ROCK ISLAND, Illinois — The steamboat plowed upriver into a stubborn current on a bright, sweltering summer afternoon. Mike, my son, and I watched its steady progress from the Rock Island Arsenal Golf Course’s first tee, which was as close to the mighty Mississippi River as you can get without actually being in the mighty Mississippi River.
Of course, it wasn’t an authentic paddlewheel steamboat like the ones Mark Twain romanticized in his classic books. This was a modern replica that ferries tourists up and down the Quad Cities riverfront. Still, I’ve never started a golf round while a riverboat went past.
The view from that first tee alone may be worth the price of admission to Rock Island Arsenal Golf Course (RIAGC), but there’s more to the course than that. About 128 years more. Arsenal commander Capt. Stanhope Blunt founded RIAGC in 1897. This unlikely golf club at a military installation in an unlikely location — an island in the Mississippi River that looks across at Davenport, Iowa — was granted an operating license in 1906 by Secretary of War William Taft, the same Taft who later succeeded Teddy Roosevelt as President. A beautiful clubhouse was built that same year after the original burned down. A magnificent ballroom was added in 1920.
That clubhouse is still there but not currently in use. The Rock Island Arsenal is still an active military operation, however, and the historic course made a Lazarus-like comeback this spring after closing in 2018. It was reduced from the original 18 holes to nine holes with an all-new irrigation system and restored fairways. It is open to the public, but I’m not gonna lie — you’ve got to jump through a few hoops.
Mike and I had a roller-coaster adventure getting to that first tee once we decided to check out the historic course that I had read about during a visit just before the PGA Tour’s annual John Deere Classic.
First, we made a required stop at the security building just outside the Rock Island Arsenal’s gated entrance. You have to get a pass to get through the gate in order to reach the golf course.
Mike and I parked, went inside, filled out forms and took them to windows that resembled those used by bank tellers. I confirmed my Social Security number on a keypad, put my signature on a digital screen, sat in a chair for a photo and breezed through the process to get my paper pass, which is good for one year.
But Mike somehow hadn’t gotten around to getting Real ID. Without it, he needed a second form of identification. The U.S. Army wouldn’t accept anything else in his wallet and he didn’t bring his passport. It looked briefly as if he was going to prison and, much more important, I wasn’t playing golf that afternoon and was going to be horribly inconvenienced.
Then Mike noticed that a vehicle registration was on the acceptable ID list. We’d driven from Pittsburgh in his car so he went outside and retrieved his registration from the glove compartment. No prison time after all. He got his pass. We then drove to the nearby gate, had our new passes quickly scanned and officially entered the storied grounds of the Rock Island Arsenal.
We already had a tee time, or so we thought. Mike called the phone number on the course website and got no answer. So, he tried to make a tee time online. To do that, he had to create an account. Minor hassle. Once finished with that, he clicked on the 2:40 p.m. tee time. Mission accomplished. Except the website curiously didn’t respond or email him a confirmation. That was annoying after clearing all those digital hurdles.
We had 20 minutes to make our tee time once inside the gate. Then we had a new problem. We couldn’t find where the golf course started. Or where to check in.
Oh, we could see the course. We drove past several holes, including two right along the Mississippi. But there was nothing resembling a starter’s shack or golf shop or anywhere to check in. The website address led us to the old clubhouse, which was not in use. This was getting ridiculous. Even Waldo is easier to find than this.
We drove past a field with old cannons, artillery and tanks. We drove past the same golf holes again. Then we spotted a driving range where a human being was doing something. So, we stopped the car and asked this gent for directions. You know, the way men are known for doing.
“Keep going up this road until you see the museum,” the guy said. “The golf shop is just to the right.”
We drove farther along on the street past what looked like the back of several large buildings. By the time we almost reached the stoplight at a significant intersection between an endless array of other big buildings, I said this couldn’t be right.
So, Mike made a legal — and totally justifiable, in my humble opinion — U-turn. We reversed course and ducked into the large parking lot. As we did, I saw two guys dressed suspiciously like golfers ambling into the first building on our right. Two large ancient cannons stood in front of the building next to it. That had to be the museum.
We went in. The gentleman working the desk laughed when we told him how much trouble we had finding the golf shop. Yes, he said, the website phone number is wrong. That number is for the old clubhouse and nobody is there. Yes, he said, there are no signs directing golfers where to go. Yes, he said, the tee time function on the website usually doesn’t work. But it was no problem, he added cheerily, because the course was pretty much empty.
I made a joke about how a wrong number, an inoperable tee-time system and zero directional signage certainly didn’t sound like typical government efficiency. The guy laughed at my sarcasm. Mike told me in the parking lot that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to make fun of the government to the government’s face. Point taken.
Anyway, we got a $20 twilight rate, which was good for unlimited golf. With darkness six hours away, we could have really taken advantage of that bargain. But we’d already done 18 elsewhere so once around was enough.
All we had to do then was find the first tee. We didn’t see any signs for that, either. Mike spotted a dotted line painted on the sidewalk across the street and figured that must be there for a reason.
We followed the dotted line and there it was, the Ark of the Covenant … I mean, the first tee. Two guys were just teeing off and then, as I soaked in the beautiful view, I noticed the afore-mentioned riverboat. Within minutes, a towboat pushing a long row of barges downriver appeared, too.
We also found a metal sundial tinted green with age near the path that led to the tee. I asked Mike what time it was as he tried to decipher the shadow. “Looks like about … one-forty,” he said. He frowned. “That can’t be right.”
I answered, “I guess they can’t adjust a sundial for Daylight Savings Time.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that explains it,” he said.
The first tee proved to be my favorite spot on the course. It offered a wonderful view of the Mississippi. The first two holes ran right along the riverbank, in fact, but as we neared the opening green, the playing surface dipped below the height of the levee and cut off our view.
The opening hole was 365 yards, slightly downhill and Mike, a big-hitting pro who used to carry a Korn Ferry Tour card, knocked a drive just off the edge of the green. It was a hot day, low 90s, and the ball was really carrying, but yeah, he can crush it. Most of RIAGC’s greens were in fair to good condition and still recovering from an aeration treatment. The first green was much worse than the rest with assorted bare spots and scrapes.
The second hole was an attention-getter. It was a par-5 with a raised road that crossed the fairway somewhere in the landing area. I hit a mediocre-at-best drive that was too low. It rolled up the slope into the weeds just inches short of the paved road. I hit a second drive to see if I could clear the road and I did, sort of. I pulled this one left, also not very well-hit, but it careened along a cart path, crossed the road and trundled into a hanging lie in the rough on the other side.
Mike, meanwhile, launched a big drive well over the road and had gap wedge to the green on this 513-yarder. It was an easy birdie for him. I escaped with a par after playing finding tree trouble from that awkward lie by the road.
The third hole was a short par 4 that veered inland. I always joke that the worse the greens, the better I putt, and I ran in a 25-footer for birdie over a bunch of aeration holes. “How do you always do that?” Mike asked after his 8-footer bounced offline. I don’t know. Apathy, maybe?
The first three holes on the revived RIAGC are more or less the same as the course’s original three holes. The last six are more or less the same as the original’s last six holes, 13-18. A course regular told me in the bar area after the round that the reconstituted course is about 80 percent similar to the original holes.
The runner-up signature hole — No. 1 probably gets the nod for that first-tee view —was the 508-yard sixth, which snaked one way and then another as it went downhill toward the river. There were just enough big trees with branches protruding into the line of play to be tricky. Plus, we learned the hard way, a small rock-lined pond was hidden in the right rough about 70 yards from the green. It was a shrewd chess-game hole. Too bad I play checkers.
I thought Oakmont’s 301-yard par 3 during the recent U.S. Open was a distant memory until we reached the seventh hole. It was 240 yards from the back tees, significantly uphill with several trees and thick rough to the right. The scorecard curiously indicated it was a par 3 from the back tees and a par 4 from the white tees, which also played 240 yards. Par doesn’t matter, only your number does.
Mine was 5, thanks for not asking for details.
You’ll like the eighth hole much better, 162 yards sharply downhill. It’s pretty, plus who doesn’t like a downhill par 3? I hit a shot to the middle of the green, not near the back-left pin location. Mike made a wisecrack about my upcoming long putt across an unpromising-looking area of not-so-green greenscape. “You wanna just count it now?” I said, pretending to act cocky to be funny.
It was funny a few minutes later when that bouncy 30-footer dived into the cup with authority. I didn’t say a word as I nonchalantly picked it out of the cup like just another tap-in. Mike was amused and not amused at the same time, if that’s possible.
The ninth was a nice wide-open finish back to the clubhouse. Well, no. It only got us back near the driving range. The golf shop and its bar area, which was filled with historic photos and military memorabilia, was still three blocks away. At least we knew how to find our way back by then.
I would play RIAGC again for two simple reasons, maybe the most important reasons in golf. One, it was terrific fun. Two, we had the course to ourselves after the opening hole.
I could not ask for more.