(gentle music) (golf club claps) - That's a little off.

You get through?

- I dunno if it got through or not.

- I dunno.

(gentle music) - I've heard differing stories on the origins of golf.

Some people claim it originated in the Netherlands in the 1400s.

Most people wanna believe that it originated in Scotland.

I tend to believe that the purest form of golf originated in Scotland in the 1400s.

(golf club claps) - That was better.

I'll take that.

That first one was jimmy-jack.

- It's an art form, if you will.

It cannot be mastered.

And every day you go out, it is you versus the elements, you versus the golf course, you trying to hit a ball over 6,000 yards into a little tiny hole.

So the challenge of you against the elements is very appealing.

(gentle music) When you're out there, it's, you're walking in a park.

It's a park.

You're smelling the grass.

You're listening to the birds.

You're hanging out with your buddies.

You're thinking about your next golf shot you've got.

It's just, it's all encompassing.

It just pulls you in, all the aspects of the game.

(gentle music) I think it's the challenge of something that can't be beat.

If you shoot a personal best score, your mind is automatically thinking to one stroke better.

So everybody always wants to improve.

You're always trying to practice and improve in different parts of the game.

And it's something that ultimately can't be conquered.

You can't beat the game of golf.

(gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) In 1922, a group of Fresno businessmen met in the downtown Fresno area at a place called The Commercial Club.

And they would sit around and enjoy drinks and socialize and smoke cigars together.

And a gentleman named Ben Sheagren first suggested the idea of a golf course.

Golf was really in vogue at the time.

It was really starting to become popular.

And he suggested forming and building a golf course in Fresno.

- Birdie!

- 18!

- [Golfer] Way to go.

Good job, Greg.

- Yes, indeed.

- What a shot.

- [Golfer 2] Yes, indeed, Greg.

- [Golfer] You do it on television.

Wow!

- [Greg] I do that all the time.

- In the Gold Rush was in progress in 1849 in California.

And California was booming with people coming in trying to make their fortune in the Gold Rush era.

So in 1850, there was no way across the San Joaquin River from one side to the other.

So a group of men created a crossing on a barge and as protection from Indian attack in that area, they also built a fort in 1850.

And the name of that fort was Fort Washington.

Fort Washington was roughly on the east bank of the San Joaquin River near Friant Road and Copper, today.

Just directly west of that is where Fort Washington was located.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - Good putt.

- Good putt.

(golfer speaking faintly) Good comeback.

- Way to go.

- Good come back.

- Good putt.

- So I had a five, actually.

- Good comeback.

- You had a five?

- I had a five.

- You had a five?

- I had a five, too, Steve.

- I had a four.

(gentle music) - This is our 100th year in 2023, so the idea was to put together kind of a historical perspective on everything that's happened here at the club since its origin.

You know, how we got started, the evolution, our staff, the grounds, the course itself.

There's a really, really rich history here.

Being Fort Washington, you know, it has a connotation of, kind of that early 1900s, late 1800s, I guess, kind of thing.

So our goal was to kind of put a pictorial perspective along with a narrative and, which was really a challenge because when you're looking for content from 1923, you can imagine the quality.

So Kurt Smith's done an amazing job.

We tease him and call him our content guy 'cause he's been scraping and scrounging and rolling all over the place, trying to find good stuff for us to use.

But the book's coming together really, really well.

I think it's gonna be something that everybody's gonna cherish.

It's a coffee table book.

Large format, full color, a lot of visuals, a lot of great references, a lot of fantastic stories.

Some of the cool historical stuff that's happened here at the club.

Like, we used to have slot machines here back in the day and when that was no longer something you could do, they decided to take them out and bury them on the 15th tee box.

And so, you know, kind of funny and fun stories like that that I think people are gonna enjoy reading and enjoy hearing about.

- I joined Fort Washington roughly 20 years ago.

My wife and I joined.

I was playing public golf courses at the time and I knew that I had a passion for the game.

My wife has a passion for the game.

And we kept discussing if we could join anywhere in Fresno, where would we join?

And both of us would say Fort Washington for obvious reasons.

And so, we decided, let's quit screwing around and let's join what I consider the best club in the Fresno area.

So we joined in 2004 and then I started reading about some of the history at the club and I couldn't believe it when I heard that the club was as old as it was, that it was founded in 1923.

So I started doing some reading and came across these fantastic stories of things that had occurred at the fort.

And it's like, the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn.

And I just continued doing research and eventually the board of directors asked me to write the book on the history of Fort Washington.

I'm a lifetime law enforcement officer.

I was a member of the Fresno Police Department for 34 years as a sworn officer.

Early in my life I was occupied with a full-time career and raising two daughters.

So I was very, very busy.

But some of my best friends on the police department kept trying to get me involved in golf.

They were passionate golfers.

And I just didn't have the time in my life.

But I did start playing golf in my early forties and the game just enveloped me.

I couldn't get enough of it.

When you hit a pure golf shot, there's nothing like it.

You know, when you drop a ball and have a tap in birdie, it's just, it keeps you coming back, like they say in golf.

And I've been passionate about the game now for coming up on 30 years.

- Golf's a game that, what brings people back is, I believe is the challenge and the success to the challenge.

And you could go all day and have a horrible day, but if you finish up strong on 18 and make a 20 footer, or hit a good iron shot, you can't wait to come back the next day because that little success is what brings you back and you think you can repeat it.

And so that's what I believe for me anyway, is I love the challenge and even with all the failures, 'cause golf is a really a game of failures and managing your failures.

The little successes you have is what I believe drives me and keeps me coming back to try to keep figuring it out.

Especially as I age.

Because as aging goes on, your body changes and it gets harder and harder.

And then you can't do what you did when you were younger.

And that's frustrating.

But it keep coming back.

In 1988, I qualified for the US Open.

It was played at Brookline in Massachusetts where I'd also played the '82 US Amateur there.

And it was an incredible experience.

You know, my parents were with me and my wife was with me, and we had a great week.

Got to play with the likes of Payne Stewart, Jim Gallagher.

Every pro was in the locker room.

Nicholas was there.

Seve Ballesteros was there, Palmer was there, Curtis Strange.

And I got my dad in the locker room, he got to hang out there.

That was kind of cool for me, bringing him in there so he could experience that.

And yeah, it was just an incredible experience that one of those memories you'll never forget.

- My wife, back then, my girlfriend, she was playing tennis at Fresno State and her coach lives across the street at Woodward Lakes.

They had a tennis meeting with the coaches.

So I dropped her off and I was driving around.

And killing time, I drove in here, didn't know what it was.

I saw it was a golf course.

I parked, went inside the clubhouse and I opened the bar doors and my old manager from Hilton, Frank Kraus was there.

He saw me, he comes out and he says, "Ali, what are you doing?"

I go, I was looking for a job.

He's all, "Can you work tomorrow?"

I go, sure.

That was history after that.

- You know, where we're at today as a club is in no small part to all the progress that was made over the 100 years, all the generations that came before us and didn't have quite all the luxuries we have and the great course to play off of.

And the new clubhouse and all the things we're enjoying.

Those previous generations were the ones that had the foresight to help get us to where we're at today.

But yeah, when you talk about a hundred year history, there is a lot of memories and there's a lot of, well, history that has taken place.

And mine's 23 years, but we hope that the current generation and the generations to come, because this course just keeps getting handed down from generation to generation.

- [Golfer] It's not that bad today.

- [Golfer 2] No.

- [Golfer] It's got a little breeze, huh?

- [Golfer 2] Yeah.

This is a nice time to play golf.

- [Golfer] It is, huh?

Need to bring my grandsons and son and son-in-law out here and play this time of night.

(gentle music) - The first golf ball was hit at Fort Washington on June 17th, 1923.

It was hit by, the then, the first president of the club, Dr. Arthur Albright.

At the time, there were nine completed holes and the other nine were under construction.

The course was basically dusty, knee high weeds, rocks in the fairways.

They didn't really have power equipment back then.

The greens were not even grass at the time due to winds.

They had what are called oil and sand greens where a mixture of oil was combined with sand and then spread on the greens.

And that's what you putted on.

Very primitive.

(gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) The first well was drilled at Fort Washington in the summer of 1923.

Right about the time the first golf balls were hit.

The first well was roughly a hundred feet deep.

They had plenty of water and the watering was done by hand.

Basically, they would drag hoses, they would dig trenches to channel water.

It was not even close to what we have today.

Very primitive.

The first clubhouse had been built.

It was a 25 foot by 25 foot square structure.

It had no furniture inside.

It was basically four walls.

There were hooks on the wall to hang your clothes on, and people sat on the floor and ate their lunch and got out of the summer sun.

So the first few years the club was in existence it didn't take them long to finish the second nine holes.

The club soon opened up as a full 18 hole golf course.

There was some turnover as the head pros came.

Our second head pro was a very, very famous man named Olin Dutra.

But the course grew rapidly.

The membership grew rapidly.

There were a lot of early day improvements in the conditions of the course.

They would gather the members together and they would have tree and shrub planting days, where in one instance, they planted over 500 trees and shrubs in one day.

The look of Fort Washington changed virtually overnight.

The first pro was a gentleman named Bob Newman, who was a very accomplished golfer.

He was one of the early members at Fort and the existing membership convinced him to take the first head pro job at Fort Washington.

That was in 1923, obviously.

He was there for a short period of time and he left for other employment.

And another very well known person in the golf world came in as our second head pro and that was Olin Dutra.

- [Announcer] It's the final round of the National Open at the Merion Club course.

Olin Dutra and Gene Sarazen are battling for the lead.

With victory in his grasp, Gene runs into hard luck and begins to miss fairly easy ones like this.

Even the great Bobby Jones, ex-golf king, is getting a thrill as word comes that the big California pro has reached the last green far ahead.

(crowd chatting faintly) - Olin Dutra grew up in the Monterey area.

As a young boy, he caddied on local golf courses.

He got the golf bug and he eventually developed into one of the greatest golfers in the history of the game, in America anyway.

Olin Dutra is in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

He won two major championships.

He won the 1934 US Open.

And his performance in that event has been described as epic.

He contacted a severe case of amoebic dysentery in the days leading up to the tournament.

In a short period of time before the US Open, he lost 15 pounds.

He was thinking about withdrawing and his brother convinced him to play.

On the last day he couldn't eat.

On the last day they had to play 36 holes.

They had to walk, which would've amounted to about nine miles in walking.

Mr. Dutra was so weakened by the dysentery, he kept playing, but he was eating sugar cubes to keep his energy levels up.

And he made an unprecedented comeback in the tournament.

He won the United States Open by a single stroke and he beat the legendary Gene Sarazen in doing it.

- [Announcer] With two strokes left to win, Dutra takes no chances.

A nice slow, easy putt up to the hole and it's all over but the shouting.

(spectators shouting) Brother Marty nearly smothers the victor, winner by one stroke as the crowd acclaims.

Just out of a sick bed, Dutra proved game to the last, and the cup goes to a real champion.

- Olin, I give into your custody the Open Championship Cup, and I know you will uphold the best traditions of an Open champion.

- Thank you Mr. Jay.

In winning this championship, naturally, I feel very gratified.

And I feel that I am probably the luckiest boy in all the field.

I am very, very happy in having won this championship at Merion.

Of course, we boys realize that Merion has been one of the finest tests of golf.

Not that I played it too well.

(members of the crowd chuckle) But one of the finest championship courses we have ever played.

Thank everyone in the gallery.

My very good friends, the newspaper men.

- Thank you.

- My fellow competitors - Thank you.

- and all the cameramen.

(spectators cheering) - One of the reporters that was present that day said it was the greatest performance he'd ever seen in the game of golf.

(gentle music) - For me personally, I mean, Fort Washington is such a fond memory.

Just a great place to grow up, learn how to be around adults, play a lot of golf, and really, I was just an employee out here, but they, everyone treated me very well.

It was just a nice, it was a fantastic place to grow up really.

And yeah, I have great memories.

I really, it was a very, very nice time of my life for sure.

(gentle music) - In July of 1929, Fort Washington hired, who was probably at the time, the best golfer in the San Joaquin Valley.

And that's a gentleman named Art Melville.

I refer to Art Melville as the man who saved Fort Washington.

Art Melville grew up in Carnoustie, Scotland.

Very familiar golf name.

He caddied, he learned the game of golf.

He was considered a golfing prodigy in Scotland.

He eventually immigrated to the United States.

He tried to get one of the earlier jobs at the fort, but he was beat to it by Olin Dutra.

But in July of 1929, he was hired as the head golf professional at the fort.

A few months later, the Great Depression struck and times got very, very tough at Fort Washington.

We lost members, obviously, people lost their jobs.

People were outta work.

It was a very difficult time in the history of Fort Washington.

Art Melville guided Fort Washington through the Great Depression.

There were times when there was no staff.

Art was taking care of the golf course.

He was making sandwiches in the clubhouse.

He was Fort Washington.

He ran the whole club.

Him and his wife and his two daughters ran Fort Washington during the Great Depression.

- My dad went to work at the fort three days after I was born, on July 1st, 1929.

The club was very small then.

A few members and a wooden clubhouse that I fondly, fondly remember.

And then as it progressed in the late thirties, they put in an in-ground swimming pool.

So when I was in my father's class to take golf lessons, I went out in the summer.

When they put the pool in, I did not know how to swim and I was nine years old.

So my mother said, "Anne has got to learn how to swim."

That took care of my golf lessons because when I learned to swim, the golf lessons went.

It was more fun to swim in water than to stand out in the hot summer heat swinging a golf club.

- See the Art Melville was really an easygoing guy.

I asked him one day if I could have a cross country race up here.

And I was putting these on for the high schools.

I was promoting cross country when I was going to Fresno State.

We came out here on a Saturday morning and these school buses came up and we must have had 40 kids out here.

And we ran out the outside of the course for the high school kids, that was not two miles.

And then we ran two and a half laps around here for the, in fact, I ran the race that day and all these guys were waiting to play golf here.

We had kids running around this place.

Oh.

We didn't have any more cross country races here after that.

(Bob chuckles) - I was very struck by the dedication and the perseverance of Art Melville and his family.

It was like they were not gonna be beaten by circumstance, that they were gonna get Fort Washington through the Second World War.

Her stories of, you know, the gas rationing.

People couldn't get out to the golf course during the Second World War.

People were allotted four gallons of gas a week.

And to think about driving 10 miles each way to play a round of golf, you would use up your allotment of gas.

So I was struck by the perseverance of the Melville family.

- Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate, of the House of Representatives, yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

United States of America, was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

- When the war came on, and the enrollment at the club went way, way down, in order for the club to keep even functioning with the few members that were left, my mom and dad kind of took over the eating part of it to keep the dining room open so that the few members that came out, they at least could have a sandwich or a hamburger.

And in the winter was always hot chili or hamburgers, but it was very minimal that was going on.

And then we would get things from Lox Bakery and bring out donuts and things that they always had with coffee in the morning.

So those things I remember.

But other than that, my mom and dad didn't, they didn't talk much about the hard times that were out there.

We, they just did.

And they didn't talk about how difficult it was, other than they just kept on going.

Yes, just to keep it going.

(gentle music) - The membership has always been full and wonderful.

Wonderful people.

I have the benefit of having known most of these people who are in our history book.

Not all, but most.

(gentle music) ♪ Miles and miles ♪ ♪ Under clear blue skies ♪ ♪ We drive ♪ ♪ Straight as an arrow flies ♪ ♪ Nowhere to be ♪ ♪ No dream to chase tonight ♪ ♪ We've got time to waste ♪ ♪ Let's waste it right ♪ - It's just a wonderful opportunity to see it evolve, see the course evolve, see the membership evolve and the characters of the club and knowing most of them over this time.

It's been a wonderful experience for me.

And I'm really fortunate that my dad introduced me to this game and this place.

♪ You and I ♪ ♪ Our heads up in the clouds ♪ ♪ We caught up ♪ ♪ With the birds flying south ♪ ♪ Nothing to see ♪ ♪ As the day turns into night ♪ ♪ We've got time to waste let's waste it right ♪ ♪ We've got time to waste let's waste it right ♪ (gentle music) (gentle music) (golfers speaking faintly) (gentle music) (golfers speaking faintly) (gentle music) - In the minutes that I have a copy of from the first meeting of the board of directors at Fort Washington, the president of the club, Dr. Albright made a motion to allow female members at Fort Washington.

It was very, very almost unheard of at the time.

Many, many golf clubs would not allow women to play golf.

They would not allow even certain ethnicities to play golf.

There was, it was a different era for sure, but Fort Washington from day one had two or three single women members in the original membership at Fort Washington.

- There was always a ladies group, I remember.

And I remember an Edith Wilson.

I remember her 'cause to me, she was quite old when I was young, but she was playing golf until I think, way, way into her eighties.

She was something.

I only remember her because she was still playing into my high school years there.

And I just thought, how amazing that this woman is still out there playing golf.

Yeah.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - Some of the eucalyptus trees are extremely old.

Some of them I've been told are almost as old as the golf course.

That they were planted in the early stages of the golf course.

But they work very well in our climate.

The eucalyptus trees originally came from Australia, and so they're obviously suited to the warm summers here.

And they give the golf course that look, that stately look, if you will, of these beautiful gigantic trees that grow so fast.

And we have literally hundreds of them on the golf course and they line the fairways and they just give it that beautiful unique look that the fort members love.

- Well, there's always, every time you go out for a game of golf, there's always an special experience that happens, whether it be with the foursome or group or during a tournament.

You know, we've had some high level tournaments.

PGA Pro.

We had the Hogan Tour event here, the final tournament.

There's just been just many, many memories here at this club.

- I would say my favorite thing at Fort Washington is the terrain of the golf course.

Definitely.

That's what brought me here as a professional golfer.

The terrain.

The different lies that you get during the golf round is incredible.

You know, ball below your feet, one foot lower than the other foot.

And it's pretty consistent throughout the golf course.

You have a lot of, you have some uphill shots, you have downhill shots.

It's really can get you, this golf course will give you definitely an all-rounded game.

You can be pretty good.

And that was what attracted me to Fort Washington Country Club.

- What happens is, when guys come here and play, they'll always comment on the terrain and how it, the rolling hills and the ups and downs and the different lies you get.

So you got downhill lies, side hill lie, uphill lie.

And that's not what you're getting in almost any other club you play in the Central Valley.

And we hosted a United States Mid-Amateur out here in 2003.

These guys came from all over the United States and even other countries.

And one of the common things that I kept hearing was about the terrain and the uniqueness of it and how they enjoyed it.

And there's blind shots.

That their shots, you don't, you can't, like here on 18.

When you're down there, you can't see.

You only see the top of the pan.

You can't see the green.

So it makes it a much harder shot because you can't see the green.

And you know, on nine, when you're heading into nine, your second shot, all you see is that tree.

And you gotta go around that tree as your guide.

On 16, you can't see the green.

On six, you're hitting from a level, you're looking into a hill and can't see the green.

These are unique things about this golf course that they're not in many places, at least in the Central Valley.

(upbeat music) - Fort Washington has been kind of a destination golf course, if you will, starting probably even in the late twenties, early thirties.

Some of the bigger golf tournaments in the western United States began occurring at Fort Washington.

Fort Washington hosted, what was then one of the major events in West Coast golf, and that was the California State Open.

Fort Washington hosted eight California State opens.

There would be literally thousands of spectators at Fort Washington watching some of the world's greatest golfers play golf.

That tradition has continued through the fifties, sixties, seventies.

Major golf events were occurring at Fort Washington.

In 1980 or '81, after a series of qualifiers, Fort Washington was the final qualifying spot for the PGA tour.

And aspiring golfers of that era had to get through a series of qualification events to come to Fort Washington to play in final qualifying.

And that day, the top players in that tournament became professional golfers.

They got their tour cards.

They became members of the Professional Golfers Association.

They became part of the PGA tour.

And one of the notable qualifying events, Fred Couples became a professional golfer at Fort Washington.

Marco Mira became a professional golfer at Fort Washington.

Both those gentlemen are in the world Golf Hall of Fame.

They're some of the greatest golfers in the history of the game in America.

They've won Masters tournaments.

They became professional golfers at Fort Washington.

(gentle music) - So 14 years old, I was a freshman in high school and we had three members of the team, which happened to be the boys team, that were members out here.

And so somehow the relationship was made that Clovis West would call Fort Washington their home.

And I was lucky enough to be on the team there.

More than that, I was lucky enough to play this great golf course growing up and develop my game out here in very formidable years.

- Joan Pitcock went to Clovis West High School here in Fresno.

She was introduced to the game of golf at an early age.

And as the legend goes, the first time her dad taught her how to hold a club and swing a club, the first time she hit a golf ball, it went straight down the fairway 150 yards.

Joan is incredibly gifted, incredibly talented as a golfer.

I just played golf with Joan yesterday and she said she was rusty and just shot one or two strokes over par.

- I think the thing that I would say about this particular time when I was developing my game out here in high school is this golf course is just so unique in the way that it prepares you and your game for that next level of play if you do happen to go on.

And I think that I really, as I reflect now, probably wouldn't have been the player that I turned out to be had I not prepared my game here.

- The problem was, at the time, there were no high school ladies golf teams.

And so Joan had to play on the boys team, where at times she was the best golfer of either sexes on the team.

Joan would beat the boys hands down.

So Joan went on to, she joined the professional, the LPGA at an early age.

In her rookie season on tour, she, I think she scared some of the more established ladies.

She shot 63 in an LPGA golf tournament.

And Joan went on to a very long and storied career with the LPGA, the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

Joan is arguably one of the top female golfers to come out of the San Joaquin Valley ever.

(upbeat music) A few years back there was a very colorful member, and I'm choosing my words carefully here, he was, everybody that knew him, loved him.

He was known for his fun-loving attitude and he would eventually become the club champion.

And this gentleman's name is Mike Bakula.

Mike Bakula was almost to the level of a professional golfer.

He played in some major tournaments, won some major tournaments.

He was an extremely accomplished golfer.

So one day there was a small airplane was spraying the fields just north of the fort for mosquitoes.

And the plane was flying in very regular circles as it made its passes over the area where it was spraying.

Well, on the southern part of this circle, the airplane was flying over the golf course.

So Bakula was playing that day with a group of his friends, and they were on the 12th tee, and I believe it was a, hey, watch this, moment.

Most people say it was an accident.

I begged to differ, but Bakula timed it perfectly, or imperfectly if you're the pilot.

And as the plane was making a pass over the fairway, Bakula hit a monster drive.

The golf ball went through the windshield of the airplane, bounced off the pilot's head, broke his headset, and then bounced out the side window of the airplane.

The pilot's name was David Hughes.

He was spraying for the mosquito district.

He was dazed.

And he set the plane down on a dirt landing strip at what was at the time the Papagni vineyards, which were located where Copper River Golf Course is today.

Hughes hitched a ride.

Somehow he got over to Fort Washington and stormed into the golf course.

And needless to say, he wanted a piece of Mr. Bakula, or whoever had hit the golf ball.

Our head pro at the time was a gentleman named Bob Silva.

Bob was able to calm him down and get him to leave.

And that's the end of the story.

About a week later, the fort got a bill in the mail for several hundred dollars for the damage to the airplane.

And we're unsure if Bakula ever paid that bill, but we did receive a bill for the damage to the airplane.

The event caught media attention nationwide.

Paul Harvey talked about it on his morning show.

And to this day, it's unknown whether the event was an accident or a, hey, watch this minute.

(gentle music) (golfers faintly chatting) (gentle music) Bob Fries is one of the most colorful people probably in the history of Fort Washington.

Bob has been a member at the fort for over 50 years now.

Bob is an incredibly talented golfer.

He cut his teeth on golf by caddying at Sunnyside back in the forties.

Bob at one point qualified for the United States Senior Open, which was held at Pinehurst.

He played a practice round with Gary Player, played against some of the greatest over 50 golfers in the world.

Back in the seventies Bob Fries was an extremely accomplished long distance runner.

Bob set many records.

He was blazing fast back in his day.

And he was for several decades, the cross country coach at Fresno City College.

He coached some of our greatest long distance runners in the valley.

Bob was the coach.

So one day Bob got an idea that he wanted to try and set the world's record for the fastest round of golf.

- I've played it by myself out here one time and I played it in 52 minutes and I told a few people about it.

And I got in a paper.

And a guy up north, who I knew, I was a senior runner, I was still running at the time, he played a round in 47 minutes, but he had guys carrying his clubs for him.

And so Pat Ogle, he's working for Channel 24 at the time.

He says, "Why don't you try to break his record?"

And I says, yeah, I could if I had kids carrying my clubs for me.

- On a cold December morning, he went out and he had three of his best cross country runners running with him.

And Bob had to hit every shot.

He had to putt everything out.

He had to complete the full round, but he would hit the shot and then run to where his ball was, where one of his student runners was waiting for him.

They would hand him a golf club, he would hit it and run onto the green.

- One kid took care of my driver, he'd tee it up ahead of me.

One kid just took care of my putter.

He went ahead and wiped the mud off the ball and held over my ball.

As soon as I grabbed the putter, he grabbed the flag, I'd putt it, dropped the putter, go to the next hole.

And one kid just took care of my 2, 4, 6, 8 wedge, three wood.

- He's playing well.

And he gets to the seventh hole on top of the hill at Fort Washington.

He hits a ball over the fence and to the field.

So he's got an out of bound shot.

He immediately tees up another ball.

Hits it onto the green and moves on.

- Then we lost the ball on nine for a while.

We really panicked, but we played the first nine holes in 18 minutes and some seconds.

So I knew we were in good shape.

And so we sailed around that next thing.

I birdied the 16th hole where I made a big long putt.

- And Bob crosses the finish line and the timer goes off.

He holds out the last putt.

And the timers couldn't believe their eyes because Bob had just run or played a full round of golf, hold every putt out.

And he shot a 81 with an OB ball and he ran 18 holes of golf in 38 minutes and 12 seconds.

It was a Guinness Book of Records at that time.

(gentle music) In 1979, our head pro at the time was a gentleman named Bob Silva.

Bob worked for 13 years as our head professional at Fort Washington.

Unannounced one day, Bob Silva told me this story, is a small scout team for a movie production showed up at Fort Washington, totally unannounced.

And Bob was in the pro shop.

He said this, a small little team, two or three people came in and said they were interested in making a golf movie and wanted to know if they could go out and have a look around the grounds at Fort Washington.

Bob gave them permission, said no problem.

They were out on the golf course for a good bit of time.

I think Bob said over an hour.

And they came back in and they said, "Your golf course is perfect for the movie that we want to film.

We especially like your old style 1940s square swimming pool that you have at Fort Washington."

So they said, "We wanna sign the papers right now.

We wanna film our movie at Fort Washington."

Well, Bob Silva told them that this would require approval from the board of directors because the golf course would be closed down for a couple days during some of the filming.

So the matter went before the board of directors at Fort Washington.

They discussed it and ultimately said that they were not gonna give the film crew permission to film at Fort Washington because they didn't want to inconvenience the members during the filming process.

So the movie crew moved on and they eventually landed at a golf course in Florida.

The movie was produced and put out.

And it is one of the most well-known golf movies that's ever been made.

You may recognize the name.

It was called "Caddyshack".

(playful music) - [Gopher] Uh oh.

("Caddyshack" theme music) - I want you to kill every gopher on the course.

- Check me if I'm wrong, Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers, they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key.

- Gophers!

Ya great, not golfers.

The little brown furry rodents.

(gopher chittering) - [Carl] Come to Carl, varmint.

Come to Carl.

(gopher chomps) (Carl yelps) Okay, I guess we're playing for keeps now.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - My father passed away prematurely in 1974.

He was 56 years old.

And his friends got together and planted a tree for him.

They planted originally on the 15th tee.

And the reason they planted it there was because my dad, as he was playing, would always have what's, he called, a red dog, which was a beer and tomato juice and salt.

And he always had it coming off the 14th green.

He would go into the clubhouse.

Bill would have it ready for him, Bill Morley, and he'd drink it and then finish his round.

And so they decided to put the tree there on 15 tee.

When the clubhouse was, the current generation clubhouse, the one that's there now, was built, they needed to move this tree from the 15th tee in order to save it.

And they moved it temporarily to this spot.

And here it remains.

And I'm really glad it's here.

It means a lot to me that it's in this spot because this spot, when I was on the board, my last year was 2003, is when we redid this driving range in its current form.

And this is a spot that is highly utilized by the members and their children.

And people have the ability to learn the game here.

And it's a beautiful spot to me.

And its, you can come out here on a weekday and this range will be completely filled with people practicing.

I appreciate that very much and I'm glad that it's here and I'm hoping that people understand the story of it.

- The membership at Fort Washington is very together.

We're together as friends.

A lot of us love each other.

And you know, part of the process of life is that members pass away.

We lose our friends from Fort Washington and it's hard.

We lose a member at Fort and the flag goes to half mast in honor of that person, and it flies at half mast for several days.

When we show up at the golf course and we see the flags down, you know, we immediately know that we've lost a friend.

And it's difficult, but it's part of life.

And the fort is very, very respectful of its members in that regard.

And we honor our deceased members appropriately.

(gentle music) (golfers faintly chatting) - I'm going to be retiring soon.

I'm not completely pushed out yet, but I'm going to hang it up here soon.

I just want to let everybody know that it's been an absolute amazing journey, an amazing journey.

I wouldn't have traded it for the world, but also the friendships.

And it's just a privilege that I've had the opportunity to be here as long as I have.

And I thank every one of them.

- I'm just thankful for the membership and the amount of people that want to be members out here.

We're full right now.

Have a waiting list and have for the past, I think, three or four years.

So obviously we're doing something right.

And I'd also like to make a shout out to our pro Alan Ehnes who's done a great job here.

Our superintendent Jose, who works his tail off and has done a good job.

And then also Ali Peyvandi with the food and beverage.

That guy has exceeded every expectation that there is in his amount of banquets and anniversaries and weddings and member events.

And his, the profitability that he's brought to food and beverage is second to none.

And it's actually helping the club with all the things that we're doing for reinvesting back into the golf course and the clubhouse.

He's a big part of that.

I'd like to thank him for that.

- I've been very blessed all these years I've been here.

I started as being a waiter, buser, bartender, and I moved to the assistant manager job, then I got the clubhouse manager job.

So it's been a great drive, great journey.

I want to thank all the staff and the members and board of directors for giving me the opportunity.

I really appreciate it and I've been very blessed for that.

(gentle music) - In spending several years doing the research on the history at Fort Washington, I could not believe the amount of history that has occurred at that golf course.

And the more research I did, the more stories I uncovered.

Eventually I had to just say I have to stop.

This could go on for years.

There's just so much history that's occurred there.

And I know of no place in Fresno County that has the amount of historical significance that Fort Washington does.

I've thought about this a lot and I can't think of anything that is even close to what's occurred at that golf course.

The beauty of the game of golf is you can start playing the game almost at the same time you learn how to walk and you can play it throughout your lifetime until you're dead and gone.

I've played golf with 90 year old men that are very accomplished.

I've played golf with 10 year old children that love the sport, that love the game of golf.

All the good rounds that I've had with a friend that I've lost, all the good times, all the good times on the golf course, all the good times socializing together in the clubhouse afterwards.

It's a difficult part of the experience, but you also have that time together as friends.

- Good job, Tom.

- Good day.

- It was great.

- Good day.

Thanks Steve.

- Good job, Tom.

(golfers speaking over each other) - Good job buddy.

That was a great one, man.

That was a pleasure.

(gentle music)