Golf historians in Reno know that Washoe County Golf Course was the first golf course in the area. The 18-hole course opened on Oct. 11, 1936.

But few may know that before it was an 18-hole course, it was a nine-hole private club called the Reno Golf Club. It opened in 1917, and one of the course's first caddies still calls Reno home.

Harold Curran, who was featured in the RGJ two months ago as the oldest living University of Nevada basketball player, was 11 years old when he began work as a caddie for the club, which was what is today the back nine of the county course.

"I thought I was a big shot going up there and caddying," Curran, 95, said Wednesday at his home in southwest Reno.

Curran is quite the history buff, too, and his basement is a mini-museum complete with a large arrowhead collection, a pool table his family brought with them from Tonopah when they moved in 1920 and five wood-shaft Spalding golf clubs that would look right at home in the hands of "Old" Tom Morris.

In fact, more than 20 years ago Curran wrote a paper on the history of Reno's first golf course.

"I went to the (Nevada) Historical Society and researched all those newspapers," Curran said. "It was a lot of research. I think it's pretty good little history."

It's hard to argue with him.

The Reno Golf Club was the brainchild of Gourtley Dunn Webb, who was one of the few women professionals in the world. She grew up in England where her father and mother were well-known golf pros. She moved to Boston and then to Reno in 1916. When she found that Reno did not have a golf course, she began to organize a club. The club put Webb, whom Renoites came to call Nona, in charge of designing the course and being in charge of club affairs.

A newspaper article on March 15, 1917 announced the opening of the club. The article said more than $10,000 was raised in about eight weeks to purchase the land on what is now the northwest corner of Plumas and Moana. A five-room cottage served as the clubhouse until a permanent clubhouse could be built.

On June 9, 1917, the Reno Golf Club opened with 105 members. Members were placed in four classes -- life, regular, non-resident and special. The regular membership fee was $25, with monthly dues set at $2.

Those who lived in Reno could take a street car to the Plumas-Moana intersection, then walk about 200 yards to the clubhouse.

Curran wrote that a caddie fee was 35 cents, and a caddie was necessary because it was easy to lose a ball even in the fairway and golf balls cost 75 cents to $1.25, which was a lot of money in the 1920s.

"Most of the players gave you 50 cents for the nine holes," Curran wrote. "But some didn't, and when their car was spotted coming up the lane the caddies quickly disappeared."

The course was watered in similar fashion to how farmers watered their pasture. Every Monday, Curran wrote, the caretaker would open the gates to the ditch and flood the fairways. He cut the grass by dragging a mower with a side sickle behind a horse. A neighboring farmer, George Frey, also ran a flock of sheep on the course.

The Reno Golf Club was also a victim of fire and the Depression.

The clubhouse was built in 1923 in the area right behind the current 12th green and 13th tee. The architect was Reno native Frederic DeLongchamps, who also was the architect of the Washoe County Courthouse.

On June 3, 1926, the clubhouse was destroyed by fire, and Curran wrote that it was insured for only about half of its $25,000 value. Members' personal losses were valued at more than $4,500, although most members kept their clubs in the caddie house which was not burned.

"Workers from the Air-Mail Service saw the flames and saved the piano, some furniture and a new electric phonograph recently acquired," Curran wrote. "Golf trophies valued at more than $1,000 were lost."

A second clubhouse, constructed on the same site, opened on Dec. 31, 1926. The club struggled financially for the next few years and during the Depression, and in 1932 the directors decided to make it a public course. Greens fees were set at $3 per month for individuals and $4 for families. The club could not overcome the Depression, and it closed. On March 14, 1933, the title to the clubhouse and the 80-acre course was transferred to Harlan Heward.

"In my opinion, it was very fortunate that Mr. Heward became the owner because he wanted golf to continue, and I think that it was largely through his efforts that the county commissioner was persuaded to sponsor the building of the current Washoe County Golf Course," Curran wrote.

Heward offered the land to the county, at no expense, and the county purchased another 54 acres, and the land that served as Reno's airstrip was converted into an 18-hole course, which opened on Oct. 11, 1936.