For the Public Good: Triggs Memorial Golf Course

Triggs Memorial Golf Course, nestled between Rhode Island College and Chalkstone Avenue, is often overlooked as an extraordinary green space in Providence. From its original design to its operation today, it is recognized as one of the top municipal golf courses in the country, promoting golf as accessible and affordable.

Providence’s first major investment in public green space, Roger Williams Park, came from Betsey Williams’s donation of some hundred acres in 1870, which then expanded to over 400 acres by the turn of the twentieth century.  In 1914, as golf increased in popularity, a local professional golfer complained, “There is no place on the west side of the city where a person can go for a game of golf.”  One councilman proposed to put a golf course in Roger Williams Park, as long as no more than $400 would be spent. Proponents wanted to make the sport more accessible to city dwellers, and they believed a course “would be the best thing the city had done for the health and recreation of its citizens in a long time.” However, a concern about golf balls flying through the park foiled that plan.  The search continued for space to keep up with what Hartford, Boston, and New York had already done: meet the demand for a public amenity “popular with all classes.”

In 1921, Jeremiah Triggs, a former landscape architect working in the Parks Department, was given a raise and made Superintendent. By 1926 he was recognized by the City Council for the “great beauty [brought] to the city by his accomplishments, [which] has attracted the attention of thousands who enjoy the gardens and scenery in our park each year.” The Providence Journal quoted one Councilman claiming Superintendent Triggs was “without peer in the United States.” Triggs was at that time looking for enough land, at least 100 acres, to make a full 18-hole golf course. The land in his sights had lineage to the origins of Providence: 132 acres in the northwestern part of the city, on the border of North Providence, some of which was known as the Brown Farm, linked to the great nephew of John Brown, and Dexter Park, traced to one of the original colonists. When Triggs died in 1929, the stalled plans for a course finally moved forward, and his reputation seemed to carry the project straight through the stock market crash. The Parks Department footed the $90,000 bill for construction, and employees of the department carried out all aspects of the project.

Atlas of Providence County, Rhode Island, 1895, courtesy Providence City Archives (the boundaries of Triggs Memorial superimposed)

The design for the course was submitted by Donald Ross, a respected Scottish-born links architect who saw golf as a sport for everyman. He worked on public and private courses across the US and Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. His design for Triggs demonstrates his approach: work with the natural terrain, alter elevations only slightly but use bunkers strategically for challenges. Triggs Memorial Golf Course opened in May 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, and was inaugurated in honor of J. Triggs by the Mayor, the Parks Commissioners, visiting officials, golfers, and 4000 spectators.

Today Triggs is proud of its public legacy. The course is managed by FCG Associates, the private firm that won its fourth 10-year contract in 2022. FCG’s lease with the Parks Department requires maintenance of the clubhouse and grounds. Concerns about the condition of the course leading up to FCG’s current lease have led to improvements, bunker restoration, and the development of cart paths.  As General Manager Karl Augenstein embarks on the course restoration project, he recalls the original drawings left by architect Donald Ross who was “known for visualizing a golf course on a piece of land with the natural terrain. We really respect his work. We try to do restoration instead of redesign.”

Map of Triggs’ Memorial Golf Course’s 18 holes

Patrons at Triggs pay a daily fee instead of a yearly membership fee, as one would pay to play at a private course. Over the years, as golf suffered from an exclusive reputation, fewer people have been playing the sport. “The demographic was aging,” Augenstein reports. Now, he looks to city high-schoolers as the future for Triggs.

The administration partners with schools to attract younger players, especially students of color. “We are working very hard at that,” he says. Triggs Memorial has “long-standing partnerships with Providence Public School District.” Both Classical and Mount Pleasant High Schools have teams that practice on the course, and Augenstein is trying to arrange a similar program with Hope High School. The Mount Pleasant team alone consists of “as many as twenty kids … mostly people of color, and many girls.” Achievement First, too, has a team that practices at Triggs, and the Providence Recreation Department transports students from other schools to the course to practice. Mr. Augenstein sees student involvement as an effort that will expand – “we hope by Spring 2025 we can start an interscholastic league.”

Triggs Memorial works in collaboration with Button Hole, a 9-hole instructional golf course, located just on the other side of Manton Avenue from Triggs. Button Hole had a humble beginning as a polluted swimming hole filled with the shoe buttons of a factory upstream, or so the legend goes. In 1997 Ed Mauro, a businessman and outstanding golfer, raised $3 million of mostly individual donations to remediate the site and create an instructional golf course. Button Hole, also a non-profit agency, manages all 26 acres leased from the state. Don Wright, Executive Director, says he hopes to “make golf affordable, accessible,” and to teach “perseverance and sportsmanship.”

Photo courtesy of Button Hole

The Button Hole is a course that is accessible to hundreds of youths yearly through its inexpensive lessons. Those seven to seventeen can take classes from beginner to advanced for only $100.  Button Hole offers scholarships to about half of the total 1000 students per year, and all can borrow equipment from the course. If they complete the six lessons for any one class, they become a Button Hole Kid. Button Hole Kids can play the whole course or drive a bucket of balls for only a dollar.

Button Hole works with the Providence Afterschool Alliance, Providence Public Schools, West End Community Center, Achievement First, and other local schools to supplement classroom instruction. In addition to golf foundations and technique, it “teaches life lessons.” Wright maintains Button Hole Kids learn to hold themselves and their opponents to a high standard.

Since golf doesn’t have a referee, the kids learn to “call a penalty on [themselves]. . .The key is integrity,” and “the social element is the best part” as kids see how their fellow golfers “deal with frustration and success.”

Triggs Memorial is “very much a partner” to Button Hole, according to Wright. In a special arrangement, Triggs opens all eighteen holes to Button Hole Kids for free from 12-1 PM on weekdays and after 1 PM on weekends. Karl Augenstein estimates that Button Hole Kids have availed themselves of 300 free rounds at Triggs in the last year.

Button Hole and Triggs aren’t only for golfers, Wright thinks. Especially near Button Hole, “cyclists and families and walkers enjoy the shade by the course” adjacent to the Woonasquatucket River Greenway Bike Path.

Button Hole attracts young players to golf. But, a public course like Triggs can attract anyone who never thought golf accessible. Retired Providence school teacher, Charles Gormley, for example, came to golf at mid-life. Before that, like many, he felt he could never afford golf, a “country club” sport. But in discovering Triggs, he found not just an affordable place to play but a course “no serious golfer would want to miss.” At 82, he golfs seriously almost every weekday, meeting people from all over the country and even internationally. Gormley fits well into Daniel Ross’s vision for golf as a public sport. But a public offering, in this case, is in no way inferior. Today, according to Golf Magazine, Triggs ranks among the fourteen best municipal golf courses in the United States. And according to Gormley, “No matter how skilled you are, this course will challenge you to use every club in your bag.”

To reserve a tee time at Triggs Memorial Golf Course, go to: https://triggs.us/tee-time-reservations/

 

Roseanne Camacho is a retired educator who came to Providence from the South for graduate school. She has a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University, having taught students from eighth grade to graduate school. She is active in the Friends of Knight Memorial Library,  the Community Library of Providence, and lives in Elmwood.