It is the successor of the Columbia Golf Club, organized in Washington, D.C., in 1898. Its current site was purchased in 1909; its golf course, which opened two years later, was designed by Herbert Barker.[1][2]
A 1921 aerial view of Columbia Country Club, looking north
The club was founded by nine men as the Columbia Golf Club on September 29, 1898. Its original location was in Washington, D.C., on the east side of Brightwood Avenue, afterwards known as Georgia Avenue NW, in the neighborhood of Schuetzen Park (today's Park View). The club soon moved "to a site further north on the west side where a vacant lot was converted into a crude nine-hole golf course," according to a club history.[2]
Presently, a larger site was desired, and so a new club was incorporated on August 25, 1909, with 200 of the Columbia Golf Club's 600 members.[2] This new Columbia Country Club purchased its present site on Connecticut Avenue that year from the Chevy Chase Land Company, which offered favorable terms to the club in hopes of attracting home buyers to its nearby developments.[5] The 126-acre (51ha) site consisted of two parcels of forest and farmland separated by a 100-foot-wide right-of-way held by the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. The club built its golf course on both sides of the rail line; for more than a half-century, club members would cross the tracks to golf alongside trains hauled by steam[6] and then diesel[7] locomotives between the B&O's busy Metropolitan Branch and Georgetown's industrial waterfront.[8]
The clubhouse was designed by club member Frederick B. Pyle,[2] whose design was selected from a pool of four. The new club opened on January 6, 1911. The golf course, completed that same year, was designed by Herbert Barker, a noted golfer and course architect of the day.[2]Walter Travis made extensive renovations to the course in 1915.[9] There is no newspaper record of the event and early Club minutes have been lost. The course was a favorite of President Woodrow Wilson.[citation needed]
The first swimming pool, donated by Donald Woodward, opened in 1925. The club added several acres in the 1930s, bringing it to 146.38 acres.[11] Later, an Olympic-sized pool was built; the entire area was renovated in 1978. Platform tennis courts were added to the regular courts in the 1960s.
Like many clubs of its era, the all-white, all-male Columbia Country Club discriminated for decades against women and non-white people, barring them from membership and forbidding female guests to enter certain dining areas. That began to change in 1989, when the state of Maryland threatened to take away a tax break unless the club ceased to "discriminate in granting memberships or offering club services," the Washington Post reported. The club agreed.[12] Still, the following year, the club had 1,635 members, all men. None were Black or Latino.[13] By 1994, the club had begun admitting women members.[12]
In 1990, there was an eight-year waiting list for prospective members, the longest among 47 private clubs near Washington, D.C., that responded to a Washington Post survey.[13] The initial fee to join at the time was $22,000 fee (equivalent to $49,000 today).[13]
In 2009, the club completed a renovation and expansion of the club house, adding an indoor swimming pool, better fitness center, a duckpin bowling alley, locker rooms, ice-skating rink (winter only), and more parking.
In late 2022, the club began a three-year renovation of its clubhouse's lower level that aims to expand the kitchen and update it, the dining room, and the locker rooms.[citation needed]
The club has employed only four head golf professionals in its century-plus of operation: Fred McLeod, William Strausbaugh, Robert Dolan, and Steven Delmar.
Opposition to the Georgetown Branch Trail
In the 1990s, Columbia Country Club tried to prevent the opening of a rail trail on the old B&O rail line around which the club had built its golf course.
After B&O successor CSX ended service along the line in 1985, the government of Montgomery County bought the right-of-way to preserve it for use as a potential trolley route between Bethesda and Silver Spring.[16] Over the following decade, the track roadbed was converted to the Georgetown Branch Trail, an eastward extension of the Capital Crescent Trail, which followed the old B&O right-of-way from Bethesda to Georgetown.
Club members objected to this reuse of the right-of-way. They sued the county and the United States for damages after the trail was opened, alleging that repurposing the old freight line for use by hikers and bikers was an unconstitutional taking. Their argument was rejected in 1999 by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.[17]
Opposition to the Purple Line
Columbia Country Club was also a prominent opponent of Maryland's Purple Line, a 16-mile light-rail line that is to connect downtown Bethesda and New Carrollton, crossing the club's golf course on the old B&O right-of-way. Its lobbying efforts slowed efforts to build the transit line and secured secret concessions not given to other property owners along the line.[18]
In 2000, the Maryland government began to formally study a long-proposed light-rail line along the right-of-way.[19][20] The two-track transit line would use a wider swath of the right-of-way than did the old single-track freight line, but would stay within Montgomery County's property lines. But it would require the club to alter several holes that had been expanded over the years onto land that was part of the railroad's right-of-way.[5][17]
Within two years, the club had spent thousands of dollars on lobbying against the proposal, while individual members had held fundraisers for sympathetic politicians.[21] In 2008, the club's leaders said they were increasing their "community and government relations efforts at the state and federal level", including organizing "grassroots" opposition.[22] By 2013, the club was "long viewed as one of the most well-financed and politically connected Purple Line foes", the Washington Post wrote.[18]
That year, the club secured a 25-page agreement with the Maryland Transit Administration and Montgomery County.[23] Under the agreement, the planned Purple Line route would be moved about 12 feet to the north for 1,700 feet, protecting clubhouse views and sparing four of the holes that the club had built on the railroad's right-of-way. "Other concessions include a one-year limit for construction vehicles to use club property, guaranteed four-foot sound walls and promises of meetings at least every three months to discuss ongoing work. The county also agreed to give the club, at no cost, 'exclusive' use of two golf-cart underpasses and county-owned land where the golf course already exists", the Washington Post reported.[18] The agreement also prevented the signatories from talking about the agreement, and bound the club to stop opposing the project. But the agreement did not bind individual club members, who continued their opposition by lobbying and giving money to elected officials for at least two years.[24][25]
Columbia's par-70 (35-35) course measures 6,900 yards (6,300m) with a course rating of 72.3 and slope rating of 139.
The course favors shotmaking and finesse over the ability to drive the ball long distances. The natural topography of the area means that Columbia's course is very hilly, with tight fairways and small, undulating greens. Course superintendents generally keep the Columbia greens at a very high speed, and rarely do they roll anything less than an 11 on the Stimp meter.
A common saying among members and caddies is that "there are only two flat lies at Columbia, on the tee and in your pocket".[26] Driving the ball long distances can get a player into trouble due to deep rough, side-hill lies, pot bunkers, and the aforementioned tight fairways. Almost every approach shot plays uphill or downhill, with severe downhill plays on #2, #5, #12, #14, #15, and #16. Hole #17 at Columbia is a unique hole, requiring a 200-yard tee shot to a short but wide of fairway, then a 70-yard chip uphill to a green sloped from front to back.
The signature hole is the par-3 16th, which, legend has it, served as Bobby Jones's inspiration for the 12th hole at Augusta National Golf Club.[27] The hole plays to a very long, narrow green with three levels that is guarded along the front by a large pond and a pot bunker, with another pot bunker behind it. The hole has been rated among the best in the area.
With the exception of the eighth hole, there have been changes on all holes of the course.[5] Major changes have been made on the 15th, 16th, and 17th holes, made possible by the construction of a water line through the area by the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission under its power of eminent domain. In 2012, new tee boxes and a better irrigation system were added.
In September 2022, Columbia completed an overhaul of its golf course that installed a modern irrigation and drainage system, renovated bunkers, and re-sodded the fairways with a hybrid Bermuda-rye grass mix.
Notes
1 2 Shapiro, Len (2008). The Great Book of Washington DC Sports Lists. New York: Running Press. p.257. ISBN0786741708.
↑ Offutt, William (Fall 2010). "The Little Train That Isn't". Chevy Chase Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2023-06-08. Retrieved 2023-06-08.
↑ Manning, Stephen (2001-10-15). "Decisions near on new Metro line". Associated Press via The Star-Democrat. p.5. Archived from the original on 2023-06-08. Retrieved 2023-06-08.
Chevy Chase is the name of both a town and an unincorporated census-designated place that straddle the northwest border of Washington, D.C., and Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Several settlements in the same area of Montgomery County and one neighborhood of Washington include Chevy Chase in their names. These villages, the town, and the CDP share a common history and together form a larger community colloquially referred to as Chevy Chase.
A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". The cup holds a flagstick, known as a "pin". A standard round of golf consists of 18 holes, and as such most courses contain 18 distinct holes; however, there are many 9-hole courses and some that have holes with shared fairways or greens. There are also courses with a non-standard number of holes, such as 12 or 14.
The following is a glossary of the terminology currently used in the sport of golf. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Old names for clubs can be found at Obsolete golf clubs.
Chevy Chase is a neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C. It borders Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Connecticut Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., and suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. It is one of the diagonal avenues radiating from the White House, and the segment south of Florida Avenue was one of the original streets in Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's plan for Washington. A five-mile segment north of Rock Creek was built in the 1890s by a real-estate developer.
The Riviera Country Club is a private club with a championship golf course and tennis courts in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of the Westside of Los Angeles, California.
The Purple Line is a 16.2-mile (26.1 km) light rail line being built to link several Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.: Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park, and New Carrollton. Currently slated to open in 2027, the line will also enable riders to move between the Maryland branches of the Red, Green, and Orange lines of the Washington Metro without riding into central Washington, and between all three lines of the MARC commuter rail system. The project is administered by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), an agency of the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), and not the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which operates Metro.
The Capital Crescent Trail (CCT) is a 7.04-mile (11.33 km), shared-use rail trail that runs from Georgetown in Washington, D.C., to Bethesda, Maryland. An extension of the trail from Bethesda to Silver Spring along a route formerly known as the Georgetown Branch Trail is being built as part of the Purple Line light rail project.
The Rock Creek Railway, which operated independently from 1890 to 1895, was one of the first electric streetcar companies in Washington, D.C., and the first to extend into Maryland.
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.
Bellerive Country Club is a golf country club in the central United States, located in Town and Country, Missouri, a suburb west of St. Louis. With the Old Warson, Westwood, and St. Louis country clubs, it is considered one of the "big four" old-line elite St. Louis clubs. The course has hosted three major championships: the U.S. Open in 1965, and the PGA Championship in 1992 and 2018.
Streetcars and interurbans operated in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., between 1890 and 1962.
Wakefield is a neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., bounded by Albemarle Street NW to the south, Nebraska Avenue NW to the west, and Connecticut Avenue to the east. It is served by the Van Ness-UDC and Tenleytown-AU station on the Washington Metro's Red Line.
Dorsey's Search is a parcel of land patented by John Dorsey of Hockley-in-the-hole (1645–1714) in Baltimore County. The 479-acre (194 ha) property adjacent to the north branch of the Patuxent river was surveyed by Richard Beard in December 1684, and granted to Dorsey in March 1696. The property lying between "Long Reach" and "Elk Ridge" was resurveyed in March 1723 to include 750 acres (300 ha). After several generations of inheritance, a series of legal disputes were held over the land by Rezin Hammond and Richard Ridgley in 1820. In 1827 the property exchanged hands to Robert Oliver, builder of Oakland Mill, who combined it with multiple properties totaling 2,300 acres (930 ha). George Gaither acquired the property in 1838. John Dorsey's grandson, "Patuxent" John Dorsey of "Dorsey's Search" built Dorsey Hall at the site.
North Adams Country Club is a semi-private golf course located in Clarksburg, Massachusetts. The club hosts one of the oldest Invitational Singles Tournaments in New England.
The Scarboro Golf and Country Club is a private club in eastern Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the former city of Scarborough. Until 2018, it had facilities for curling and has an 18-hole golf course that is ranked among the top courses in Canada.
Eastern High School is a public high school in Washington, D.C. The school is located on the eastern edge of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, at the intersection of 17th Street and East Capital Street Northeast. Eastern was a part of the District of Columbia Public Schools restructuring project, reopening in 2011 to incoming first-year students and growing by a grade level each year. It graduated its first class in 2015. In addition, Eastern was designated an International Baccalaureate school in 2013 and awarded its first IB diploma in 2015. As of the 2022–2023 school year, it educates 766 students in grades 9 through 12.
Arlington is a historic slave plantation located in Columbia, Howard County, Maryland, now part of the Fairway Hills Golf Course.
Trump National Golf Club, Washington, D.C. is an 800-acre (1.3 sq mi) private golf club in the eastern United States, at Lowes Island in Potomac Falls, Virginia, northwest of Washington, D.C.
Coquelin Run is a tributary of Rock Creek in Montgomery County, Maryland. It rises in the Town of Chevy Chase, runs for about two miles while draining an area of 1,095 acres, and debouches in Rock Creek.
References
West, Henry Litchfield. The Columbia Country Club: As It Was in the Beginning. 1938.
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