Yesterday Coldwarrior mentioned this esteemed organization, and I suggested that it needed a logo. CW demanded goaded liked the idea. We’ll be adding it to The BlogMock-Diary of Daedalus Store as soon as the password is recovered from beneath the hidden trap door behind the couch in the BlogMock Rec Room. While you’re waiting for a self-serving advertisement, let’s wander off into the foggy realm of The Overnight Open Thread.
Cold War Life in Berlin Series: Part 1, The USABGCC. The US Army Berlin Golf and Country Club. The CC was one of the last places closed when the US Army left the city, the US Army and Air Force golfed there from 1946-1994. We handed it back to the Germans who did this excellent job of renovation. I cant wait to go back and play 18 on one of my favorite places in the world. My locker was #33 from 1986-90/ I got my handicap into single digits for a season.
So, i’m in contact with these guys, check out the pics especially the one from 1946!: “Interestingly, -Golf Club Berlin- was originally founded at that location in 1895 by American and British diplomats. The Wannsee golf compound was built and opened in 1926, and called -Golf und Land Club Berlin Wannsee-. The Club became known world wide and was popular with its international guests. Numerous national and international matches and tournaments were held there.
During World War II, the large compound was utilized by Germany forces for military training. Antiaircraft (FLAK) positions were established there against Allied air raids. During fighting in 1945, (tank attack) the legendary side sustained severe damage and its famous clubhouse totally destroyed.
After moving into West Berlin, U.S. Army repaired the club for its own use and renamed it, -Golf & Country Club Berlin-. For several years, it was off limits to the German public which had to move its sports activities to Kladow, a sub district of Spandau in the British Sector.
In the 1950s, German sportsmen were invited to return and former club members were allowed to use a section of the Wannsee Golf compound again. The first common match was held in 1953; many followed. Berlin and American sports enthusiasts played and practiced together.
With German reunification, the U.S. Army finally returned this famous compound back to its Berliner owners. The main ceremony, with General Haddock took place in 1990, followed by a 1994 ceremony with General Yates. In 1995 the legendary site celebrated its 100 years anniversary.
By 2007 the -Golfplatz- has grown. A new club house was erected in 1997. New buildings were added, surrounded by a fantastic golf course and landscaping. Now there is an 18-hold championship course and a genuine 9-hold “all day” practice site. Conditions are great for 27-hole tournaments, -the 6020 yards- provides an international limit. The courses’ soft, green “carpets” are beautiful and an “American flair & spirit” seems to exist there.”
The Americans and Brits founded the place. I love that picture from 1946 that shows no matter where the US Military goes, golf follows, such as the Most Dangerous Course in the world at Camp Bonniface, DMZ, Korea. Here is a video of it. What the Germans did was take 10-18 of the Army course and make it the practice 9 while taking 1-9 and the neighboring German course and make that the 18 hole course.
The Course itself was normally in fabulous condition. We stole the Scottish Groundskeeper from RAF Gatow’s course. We could pay him more because we had German members that were charged and astronomical fee to be members at the club. Golf is a very expensive sport in Germany., even more so in the city surrounded by a wall. I paid a paltry sum to be a member as it was based on rank as i was only e-4 at the time.
One of the most understood and rarely, if ever broken rules was that rank stops at the door. I saw the course manager (a retired Colonel) dress down a younger officer that insisted on pulling rank. That didn’t last long. Rank was determined by handicap posted weekly for all to see. The lower the handicap, the higher your ‘rank’. I got mine nice and low and was sought out by Germans and military and civilians to play golf with them and maybe teach them a thing or two. One of my regular partners was a senior VP for a large, and famous, manufacturing firm tat made motorcycles, really nice motorcycles. I used to golf (and have beverages) with Pan Am pilots that were members there.
We had a nice bar and a dining room where we had an African chef. He was young and really good. He would take ideas and suggestions from all of us and do his best to make the dish. We would have BBQ occasionally on the weekends. The bar was quite nice too, much beer and liquor and a nice view out onto the course. We would gather at the bar to watch sporting events live from the states. It would be 0300-0400 when some of them ended, but at least there, no one cared because hey, your a member of the club. Like I said, I really like what the Germans have done with the pace and cant wait to get back for 18 and a beer.
So here are some pics of me golfing at the US Army Berlin Golf and Country Club (I lifted the graphic form these guys)
A letter from the Blogmocracy Gun and Country Club:
Those of us who have been paying attention to the Media’s assault on the Tea Parties has noticed that the Media insinuates that anyone who is a member of a Tea Party is a racist, hick, homophobe, uneducated rube who cant string two words together without help from the VRWC lest more uneducated and decidedly non-erudite words keep falling out. Bitter clingers, cling to those bibles and guns, uneducated rabble…you know the drill.
Now the Media has decided that the Tea Parties and the candidates that they back are a bunch of Elite Yalee Yahoos a la William F Buckley because the Tea Party backed candidate Rand Paul held his victory celebration at a Country Club.
I would like to remind the cupcake-degree journalism majors that their message is getting awfully mixed…are the Tea Partiers rubes or elitists? Yalee Yahoos or Buba Tire and Auto? Try to get you facts/opinions in order, or at least try to get your facts straight. It is sad to see so many minds wasted on cracker-jack box journalism degrees.
Rand mentioned that Tiger Woods democratized the game, opened everyone’s eyes to it, this is true. Of course the Left will not allow Rand to use their own lines against them, hypocrites. The Left has always tried to play the race card when dealing with Woods, now that the reality of Wood’s effect on the game is brought up as a positive on the right, its now verboten! (Tiger’s ‘democratizing the game’ has nothing to do with his recent ‘problems’ now)
Golf is one thing, it is democratic. When played by the rules all of the money in the world cant buy you a good game. The most expensive equipment cant make you a better golfer, hard work and practice over time are the key. The mail room dude can beat the CEO on the course. As for the Ran Paul at his Country Club…well I have two things. Where do the over-payed under-skilled journalists go for recreation? I’ll bet the journalists on ABC news and Stephy get to go to some nice places too, but they are the elites, so its OK for them.
Item two, Rand made it through a real degree program and is a practicing Doctor…this requires a sharp brain, hard work, and perseverance; something the journalism majors that are bombing the guy with this nonsense don’t really have. I commend Rand for holding the event at his Club, as it should be. He worked hard to afford to be a member there and that is something he should be proud of.
Its pretty easy to tell that the Tea Parties are effective and are scaring the daylights out of the progressives. The attacks continue, and now the attacks are conflicting…rubes or elites…The proggies are getting flustered! This Tea Party movement is working! The Left is throwing mud at all of the walls hoping that something, anything, sticks.
The reality of life is that some courses are private, some communities are gated…but everyone can try and play.
The bar is open, and so is this thread.
The Country Club has Spoken, as it were.
Regards,
Coldwarrior,
Chair of the Awards Committee and President of the Blogmocracy
Gun and Country Club.
Talk about going after the Country Club Set! The Totalitarian Progressive Tyrant Hugo Chavez is now planning to shut down Golf Courses. He claims Golf is not areal sport and that it’s a bourgeois activity. My question is why does this nut job care about Golf?
CARACAS, Venezuela — Every day, Pascual Cicenia plays golf on an emerald course that is 18 holes of tropical heaven in the middle of this chaotic city. He doesn’t take it for granted, he said, especially now that President Hugo Chávez has disparaged the sport as an elitist endeavor with few friends in his populist government.
“You can get into the golf course in about five minutes. You can get in a round of golf just about every day,” gushed Cicenia, 23, taking a break last week as he practiced his 155-yard drives. “It’s probably why he wants to take it away.”
Chávez did not directly vilify this course, the Caracas Country Club, Venezuela’s most exclusive and a citadel of the country’s wealthiest families. But in a televised outburst against golf, Chávez criticized the sport as “bourgeois,” mocked golfers as lazy and said that “there is no justification for a golf course in the middle of a city.”
Read the rest.
Like a typical Progressive, Hugo Chavez seeks to impose his view on others. He hates Golf, so therefore Venezuelan golfers must suffer. This is what happens when Progressivism has a stranglehold on a nation. People can’t even play Golf, it just doesn’t cease with these Leftists.
Make no mistake, if we don’t defeat American Progressives, America will be like Venezuela. It’s no coincidence that Obama likes this man.
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