By Alexander Rivero, Staff Writer

As far back as he can recall, Madison resident and Louisiana native Kevin Casey, 69, has been in love with the game of golf. As a child he played it with his parents and older brother, and by 8 he won his first trophy. By his own estimation, he was a “pretty good” junior player in the state of Louisiana, and went on to the University of Georgia, where he played on the school team. He followed with a five-year stint in the army, during which time he, naturally, continued playing. 

Now retired and hungry to remain within the game he loves, Casey wrote a book tracing New Jersey’s historical place within the history of golf in the United States. The book—Remarkable Stories of New Jersey Golf: The Unique History of Golf in the Garden State—is published by Legendary Publishing & Media Group, and dives into local golf history by way of its greatest stories. 

The book is of the coffee table variety, 11 by 14 inches in length, rich in description and photographs, and is a fine addition to the library of anyone that appreciates not only the beauty of the game, but the extent to which New Jersey helped determine its development in the United States up through the 19th and 20th century. 

Like anyone who had taken a head-first plunge into a deep subject, Casey’s main problem in putting the book together was in determining what information to keep and what information to discard. 

“There was easily enough material here for another book,” he says. “The history is so rich, it was a struggle to determine the scope of what I’d focus on.” 

Casey knew that there was always a great deal of interest in the subject of golf in New Jersey, both from the practical perspective of gamesmanship and the historical element of it. He took a careful inventory of the books published on the subject of local golf, and found an opportunity to add a volume of material that no one had ever delved into beyond a peripheral point. 

“New Jersey didn’t have any place that pulled together the history of the game in the state,” Casey says, “and the more I dove into it, the more amazing it all got.” 

Two of the most interesting stories that caught his eye during his early research phase were the very first golf club ever managed completely by women, and the first golf club ever managed wholly by African-Americans. 

The first story centers on the Morris County Golf Club, which started in 1894. From the beginning, it was an all-female operated club, and the course itself was designed for women as well. 

“The men would be able to come and play on Saturdays, during the afternoons, after 3 o’clock,” Casey says. “But before long, the men, who controlled the pursestrings at the time, ended up deciding it was something they had to take over, and they did.”

The options were to either pull out their funds entirely, or keep the club with the men as the board of governors. The women’s board disintegrated and Morris County Golf Club was born. 

The golf course set the stage for female participation in the sport, and it had a lasting impact on golf’s attraction to female participants for years to come. 

The second story centers on the Shady Rest Golf Club of Scotch Plains (now the public Scotch Hills Country Club), which ran from 1920 to 1963. In 1921, Shady Rest became the first ever African-American owned and operated golf club, a first for both New Jersey and the United States. 

Throughout most of its history under African-American ownership, all the way up through 1964, the club went beyond the simple standards of a golf club. Shady Rest was a community center, a place for African-Americans to congregate and relax, as well as a venue for some of the greatest singers and musicians of its day. Some of the talent that stopped by Shady Rest include none other than Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Cab Calloway. 

Shady Rest ultimately closed in 1964, and in the process transferred over to public ownership. 

For more information on Kevin Casey’s book—Remarkable Stories of New Jersey Golf: The Unique History of Golf in the Garden State—please visit his website at www.njgolfstories.com. Click on the “order now” link on the upper right hand corner of the page to purchase a copy.