previous winter.

 

In June of 1940, a pair of visits from sports royalty took club members’ minds off the waning depression, as well as a growing conflict in Europe that once again threatened to require American intervention.

 

Baseball slugger Babe Ruth, five years retired from a legendary career, spent a week in the Quad Cities, conducting a hitting school in Davenport and starring in a minor league exhibition at Moline’s Browning Field.

​

On June 22, Ruth took his small ball deep over water and trees on what was then a doglegged Short Hills par 4 combining the current 11th and 12th holes. As reported in The Dispatch, the Bambino came within “an easy poke” of the green.

 

Quad-City Times sports legend John O’Donnell noted Ruth in retirement was a few pounds over playing weight and he played only 14 holes, exhausted from trudging what didn’t feel like short hills to him. Babe also was frustrated by the speed of Short Hills' greens.

​

“I was putting for birdies on every hole and wound up with enough putts to last a lifetime,” he said.

 

About his shortened Short Hills round, he said, “I keep away from hills as much as I can. You see these ankles? They have to carry quite a load. If I had piano legs like Lou Gehrig, I’d climb all the hills.”

​

Neither vexing greens nor tiring hills, however, prevented Ruth from returning four days later for another crack at the East Moline course. He even went the 18-hole distance.

​

On Dec.  7, 1941, the Japanese surprise strike at Pearl Harbor ended any question the U.S. would join what was now — again — a world conflagration. Yet, while the Quad Cities sent many of its finest young men “over there,” World War II’s impact on Short Hills and the local golf scene was far less dramatic than experienced by clubs in England.

 

In Surrey, southwest of London, the Richmond Golf Club put in place temporary amendments to the sacred rules of golf. The adjustments took into account challenges posed by the ongoing German bombing blitz of the British Isles, and even allowed for a potential attack by sea.

 

Rules amendments included:

 

• ​​“In competition, during gunfire, or while bombs are falling,  players may take cover without penalty for ceasing play.”

​

• ​​“A ball moved by enemy action may be replaced, or if lost or destroyed, a ball may be dropped not nearer the hole without penalty.”

​

The conflicts in Europe and the South Pacific certainly never were forgotten while Short Hills members and others safe at home played through. But the games did go on.

 

In August of 1944, the Argus shared the news that Brigadier General Norman F. Ramsey, commanding officer at the Rock Island Arsenal, presented the winning Short Hills team that year’s Velie Cup, saying: “You men on the home front are entitled to the fun you have had on the golf course because of your excellent record in your war production. You have worked hard and the fellowship and sportsmanship you have enjoyed are part of the merits for your home-front record.”

 

Earlier in 1944, with the war on the wane and Short Hills readying to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its first clubhouse gala, the Dispatch reported memberships again were at 300, including 40 active founding members.

 

In May of 1945, the unconditional surrender of the German army was accepted. On August 15, victory was declared over the Empire of the Sun.

​

Happy days really were here again.

​