A Brief History of Springfield Country Club
It was 1888 when the game of golf originally migrated across the Atlantic from England to the U.S. with the establishment of the St. Andrew's Golf Club of Yonkers, New York. By 1895 there were over 100 courses around the country and almost 1000 started between 1895 and 1899, most of them in the east. In Springfield, Ohio, in 1897, a core group of leading Springfield businessmen – John Foos, Charles Bauer, James G Rodgers, B.H. Winters, and others – began discussions about starting a local golf club.
By the fall of 1898, the Springfielders had purchased from the Knights of Pythias, which had a large home Mercy Crest north of Springfield’s city limits, the westernmost 50-plus acres of the original McCreight farm on the northwest corner of what is today North Limestone and McCreight.
The Springfield Golf Club was formally organized on November 1, 1898 and the golf committee immediately hired 23-year-old Dayton Golf Club pro and course designer Willie Hoare to convert the McCreight pasture into a short, six-hole course with hard-packed sand greens.
Six years later, the evolution of golf technology and a widely increasing passion for the game rendered Hoare’s six-hole track inadequate and obsolete. Another golf committee, this one consisting of Robert Foos, Charles Bauer, Burton Westcott, James G. Rodgers, and B.H. Winters, purchased 60 1/2 acres of the old Thompson farm several miles to the north of the existing club on a bluff looking west over the Mad River Valley.
Renowned Springfield architect Robert Gotwald turned Thompson’s barn into a grand white and green clubhouse with a bank of windows looking west over the valley. Shortly thereafter a new, longer nine-hole course was developed just to the west of the clubhouse.
For a decade-and-a-half the Club flourished, adding social activities and acreage until there was enough land to build a full 18-hole course. Young Donald Ross, destined to be a golf legend for his many courses, was recruited to design the new track, but as he was beginning, tragedy struck. During the night of June 14, 1922, the clubhouse burned down and was nothing but a smoking ruin by morning. Undaunted, Ross finished the course and the members rebuilt the new Tudor clubhouse still in use today.
Over the next 30 years the Club weathered Prohibition, the Depression and two world wars, hanging on when many other Clubs closed. A pool had been added in the 1930s and tennis and riding were both popular, and these activities attracted young families after World War II and into the 1950s.
Further family traditions were begun in the late 1970s with the Superstars competition, which has now seen generations of young children participate in July 4th age-appropriate games, and then grow up to watch their own children and grandchildren participate just as they had.
On June 8th of 2022, a century to the week after the devastating clubhouse fire in the early twentieth century, a tornado tore through the course, tragically stripping the Club of over 100 large and carefully curated trees. The landscape was forever changed, but the Club remained beautiful and a dynamic social hub for its members. Most significantly, the classic Donald Ross golf course retained its challenge and its sterling reputation and in 2024 the Club hosted its 16th U.S. Open final qualifying round.
For over 125 years the Springfield Country Club has been, and continues to be, a critical centerpiece in the business and social life of Springfield and the surrounding community.
Historical Club History Photos
