The Richmond Golf Club (formerly known as Richmond Country Club) is a private social gathering place and sports facility for golf in the Hilltop District of

Richmond, California Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was municipal corporation, incorporated on August 3, 1905, and has a Richmond, California, City Council, city council.

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

History

The land was originally inhabited by the

Ohlone The Ohlone ( ), formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the l ...

people; Spanish

conquistadores Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...

colonized the land in the 1840s and developed the

Rancho San Pablo Rancho San Pablo was a land grant in present-day Contra Costa County, California given in 1823 by Governor Luís Antonio Argüello to Francisco María Castro (1775–1831), a former soldier at the San Francisco Presidio and one-time ''alcalde' ...

. The Richmond Golf Club began formerly known as the Carquinez Golf Club, established in 1924. The club began to struggle during the deep recession. Which was a semi-private club meaning if you weren’t a member a round of golf could be played for 5 cents. Its manager and head professional, Ed Sawyer, has been found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Ed poured his own money into the Carquinez CC until he ran out of cash. There were less than 40 members at that time. The course had been redesigned to the present configuration in the early 1930s, but was in poor condition and still lacked the necessary water for proper irrigation. The few existing members reached out to Pat Markovich who was well known on the West Coast as an excellent golfer and a member of the PGA. There was a small Board of Directors, but Pat Markovich ran the Carquinez CC. The club was not an immediate success. The country club was eventually rebranded as the "Richmond Golf Club" in the early 1930s. The golf club has views towards the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge and Mount Tamalpais. The club is a former four-time

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

stop and the first in the United States to invite

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

to participate in professional tournaments. They joined the likes of

Ben Hogan William Ben Hogan (August 13, 1912 – July 25, 1997) was an American professional golfer who is generally considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the game. He is notable for his profound influence on golf swing theory, hi ...

Byron Nelson John Byron Nelson Jr. (February 4, 1912 – September 26, 2006) was an American professional golfer between 1935 and 1946, widely considered one of the greatest golfers of all time. Nelson and two other legendary champions of the time, Ben Hog ...

and

Sam Snead Samuel Jackson Snead (; May 27, 1912 – May 23, 2002) was an American professional golfer who was one of the top players in the world for the better part of four decades (having won PGA of America and Senior PGA Tour events over six decades) an ...

who won the 1945 Richmond Open with a 72-hole winning score of 283. In the early 1950s Richmond Golf Club hosted the

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly ...

with the best players of the decade.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (; Didrikson; June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete who excelled in golf, basketball, baseball, and track and field. She won two gold medals and a silver in track and field at the ...

won the first Richmond Ladies Open with a score of 224 after three rounds.

Patty Berg Patricia Jane Berg (February 13, 1918 – September 10, 2006) was an American professional golfer. She was a founding member and the first president of the LPGA. Her 15 major title wins remains the all-time record for most major wins by a fem ...

won the second Women's Open in 1952, shooting 8-under par from the men’s tees and set a women’s course record that stands to this day. In April 1953, Pat Markovich and several other investors from Richmond bought the Maxwell estate located on the

Silverado Trail The Silverado Trail is a scenic route that travels 29 miles along the Eastern edge of the Napa Valley, parallel to and several miles to the east of California State Route 29. History The road began as a trail built in 1852 after flooding made the ...

in Napa to form the

Silverado Country Club The Silverado Resort and Spa is a golf, tennis, and spa resort in Napa County, California, United States. The venue is named after the Silverado Mine, a quicksilver mine near Mount Saint Helena. The resort is the fifth largest employer in Nap ...

. The ranch was subdivided into 140 parcels and the area around the present-day country club was formed into the Nitro Powder Company which changed hands to the Giant Powder Company (also formerly known as

Giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''wiktionary:gigas, gigas'', cognate wiktionary:giga-, giga-) are beings of humanoid appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''gia ...

). In 1964 it was again sold to

Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Until its closure in 2003, it was one of the world's largest steel-producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its success ...

. A portion of the steel site was sold to create an expanded Richmond Country Club in 1974. The club covers thousands of acres in the northern Hilltop neighborhood between

Hilltop Mall Hilltop Mall is a defunct regional shopping center in the Hilltop neighborhood of Richmond, California. Hilltop was managed and co-owned by Prologis, Inc. The only anchor store left is Walmart. There are 3 vacant anchor stores that were once ...

and

Point Pinole Point Pinole Regional Shoreline is a regional park on the shores of the San Pablo Bay, California (the northern arm of the San Francisco Bay), in the United States. It is approximately in area, and is operated by the East Bay Regional Park Dis ...

and is adjacent to

Parchester Village Parchester Village is a planned majority African-American village in northwestern Richmond, California that was the first in the state to sell to blacks. History After World War II temporary housing was torn down in Richmond, many black reside ...

to the west, near its entrance along Atlas road and the Richmond Parkway. It is served by

AC Transit AC Transit is the main Public transport bus service, bus transit operator in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. AC Transit is the third largest bus operator in California, serving the western portions of Alameda and C ...

's routes 71, 376, and LA/LC. It is on more than and has been around since before 1900. Since 1991 the club has hosted a charity tournament for disadvantaged students of

Salesian College Preparatory Salesian College Preparatory (formerly Salesian High School and Salesian House of Studies) is a private, Roman Catholic, co-educational, college-preparatory high school in Richmond, California, United States. Established in 1927, it is part of th ...

(formerly Salesian High School). In 2018, Pat Markovich was inducted into the Northern California PGA Hall of Fame section. In late 2023, the golf course was rebranded back as the Richmond Golf Club.

References

External links

Richmond Golf Club

History of the Club
* Wikimapi
aerial image
of the Richmond Golf Club Parks in Richmond, California Buildings and structures in Richmond, California 1974 establishments in California {{ContraCostaCountyCA-struct-stub