Haunted Golf: Spirited Tales from the Rough

The haunted happenings around the nine-hole Canton (Conn.) Public Golf Course began in earnest when course founder James Lowell’s son, Walter, took over management of the facility in 1956. James Lowell and his wife continued to live in the property’s main farmhouse. Walter and his young wife, Phyllis, would be working in the course’s pro shop, located in the basement of an old barn on the property, so Walter decided to turn the barn into a two-story apartment. Walter quickly found himself serving not only as Canton’s superintendent and golf professional, but as its unofficial ghost hunter as well.

During the renovations, workers discovered that the farmhouse his parents now occupied once had served as a tavern and inn. For those weary travelers unable or unwilling to pay the room rates, the second floor of the barn had proved a convenient place to crawl off and get some sleep. Indeed, the place being turned into a home for newlyweds Walter and Phyllis Lowell once had been a sort of country flophouse.

As far back as pre-Civil War times, transients and hobos often took shelter in the barn. Recurring guests included Jules Bourglay, better known as the Leatherman, a legendary leather-clad French drifter who wandered through New York and Connecticut from the early 1860s until the late 1880s in a 365-mile circular route that took 34 days to complete. During the renovations, Walter also found 54-old hay-stuffed mattresses used by workers who had helped build the golf course by day and holed up in the barn by night. What went on in the barn all those years, one can only guess. If most of the lodgers were honorable and well-intentioned, there was sure to be the occasional unsavory character who bunked there as well.

With the bulk of the detritus cleared, Walter and Phyllis moved into the new barn apartment in early 1957 with Brownie, their small, spirited beagle with all the heart of a German shepherd.

Despite the hound’s squat stature, Walter saw Brownie as a sort of unlikely watchdog. “He would take on a bear if he had to,” Walter says of his beagle, with a laugh. And indeed, the dog had proved his mettle around the golf course more than once. When a rabid fox attacked several golf course employees, Brownie charged the snarling, feral beast, grabbing it by the hind leg and holding on until Walter could put it down.

So it was disquieting for Walter and Phyllis, shortly after they settled into their new home, to confront a force at Canton, which closed in 2001, that not even Brownie dared tangle with.

Walter was feeling on edge one March night. He couldn’t say why. It was just one of those late-winter evenings, especially cold, dark, and still, that left him feeling something was amiss — or soon would be. He, Phyllis, and Brownie were lounging around the first floor of the apartment. The noise above their heads started low, like an indistinct, distant rumble. Brownie noticed it too, ears perking up, head cocked, straining to listen.

Thump. Grrrrrrrt. Thump. Grrrrrrrt. Thump. Grrrrrrrt.

It grew louder and clearer as it moved across the floor directly overhead. The thud of a leather boot on pine floorboards was followed by the dragging of a bum leg.

Thump. Grrrrrrrt. Thump. Grrrrrrrt.

The couple and their dog stood paralyzed with fear. Brownie snapped out of it first and ran under the television to hide.,p>
Sure there was an intruder in the house, Walter grabbed his .22 pistol and charged upstairs. He threw on the lights. The second floor was empty.
He returned to the living room. The noise had moved outside to the porch. Suddenly the door flew open. Despite the stillness of the evening, Phyllis was immediately enveloped in a blast of cold wind.

“Whatever was there just came by us into the living room,” she told Walter as she raced to close and lock the door. Brownie, as brave as he was, remained under the television, too frightened to venture out from his hiding spot.

The incident was just the first in a string of unexplained happenings visited upon Walter and Phyllis at the Canton Public Golf Course. The couple frequently awoke to find doors leading to the porch doors they’d been sure to lock the night before wide open. Doors would even swing open while Walter and Phyllis were sitting at the dinner table or relaxing in the living room. The frequent occurrences unnerved the newlyweds so much that they attached slide bolts to all the doors.,p>
The door openings abated, but the cold spells and the odd feelings continued. About a year later, the noisy visitor with the bad leg returned. It was on a similarly dark, cold March night that the Lowells once again heard the thumping and dragging sound coming from the room above. Walter raced upstairs, snapping on all the lights.

“We’re living here now,” Walter bellowed into the empty room. “You’re welcome anytime you want to come, but we’re not leaving.”

He waited for a response but got none. Apparently, however, Walter’s words made an impact. The ghost was never heard from again.

The Lowells lived in the apartment at the golf course for five more years without bother before moving to a house down the road. A family friend took over the apartment for a number of years, after which Walter’s mother moved in. Neither ever heard footsteps, felt a cold wind, or saw locked doors fling open. In fact, Walter’s tales were routinely dismissed by everyone in the Lowell family.

“Nobody knows anything about it. They think I’m crazy,” a frustrated Walter said to Phyllis.

She responded with a knowing glance and a smile. They knew what they had heard, felt, and seen.

“Haunted Golf: Spirited Tales From the Rough” can be purchased at Amazon.com.

Reprinted from Haunted Golf 2009 (c) by Anthony Pioppi and Chris Gonsalves. Published by The Lyons Press, an imprint of The Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, Conn.