 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2008) |
Burning Tree Club is a private, all-male golf club in Bethesda, Maryland. The course at Burning Tree has been played by numerous presidents, foreign dignitaries, high-ranking executive officials, members of Congress, and military leaders. The course was designed by architect C.H. Alison. The club has a strict policy forbidding women to enter the club, except under rare circumstances.
The Burning Tree Club was founded in 1922, supposedly in response to a male foursome from the Chevy Chase Club being stuck behind a slow-playing group of female golfers. [1] The name of Burning Tree Club was named for the colorful leaves of a particularly large oak tree in the autumn on its grounds. [2]
The club is located in Bethesda, Maryland, near Congressional Country Club, home of the 2011 U.S. Open golf tournament.
The initiation fee is $75,000, while membership fees are $500/month. Membership is exclusive with a cap around 600. The member list is private, and includes honoraria and retired golfers and can be achieved by invitation only.[ citation needed ]
Presidents including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and George Herbert Walker Bush have been extended honorary membership.
Until the appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court of the United States, the club had always extended honorary memberships to the Court's Justices; those who accepted include Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and former Chief Justice Warren Burger.
Other notable members include:
There are no women's locker rooms or bathrooms at Burning Tree. No women are permitted inside the club at all, not even for service reasons or parties, with rare exceptions. A recent allowance was made for the spring cocktail party, and women are allowed into the pro shop in December to holiday shop for their husbands. [1] They can do this only by appointment, during very restrictive hours, and only on Saturdays.
The exclusion of women has extended to Supreme Court Justices, as Sandra Day O'Connor was not invited to join. Even working female U.S. Secret Service agents have been turned away. Women U.S. Army EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) personnel have been turned away. [1]
In the Seinfeld episode "The Bottle Deposit", Elaine bids on a set of golf clubs supposedly used by President John F. Kennedy at Burning Tree Club on the morning of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
In the 1994 book "Watergate", author Fred Emery mentions Gordon Liddy tracking down U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst the day after the Watergate break-in at a luncheon at the club after a round of eighteen holes and "violently gesturing" at him and soon going with him and Powell Moore of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President to a small room off the locker area where President Dwight D. Eisenhower was recalled to have played cards after a round on the Burning Tree course. In the book, after hearing that although John N. Mitchell did not ask directly, he personally requested that Kleindienst as Attorney General arrange for Watergate burgular James W. McCord, Jr. to be released before his true identity (as a former Central Intelligence Agency employee and security coordinator for CRP) was found out; Kleindienst, in a profanity-laced tirade, refused to do so, said that Mitchell "knows me well enough to call himself if he has anything more like that to say to me" for any such request, and that he couldn't and wouldn't do it. [5]
In his 2021 novel "Into the Ether", author David Sherer portrays a scene where President Stanton discovers the case of the missing protagonist Dr. Adrian Wren while reading The Washington Post during lunch at Burning Tree Country Club.
Camp David is a 125-acre (51 ha) country retreat for the President of the United States. It is located in the wooded hills of Catoctin Mountain Park, in Frederick County, Maryland, near the towns of Thurmont and Emmitsburg, about 62 miles (100 km) north-northwest of the national capital city of Washington, D.C. It is code named Naval Support Facility Thurmont. Technically a military installation, its staffing is primarily provided by the Seabees, Civil Engineer Corps (CEC), the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Naval construction battalions are tasked with Camp David construction and send detachments as needed.
Dwight David Eisenhower, nicknamed Ike, was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944.
Julie Nixon Eisenhower is an American author who is the younger daughter of former U.S. president Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat Nixon. Her husband, David, is the grandson of former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie Eisenhower.
Augusta National Golf Club, sometimes referred to as Augusta National, Augusta, or the National, is a golf club in Augusta, Georgia, United States. Unlike most private clubs which operate as non-profits, Augusta National is a for-profit corporation, and it does not disclose its income, holdings, membership list, or ticket sales.
Maurice Hubert Stans was an American accountant, civil servant, and political organizer who served as the 19th United States Secretary of Commerce from 1969 to 1972. He served as the finance chairman for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, working for the re-election of Richard Nixon. He pleaded guilty to five counts for technical violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act that were revealed during the larger investigation into the Watergate scandal.
Richard Gordon Kleindienst was an American lawyer, politician, and U.S. Attorney General during the early stages of Watergate political scandal.
The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Office of White House Counsel, a team of lawyers and support staff who provide legal guidance for the president and the White House Office. At least when White House counsel is advising the president on legal matters pertaining to the duties or prerogatives of the president, this office is also called Counsel to the President.
The International Golf Federation (IGF) was founded in 1958 and is the international federation recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the world governing body for golf. The IGF has two membership categories representing the administration of golf internationally:
Congressional Country Club is a country club and golf course in Bethesda, Maryland, United States. Congressional opened in 1924 and its Blue Course has hosted five major championships, including three U.S. Opens and a PGA Championship. It was a biennial stop on the PGA Tour, with the Quicken Loans National hosted by Tiger Woods until 2020. Previously, Congressional hosted the former Kemper Open until its move to nearby TPC at Avenel in 1987. Congressional hosted its third U.S. Open in 2011. Tournament winners at Congressional have included Rory McIlroy, Ken Venturi, Ernie Els, Justin Rose and Tiger Woods, among many others. Congressional is generally considered one of the most prestigious golf clubs in the world.
The Monterey Country Club, which was built before 1885, is home to one of the oldest golf courses in the United States. The club sits just below the peaks of 1,720 Mt. Dunlap and 1,365 Monterey Peak in Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and is less than one mile (1.6 km) from the Mason–Dixon line and about 8 miles (13 km) away from Camp David.
Henry E. Petersen was an attorney and United States federal government official. He served as Assistant U.S. Attorney General during the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. He also engaged in ethically questionable communications with Nixon and his staff, providing inside information about the Watergate investigation prior to the appointment of the Special Prosecutor.
Robert Mullen Company was a public relations company in Washington DC. The firm was founded in 1952 by Robert R. Mullen, who was a campaign press secretary for Dwight D. Eisenhower and information director for the Marshall Plan. A Watergate committee report revealed that the Robert Mullen Company had in at least two instances been a front for CIA operations abroad, in addition for former CIA intelligence case officer and head of the White House plumbers E. Howard Hunt.
The Columbia Country Club is a private country club in unincorporated Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Carl Maxwell Elbin was an American golf professional who served a three-year term as president of the Professional Golfers' Association of America during a time when professional tournament golfers split away to form the PGA Tour.
The Kansas City Club, founded in 1882 and located in the Library District of Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, USA, was the oldest gentlemen's club in Missouri. The club began admitting women members in 1975. Along with the River Club on nearby Quality Hill, it was one of two surviving private city clubs on the Missouri side of Kansas City. Notable members include Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley, and political boss Tom Pendergast. It closed in 2015.
Walter Rupert Tuckerman was an American lawyer, banker, golfer, and philanthropist. Tuckerman founded the Bank of Bethesda in Bethesda, Maryland, and served as its first president. He also led development of the Edgemoor neighborhood of Bethesda. Tuckerman was a direct descendant of Oliver Wolcott, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. He was also a cousin of horse rider Bayard Tuckerman, Jr., an inductee into the National Racing Hall of Fame.
The Eisenhower Tree was a loblolly pine located on the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. In the 1950s it was named after U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower who unsuccessfully lobbied to have it taken down after it interfered with his golf game. Due to its size, history, and location on a prominent golf course, it is considered iconic of the Augusta golf course and is one of the most famous trees in American golf. It was called "among the most famous landmarks in golf" by Cindy Boren in The Washington Post and "arguably the most famous tree in golf" by Martin Dempster of The Scotsman. In February 2014, the tree was removed after suffering extensive damage from a major ice storm.