CRAG BURN HISTORY
This narrative was compiled with generous help from Jim Smith, Ranny Wyckoff, Ned Booth, Jean Knox, Seymour Knox IV and Lonnie Nielsen. Several historical details are courtesy of documents produced by the Knox Summer Estate at Knox Farm State Park.
Summer Estate
In 1929, Frank H. Goodyear Jr., a prominent Buffalonian and his wife, Dorothy Knox, daughter of Seymour Knox, one of the founders of the Woolworth Corporation, began construction on a summer estate in East Aurora called Crag Burn. The name gets its origins from the Scottish words "Crag,” meaning “top of the bluff,” and “Burn,” meaning “small stream,” an apt description of this beautiful property. An elaborate English Style house with more than 60 rooms was designed by John Russell Pope in collaboration with Frederick Law Olmstead and built on 113 acres on North Davis Road.
Across the road, 190 acres of grounds included magnificent stables, service buildings, polo fields, and bridle paths. Tragically, in 1930 Frank Goodyear Jr. died in a car crash before his Crag Burn estate was completed.
In 1929, Frank H. Goodyear Jr., a prominent Buffalonian and his wife, Dorothy Knox, daughter of Seymour Knox, one of the founders of the Woolworth Corporation, began construction on a summer estate in East Aurora called Crag Burn. The name gets its origins from the Scottish words "Crag,” meaning “top of the bluff,” and “Burn,” meaning “small stream,” an apt description of this beautiful property. An elaborate English Style house with more than 60 rooms was designed by John Russell Pope in collaboration with Frederick Law Olmstead and built on 113 acres on North Davis Road.
Across the road, 190 acres of grounds included magnificent stables, service buildings, polo fields, and bridle paths. Tragically, in 1930 Frank Goodyear Jr. died in a car crash before his Crag Burn estate was completed.
Tragedy in the Fields
In 1938 tragedy struck Crag Burn once again. Lieutenant Commander Frank Hawks, a famous speed flyer, often took people for plane rides in the area. Hawks was meeting with Dorothy’s brother-in-law, Hazard Campbell Sr., to seek funding for a small plane he had landed out on the polo fields. The pair went for a ride, but shortly after takeoff, the plane struck wires and crashed, killing both Hawks and Campbell. Some say the grass has never been the same color and that an outline of the crash site is still visible on the tenth hole today.
From Horses to Birdies
By the late 1960s, the polo fields and bridle paths near the estate’s stable were seeing very little use. The horses had long been sold, and the fields had begun to return to nature. Dorothy Knox Goodyear’s son Bobby and son-in-law, Clint Wyckoff, had the idea to turn a 190-acre parcel into a golf course, a fitting use for the beautiful landscape and existing structures. Dorothy gave the property to the pair in 1969, and they hired prominent American golf course architect and family friend, Robert Trent Jones Sr., to design the course.
Bobby, his sister Dottie, her husband Clint, and their sons Peter, Ranny, and Kevin – all avid golfers – recruited friends and family to help fund the construction of a club where “a group of friends could play golf.” This integral group of early supporters, roughly 50 people in all, became the club’s founding members.
A Course is Built
The group was adamant, after seeing other Robert Trent Jones designed courses, that the Crag Burn course would become the premier course in Western New York and that any real estate development would be secondary. Given the combination of heavily wooded sections and open fields, Mr. Jones was commissioned to build a course that would capitalize on the terrain of the property. The front nine would be a parks-style course and run through the wooded section. The back nine would have a more open, traditional feel of a links course. Seven ponds were dug to enhance the design with the soil providing topography for tees and greens.
Oakgrove Construction and Newgolf, Inc. began construction in 1970. A sophisticated valve system was installed to regulate the flow of water between the ponds. Robert Trent Jones had hired the best people in the business, among them contractor Bill Baldwin, who had some of the world’s best equipment operators on his crew. In fact, the man who put down the final layer of soil on the greens was able to translate a hand-scrawled Robert Trent Jones sketch into the delicate undulations that characterize Crag Burn’s greens today.
The clubhouse was fashioned from the original stable, immediately lending a sense of history to the new club. Many of the original details of the stable were kept, including the magnificent slate roof and horse stalls, which created unique alcoves for dining guests. The groom’s cottage for the stables became the pro shop.
In 1938 tragedy struck Crag Burn once again. Lieutenant Commander Frank Hawks, a famous speed flyer, often took people for plane rides in the area. Hawks was meeting with Dorothy’s brother-in-law, Hazard Campbell Sr., to seek funding for a small plane he had landed out on the polo fields. The pair went for a ride, but shortly after takeoff, the plane struck wires and crashed, killing both Hawks and Campbell. Some say the grass has never been the same color and that an outline of the crash site is still visible on the tenth hole today.
From Horses to Birdies
By the late 1960s, the polo fields and bridle paths near the estate’s stable were seeing very little use. The horses had long been sold, and the fields had begun to return to nature. Dorothy Knox Goodyear’s son Bobby and son-in-law, Clint Wyckoff, had the idea to turn a 190-acre parcel into a golf course, a fitting use for the beautiful landscape and existing structures. Dorothy gave the property to the pair in 1969, and they hired prominent American golf course architect and family friend, Robert Trent Jones Sr., to design the course.
Bobby, his sister Dottie, her husband Clint, and their sons Peter, Ranny, and Kevin – all avid golfers – recruited friends and family to help fund the construction of a club where “a group of friends could play golf.” This integral group of early supporters, roughly 50 people in all, became the club’s founding members.
A Course is Built
The group was adamant, after seeing other Robert Trent Jones designed courses, that the Crag Burn course would become the premier course in Western New York and that any real estate development would be secondary. Given the combination of heavily wooded sections and open fields, Mr. Jones was commissioned to build a course that would capitalize on the terrain of the property. The front nine would be a parks-style course and run through the wooded section. The back nine would have a more open, traditional feel of a links course. Seven ponds were dug to enhance the design with the soil providing topography for tees and greens.
Oakgrove Construction and Newgolf, Inc. began construction in 1970. A sophisticated valve system was installed to regulate the flow of water between the ponds. Robert Trent Jones had hired the best people in the business, among them contractor Bill Baldwin, who had some of the world’s best equipment operators on his crew. In fact, the man who put down the final layer of soil on the greens was able to translate a hand-scrawled Robert Trent Jones sketch into the delicate undulations that characterize Crag Burn’s greens today.
The clubhouse was fashioned from the original stable, immediately lending a sense of history to the new club. Many of the original details of the stable were kept, including the magnificent slate roof and horse stalls, which created unique alcoves for dining guests. The groom’s cottage for the stables became the pro shop.
Course Opens for Play
By May 1, 1972, Crag Burn welcomed its first foursome. That honor went to Ranny Wyckoff, Peter Wyckoff, David Smith, and Edwin Johnston. The greens hadn’t quite grown in fully as the first shot was hit by Peter Wyckoff, the club’s first treasurer. The foursome proceeded to have a great match and a wonderful time; Crag Burn had become exactly what its co-founders had imagined.
Trouble Into Triumph
Although membership grew slowly throughout the 1970s, by 1981, the club was struggling financially so a group of members stepped in and formed a partnership of 27 limited partners and four general partners – Jay Wattles, Jim Smith, Barry Snyder, and Gary Grelick – called Crag Burn Associates. The group assumed control of Crag Burn, took over its operations, invested heavily and raised capital, re-financed the club, and put their focus on preserving first the course and then the buildings. They also brought the membership from about 150 members to nearly 250. By 1999, the club was back in sound financial shape, and the group had reached their goal of selling Crag Burn back to the membership for essentially the same price at which they purchased it.
Crag Burn Today
Over the years, numerous course improvements have been made, some designed by Robert Trent Jones’ son Reese Jones, while maintaining the ingenuity and integrity of the original design. The practice facility at Crag Burn is widely considered to be one of the finest in the country. As members say, “If you can think of a shot, you can practice it at Crag Burn.” A state-of-the art, 13,500-square-foot maintenance facility was constructed in 1991, and remains one of the largest in Western New York.
Today, Crag Burn reflects the original vision of its founders as one of the finest golf courses to be built. Far from pretentious, the club is simply a place where good friends can gather and play golf on one of the most challenging and beautiful courses in the state.
Blue & Gold
Coming from a family of equestrians, Seymour Knox II, Dorothy’s brother, raised trotter horses and had a very famous one named The Red Abbey. The horse’s racing colors were blue and gold, the colors of East Aurora, which became the team colors of the Buffalo Sabres under the Knox family’s ownership and the official colors of Crag Burn.
Coming from a family of equestrians, Seymour Knox II, Dorothy’s brother, raised trotter horses and had a very famous one named The Red Abbey. The horse’s racing colors were blue and gold, the colors of East Aurora, which became the team colors of the Buffalo Sabres under the Knox family’s ownership and the official colors of Crag Burn.