Spring can’t be far off if Old Gold starts daydreaming about golf, a game that has a decades-long history at The University of Iowa.

The sprawling, 18-hole Finkbine Golf Course situated northeast of the intersection of Melrose Avenue and Mormon Trek Boulevard traces its turf, er- roots, to 1925. That year, University President Walter Jessup took the first ceremonial swing at the dedication of what has proven to be one of the campus’s most popular, enduring, and—shall we say it?—cursed venues.

According to the 1927 Hawkeye annual, golf as an intercollegiate sport was “just about as popular as ping pong” —which is to say, not much liked—until early that decade. In 1923, interest in the sport sparked when University alumnus William O. Finkbine (1857-1930; law 1880) deeded a wedge-shaped property bordered by Newton Road to the north, railroad tracks to the southwest, and the soon-to-be-built General Hospital and football stadium to the east and southeast. Chicago architect Tom Bendelow designed the new course.

By the early 1950’s, Finkbine was surrounded by rapid expansion of the medical campus, including the 1952 opening of the Veterans Administration hospital nearby. So a second course, South Finkbine, was completed in 1954, site of the present-day 7,100-yard facility. The site of the original course is now occupied by Carver-Hawkeye Arena and other athletics and health care buildings northwest of Nile Kinnick Stadium, clustered along Hawkins Drive.

There remains at least one reminder of Finkbine’s early days: A quiet street in University Heights bearing the name Golfview Avenue, just west of the original course. The street name was accurate for about 20 years, until the new course opened a mile away in 1954.

—David McCartney, University Archivist

University President Walter Jessup tees off at the dedication of the new Finkbine Golf Course, October 1925.

Source—University Archives, F.W. Kent Photographs Collection, Faculty series, folder “Jessup, Walter A. #249-09”

Trying out the new Finkbine Golf Course, 1926.

Source—1927 Hawkeye Annual, p. 279

Course rules, ca 1950.

Source—University Archives, Campus Buildings and Grounds Vertical File Collection, folder “Finkbine Golf Course”

Scorecard, ca 1950.

Source—University Archives, Campus Buildings and Grounds Vertical Files Collection, folder “Finkbine Golf Course”

June 1953 cover of Iowa Alumni Review touting the newly-expanded Finkbine Golf Course.

Source—University Archives, Campus Buildings and Grounds Vertical Files Collection, folder “Finkbine Golf Course”