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The Columbia Country Club is a private
country club A country club is a privately-owned Club (organization), club, often with a membership quota and admittance by invitation or sponsorship, that generally offers both a variety of recreational sports and facilities for dining and entertaining. Ty ...
in unincorporated
Chevy Chase Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase (; born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, actor, and writer. He became the breakout cast member in the first season of ''Saturday Night Live'' (1975–1976), where his recurring ''Weekend Update'' segment b ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
. The club was founded in 1909 as an offshoot of the 11-year-old Columbia Golf Club in Washington, D.C. Its golf course, which opened in 1911, was designed by Herbert Barker. The club hosted the U.S. Open golf tournament in 1921. Its members, who for eight decades kept themselves all-white and all-male, have included U.S. President
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 ...
, former president
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
, and five-star generals
Omar Bradley Omar Nelson Bradley (12 February 1893 – 8 April 1981) was a senior Officer (armed forces), officer of the United States Army during and after World War II, rising to the rank of General of the Army (United States), General of the Army. He wa ...
and
Hap Arnold Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold (25 June 1886 – 15 January 1950) was an American general officer holding the ranks of General of the Army and later, General of the Air Force. Arnold was an aviation pioneer, Chief of the Air Corps (1938–1 ...
.


History

The Columbia Golf Club was founded by nine men 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. 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. This new Columbia Country Club purchased its present site on
Connecticut Avenue 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 wa ...
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. The site consisted of two parcels of forest and farmland separated by a 100-foot-wide right-of-way held by the
Baltimore & Ohio The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the oldest railroad in the United States and the first steam-operated common carrier. Construction of the line began in 1828, and it operated as B&O from 1830 until 1987, when it was merged into the Chessie ...
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 Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
and then
diesel locomotives A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is con ...
between the B&O's busy Metropolitan Branch and Georgetown's industrial waterfront. The clubhouse was designed by club member Frederick B. Pyle, 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.
Walter Travis Walter J. Travis (January 10, 1862 – July 31, 1927) was an American amateur golfer during the early 1900s. He was also a noted golf journalist and publisher, an innovator in all aspects of golf, a teacher, and golf course architect. Golfing ca ...
made extensive renovations to the course in 1915. There is no newspaper record of the event and early Club minutes have been lost. The course was a favorite of President
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...
. The U.S. Open was held at the Club in
1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil. ** The Spanish lin ...
, won by Englishman
Jim Barnes James Martin Barnes (April 8, 1886 – May 24, 1966) was an English professional golfer and a leading figure in the early years of professional golf in the United States. He is one of three native Britons (with Tommy Armour and Rory McIlroy) t ...
. President
Warren Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents w ...
presented the Champion's Trophy. 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. 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 Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sexu ...
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. Still, the following year, the club had 1,635 members, all men. None were Black or Latino. That year, 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. The initial fee to join at the time was $22,000 (equivalent to $ today). By 1994, the club had begun admitting women members. The club hosted the 2003 U.S. Junior Amateur Golf Championship, won by
Brian Harman Brian Eric Harman (born January 19, 1987) is an American professional golfer from Savannah, Georgia. He plays on the PGA Tour, on which he has won four tournaments, including a major championship victory at the 2023 Open Championship. He also fi ...
. 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 2021, the club hosted the U.S. Girls' Junior Golf Championship, won by
Rose Zhang Rose Zhang ( born May 24, 2003) is an American professional golfer. She won the 2020 U.S. Women's Amateur, and both the 2022 and NCAA Division I Women's Golf Championships, 2023 NCAA Division I Championships, becoming the first woman to win the i ...
. 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. 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 A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a Right of way#Rail right of way, railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corr ...
on the old B&O rail line around which the club had built its golf course. After B&O successor
CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...
ended service along the line in 1985, the government of
Montgomery County Montgomery County may refer to: Australia * The former name of Montgomery Land District, Tasmania United Kingdom * The historic county of Montgomeryshire, Wales, also called County of Montgomery United States * Montgomery County, Alabama * Montg ...
bought the right-of-way to preserve it for use as a potential trolley route between Bethesda and Silver Spring. Over the following decade, the track roadbed was converted to the Georgetown Branch Trail, an eastward extension of the
Capital Crescent Trail The Capital Crescent Trail (CCT) is a , 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 ...
, 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 Taking or The Taking may refer to: * Theft, illicit taking * The acquisition of land under eminent domain * Take (hunting) or taking, an action that adversely affects a species * Kidnapping of persons Arts and entertainment * ''The Taking'', a 2 ...
. Their argument was rejected in 1999 by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.


Opposition to the Purple Line

Within a few years of losing its effort to block one proposed reuse of the old railroad right-of-way, Columbia Country Club became a prominent opponent of another one: Maryland's Purple Line, a 16-mile
light-rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features fr ...
line that is to connect downtown Bethesda and New Carrollton. Its lobbying efforts slowed efforts to build the transit line and secured secret concessions not given to other property owners along the line. In 2000, the Maryland government began to formally study a long-proposed light-rail line along the right-of-way. 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. Within two years, the club had spent thousands of dollars on lobbying against the proposal, while individual members had held fundraisers for sympathetic politicians. 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. By 2013, the club was "long viewed as one of the most well-financed and politically connected Purple Line foes", the ''Washington Post'' wrote. That year, the club secured a 25-page agreement with the
Maryland Transit Administration The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) is a state-operated mass transit administration in Maryland, and is part of the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT). The MTA operates a comprehensive transit system throughout the Washington� ...
and Montgomery County. 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. 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.


The course

Columbia's par-70 (35-35) course measures 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". 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 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". T ...
is the par-3 16th, which, legend has it, served as Bobby Jones's inspiration for the 12th hole at
Augusta National Golf Club Augusta National Golf Club, sometimes referred to as Augusta National, Augusta, or the National, is a golf club in Augusta, Georgia, United States. It is known for hosting the annual Masters Tournament. Founded by Bobby Jones and Clifford Rob ...
. 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. 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 The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC Water) is a bi-county political subdivision of the State of Maryland that provides safe drinking water and sewage treatment, wastewater treatment for Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery and P ...
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. A landscaped
channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Australia in Queensland and pa ...
carries
Coquelin Run 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 (1.71 square miles), and debouches in Rock Creek in unincorporated C ...
past or through holes 1, 15, 16, 17, and 18; it is dammed at the 17th hole to create a 250-yard-long pond south of the green, where it is joined by other streams.


Notes


References

* West, Henry Litchfield. ''The Columbia Country Club: As It Was in the Beginning.'' 1938.


External links

* *
Columbia Country Club
: short history in "The Town of Chevy Chase: Past & Present" (1990) {{coord, 38, 59, 21, N, 77, 04, 42, W, type:landmark_region:US-MD, display=title 1911 establishments in Maryland Buildings and structures in Montgomery County, Maryland Chevy Chase (CDP), Maryland Golf clubs and courses in Maryland Sports venues completed in 1911