Burning Tree Club is a private, all-male

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

club in

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region ...

. The course at Burning Tree has been played by numerous presidents, foreign dignitaries, high-ranking executive officials, members of

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

, 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.

Location and founding

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. The name of Burning Tree Club was named for the colorful leaves of a particularly large oak tree in the autumn on its grounds. The club is located in

, near Congressional Country Club, home of the 2011 U.S. Open golf tournament.

Fees

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.

Notable members and former members

Presidents including

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

, John F. Kennedy,

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after assassination of John F. Kennedy, the assassination of John F. Ken ...

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Ford assumed the p ...

, and George Herbert Walker Bush have been extended honorary membership. Until the appointment of

Sandra Day O'Connor Sandra Day O'Connor (March 26, 1930 – December 1, 2023) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, O' ...

to the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

, the club had always extended honorary memberships to the Court's Justices; those who accepted include

Associate Justice An associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some ...

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual an ...

and former Chief Justice

Warren Burger Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995) was an American attorney who served as the 15th chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Burger graduated from the St. Paul College of Law i ...

. Other notable members include: *Former Speaker of the House

John Boehner John Andrew Boehner ( ; born , 1949) is an American politician who served as the 53rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served 13 terms as the U.S. representative ...

(R-OH) *Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill (D-MA) *

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who developed the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His extravagant methods of yellow jou ...

*Former

Senate Majority Leader The positions of majority leader and minority leader are held by two United States senators and people of the party leadership of the United States Senate. They serve as chief spokespersons for their respective political parties, holding the ...

Robert A. Taft Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate majority le ...

(R-OH) *

Edward R. Murrow Edward Roscoe Murrow (born Egbert Roscoe Murrow; April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965) was an American Broadcast journalism, broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He first gained prominence during World War II with a series of live radio broa ...

*Former

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

John Warner John William Warner III (February 18, 1927 – May 25, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974 and as a five-term United States Republican Party, Republican United Stat ...

(R-VA) *Former

Don Nickles (R-OK) * Bob Schieffer *

Jack Valenti Jack Joseph Valenti (September 5, 1921 – April 26, 2007) was an American political advisor and lobbyist who served as a Special Assistant to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. He was also the longtime president of the Motion Picture Association ...

* George Smathers * Bryant Gumbel *

Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and major general in the United States Air Force, Air Force Reserve who served as a United States senator from 1953 to 1965 and 1969 to 1987, and was the Re ...

* Bret Baier

Discrimination

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. 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

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.

Popular culture

In the ''

Seinfeld ''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, with a total of nine seasons consisting of List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It ...

'' episode "

The Bottle Deposit "The Bottle Deposit" is a two-part episode, the 131st and 132nd episodes, and 21st and 22nd episodes of the List of Seinfeld episodes, seventh season, of the NBC sitcom ''Seinfeld'', first aired on May 2, 1996. It was originally an hour-long epi ...

", 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 The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called or after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in April 1961 by the United States of America and the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front ...

. 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 The Committee for the Re-election of the President (or the Committee to Re-elect the President, CRP, but often mocked by the acronym CREEP) was, officially, a fundraising organization of United States President Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election ...

to a small room off the locker area where President

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 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

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."Watergate", pp. 146-147 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.

References

{{coord, 39, 00, 03, N, 77, 09, 01, W, display=title 1922 establishments in Maryland Buildings and structures in Bethesda, Maryland Golf clubs and courses designed by Harry Colt Golf clubs and courses in Maryland