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They were protegés of Old Tom Morris in St. Andrews, Scotland, architects of the first golf courses in many Midwest communities, innovators of equipment advancements like the “mashie-niblick.”

The 18 holes entrenched in the Bel-Nor neighborhood off St. Charles Rock Road have a fascinating past. In the 1920s and ’30s, Cardinals players like Dizzy Dean, Rogers Hornsby and Pepper Martin were regulars at Normandie and built homes in Bel-Nor.

When he wasn’t driving balls out of Sportsman’s Park, Babe Ruth preferred driving them at Normandie. So did Bob Hope and Babe Didrikson. Friendly wagering often was involved, and at one time there were slot machines in the clubhouse. Popular Collier’s magazine once recognized Normandie as the “top gambling golf club in the nation.”

Those were the days, my friend. But that’s the thing: Those were the days.

These days, the golf industry is in a different place. The game is trying to figure ways to attract new players and keep its old ones with slogans like “play it forward” and “play nine.” Investors got carried away in the late 1980s and 1990s and built too many courses.

The cost to maintain properties — to say nothing of improving them — keeps escalating, and the saturated market makes pricing problematic. Margins are thin, competition keen.

With that backdrop, the University of Missouri-��ѿ��ý completed a $1.4 million purchase of Normandie last week. Interestingly, UMSL is built on ground that used to be Bellerive Country Club. But UMSL is not in the golf business.

When news emerged last October the university was considering the purchase, the future of golf on the property seemed dubious. But as part of its purchase arrangement, UMSL has entered into a 10-year lease with Walters Golf Management. Walters has been managing Normandie for the past 10 years as one of its 14 area properties.

Barring unforeseen developments, the UMSL-Walters arrangement guarantees golf at Normandie will keep on keepin’ on. Yet, there have been rumblings. Skeptics want promises of renovations. They want to know there will be significant updates to make the old girl more presentable.

There is no such guarantee, no such language in the contract. And there is a simple, Rumpelstiltskin analogy to explain. You can’t make gold until you have the straw and spinning wheel to do so.

Normandie is an antiquated golf course, dotted with blind shots and quirky holes. Nothing wrong with blind shots and quirkiness; see ��ѿ��ý Country Club for details. But quirky leaves little buffer between “hate” and “love.” Some people prefer a more conventional experience, the kind that doesn’t surprise, the mass-produced kind. As noted, there are plenty of alternatives.

Normandie has Bermuda fairways, a type of grass that used to cover lots of fairways in ��ѿ��ý. Almost all of them have switched to the more durable Zoysia grass. Nothing wrong with Bermuda; it’s a fine surface unless it experiences extreme weather conditions, i.e. the kind we often experience in ��ѿ��ý.

The greens at Normandie are covered in poa annua grass, just like Pebble Beach. Poa annua turns a bit yellowish in color, not especially attractive. But there’s nothing wrong with poa annua greens unless they are exposed to extreme weather conditions, like the kind we sometimes experience in ��ѿ��ý.

So Normandie is vulnerable in ��ѿ��ý weather, a condition exacerbated by continuous and unethical play, i.e. the kind you experience as a public golf course.

But if you want the fairways to be torn up and replaced, if you were thinking the soil-based greens should be blown up and redone, if you are expecting routing changes and infrastructure work to be in progress the next time you play, you are going to be disappointed. Moreover, you were set up for disappointment.

“If you went to the golf course today, you will see in the dead of the winter, with no revenue coming in, that new carpet has been installed, the interior of the clubhouse has been painted and the exterior will be painted next,” said Walters CEO Jeff Smith. “And when the course can be worked on, we will invest our time and energy into improving the quality of the conditions.

“I think players will see that the playing conditions will continue to improve. At the same time, I think there is sometimes a level of expectation that people don’t understand.”

Formally, Walters is paying one dollar per year to lease the property from UMSL, and it’s up to the management company to make that deal sweet. It must pay the cost to be the boss. The group has properties that are running 35,000 rounds per year. Normandie is doing around 10,000 rounds less.

That amount of traffic has allowed the facility to tread water. But in today’s environment, you don’t put the cart before the horse without knowing the horse will push. Smith insists Walters is invested in making Normandie work. But the plan is not to dump a ton of money into the facility to find out if it works.

Walters can cross-pollinate Normandie with its other clubs, use volume to its advantage. But if the golf course is going to thrive on a stand-alone basis, Walters can only help Normandie help itself.

“We know that it has to get better, and we’re committed to doing that,” Smith said. “But if somebody wants me to sit down and draw up a list of 10 items we’re going to do, and this is the timetable in which we’re going to do it, I can’t. A bunch of that is going to depend on the community and the support it gives to the facility.”

The UMSL association might help. There is a university community to tap into, faculty and students to entice with special rates. Meanwhile, baby steps are being taken, some inter-seeding here, some greens being drilled there. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and the pace is adjustable.

“There’s a lot of favorable things that have happened at Normandie, things that have allowed it to survive these past 10-11 years, when it very well could have gone away,” Smith said. “And we’re gung-ho about doing a lot more favorable things.

“If we were going to stay status quo, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing now. But people have to understand that it’s a process.”

Before people jump to conclusions, Smith asks they keep things in perspective. The signs around Bel-Nor were saying “Save Normandie.” For the time being, and a 10-year agreement, that’s what Walters and UMSL have done.

“That’s the story here,” Smith added. “And where it goes from here, that story hasn’t been written.”

Perhaps the signs should read “Play Normandie.” After all, it was good enough for Babe Ruth.