Country Club celebrates 100 years!
Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. (Photo by Doug Hoke).
The Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club, housed in an English Tudor-style clubhouse, has been the scene of formal receptions, debutante parties, lavish balls and wedding events for 100 years.
It’s the oldest golf and country club in Oklahoma City and is set on 142 acres at 7000 NW Grand Blvd. Since its founding in 1911, its members have included people who have played key roles in Oklahoma City’s history.
Members kicked off the 100th anniversary on Dec. 4t during a party, and they’ll continue their celebration next spring to commemorate the date the club was incorporated.
Surrounding the club’s fountain in the front yard are brick pavers etched with the names of families who have been members at the club and attended club functions through the years. Included are names of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are related to the original members who joined in 1911.
Building relationships
Today, there are 1,031 member families in various categories that include stockholding, social, senior, executive or junior memberships.
Board president Chuck Ainsworth noted that the club holds a unique place in Oklahoma City’s history.
“It is more than a country club,” he said. “The club has been a melting pot of the community. The leaders who shaped the town sometimes met on the golf course to conduct business.”
The friendships built through the club over the years represent a big part of people’s lives.
“There’s work, home and the country club,” Ainsworth said.
Eighty percent of club members live within three miles of the club, said Linda Dowling, executive assistant and membership secretary. Nineteen of the 160 full-time employees have worked there more than 20 years. The club also employs between 60 and 70 people part-time. Employees staff three kitchens, including separate grills and a banquet kitchen. In the summer, the swimming pool also offers food service.
Ainsworth pointed out several differences between today’s club and that of years past.
“In old photos of the club, there were millions of ashtrays, and today there are none,” he said. “And the wood paneling in the Great Hall was very dark. We took it back to the original look recently.”
Through the years, members have come to Sunday brunches, bridge parties, Easter egg hunts, banquets, dance clubs, president’s balls, Christmas parties, fashion shows and golf matches, said Oliver Boudin, the club’s chief operating officer, in talking about the history and tradition there.
The club also opens its doors for community events sponsored by area nonprofit organizations throughout the year.
New programs, old memories
Boudin noted that a wine program was started four years ago.
“We set up a Wine Society,” he said. “Members have lockers in a temperature-controlled room for their favorite wines, and we have monthly wine tastings and dinners paired with wines,” he said.
Another newer feature of the club began in 2002 with the construction of the fitness center.
As part of the club’s centennial, members Huston Huffman, Susan Parker and Marilyn Meade are combing through scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, archives and club records for a book project with local author Bob Burke.
“Burke’s coffee-table book will include pictures of the early days and also some pictures of this year’s members’ Christmas party,” said Huffman, organizer of the group.
Parker, also a country club board member, has been around the club for 55 years. She was there as a child and became a junior member 33 years ago.
“It’s such a part of my life,” she said. There have been family weddings, birthday parties, dances and everything social, she said. “Everyone, members and staff, knows your name over there.”
Another member who started going to the club in the 1940s is Meade. She has been attending functions there since she was a child.
“No one had private swimming pools for little children in those days,” Meade said. “So we all went to the club. I went to the pool in the morning and stayed the entire day. When I won blue ribbons in swim meets, I got steak dinners (for) prizes, so I took my family to dinner with my winnings.”
“Easter egg hunts used to feature live baby chickens, rabbits and gold eggs,” said Meade, who became a member with her husband in 1966. “Everything is fancier now. There used to be two tennis courts; now the tennis facility has three outdoor courts and two indoor courts. The wonderful golf course has been upgraded. Even the Christmas party has been beefed up. It is bigger and better.”
The party marked 100 Christmases at the club. There’s the 30-foot Christmas tree twinkling away just like it was in 1911 when the club first organized.
That year, according to photos in the large historical scrapbooks at the front of the club, the tree was covered with silver icicles and not the white flocking on the tree today. This year, there was white lights and white and silver ornaments. The Dallas Unlimited Band played, and food and beverage stations were up throughout the entire clubhouse. A jazz band played in the Gallery Grill.
How it started
In 1911, many members of a club called Lake View Club at NW 39 and Western resigned their memberships and formed the Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club organization. They built a clubhouse, but after a 1922 fire, they rebuilt in its present location in 1930.
Seven scrapbooks set on pedestals around the club detail events through the years, including women playing golf as early as 1919.
Club meetings and events have included Ladies Music Club meetings, Revelers Supper Club events, Helpers Needle Club meetings, 17 tables of bridge daily, recital teas, Oklahoma Hospitality, Junior League, French Heels, Lotus Club, DAR, Redbud Club, Winter Ball, Colony Club, New Year’s Eve parties with 15-piece orchestras, Boomerang Golf Tournaments, Bachelor’s Club events, Queensbury dinner bridge club, football game parties and bus rides, Beaux Arts Balls, Heart Balls, Mayfair Club Dances, Seventy Five Club Dances, Ladies Golf Association meetings and luncheons, Symphony Show House parties, Girl Scout luncheons and Kappa Alpha Theta Flaming Festivals. Many of the community events started at the club and are still held there.
Other tidbits from the scrapbooks include information about the first president, George Frederickson, who held office all but two years between 1911 and 1918, and about the gala event opening the swimming pool in 1932.
“There were 54 living models walking around displaying creations in bathing suits, beach pajamas and sportswear,” news about the pool event stated.
And, in 1933 there was a notice for members: “A 5-cent per person service charge will be made on all food checks in lieu of tipping.”
There have been hundreds of community golf tournaments on the golf course, featuring award dinners afterward, including the Trans-Mississippi Golf Association tournament in 1932 and the Club Boomerang tournament held every other year.
Huffman, former president and member of the club for 60 years, noted the club has also hosted the USA Amateur Golf Tournament, the Women’s Western Open, the qualifying rounds for the U.S. Open and the U.S. amateur tournaments, State Women’s Championship (WOGA) and many charity golf events.
“The golf course was well designed from the beginning,” Huffman said. “It has become top-notch over time, and such a premiere setting in the Southwest enabled us to assemble an expert and competent staff and manager. Some 70 years ago, it was an unsprinkled prairie vs. today’s oasis.”
Huffman’s early club memories involve the swimming pool and playing bingo.
“We rode our bikes to the club, stayed all day until it was time to go home for dinner,” he said.
On the day after the Fourth of July in 1952, there was an article from Tess’ Tea Table Talk in the Oklahoma News.
She wrote: “Somewhere in Oklahoma there may be a more delightful place to eat on a summer evening than the terrace of the Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club, but I doubt it. There have been other years when a more extensive program of entertainment was presented but, after all, dinner in such a spot, with congenial friends all about, and the fireworks for which the American soul thirsts on this particular day, to end the evening, is quite enough.”
And all of the 2011-12 Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club members will agree: “Dinner in such a spot, with congenial friends all about, is quite enough.”
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