In the spring of 1895, less than four years after Dr. James Naismith invented basketball by nailing peach baskets to the walls of a gymnasium in Springfield, Mass., Yale organized one of the earliest college teams.

Dr. Henry Anderson, a physical education specialist, had trouble finding interested students. He had crudely marked off the dimensions in Yale’s gym, hanging old potato baskets for goals. Since there was no regulation basketball in all New Haven, Anderson used an old football instead.

By the fall, with more players and plenty of practice, Yale was ready for its first season. S.A. Marshall, an 18-year old junior who was 5-foot-9 and 140 pounds, was named team captain.

The game more resembled football. Teams used as many as nine men at a time. A New York Times article profiling the team lauded players who “throw” particularly well.
Center W.E.J. Kirk, a New Canaan native who, at 6-foot and 130 pounds towered over his teammates, was credited for his “way of running on his hands and feet that is a puzzle to the opposing players.”

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Golf would have found its way to the area sooner or later. But it was a bit of blind luck that led to the creation of the city’s first course.

Robert Pryde, a Scottish immigrant, was a tradesman building an armoire for retired businessman Justus Hotchkiss on Church Street in the spring of 1895. Hotchkiss noticed Pryde’s brogue and inquired whether he knew anything of golf, still a relatively unknown sport in the U.S.

Pryde had not only played in Scotland, but manufactured and repaired clubs. Hotchkiss promptly fetched his neighbor, Yale law professor Theodore Woolsey, with whom he had discussed building a course in the area.

It wasn’t long before property along Prospect and Winchester Avenue was leased. Pryde was hired to lay out a 9-hole course. That fall, it was ready for play.

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