Charlotte Country Club’s present course traces to a 1910 nine-hole layout erected by the newly chartered Mecklenburg Country Club, with sand greens and a local committee led by three-time Carolina Amateur champion Fred Laxton credited for the initial plan.
In 1915, the club decided to expand and hired Donald Ross to design a full 18; the work produced a new routing that subsumed the original ground and carried the course eastward across the rolling, creek-cut site. Ten years later, in 1925, the club converted to grass greens under Ross’s direction. He subsequently returned during the 1930 season to strengthen hazards and refine putting surfaces, and he made additional, smaller-scale adjustments noted in club and USGA summaries in 1942 and 1947. Mid-century remodeling by Robert Trent Jones Sr. followed in 1962, introducing changes to bunkering, fairway widths, green interiors, and at least one water feature.
In 2006, discovery of a 1930s aerial (and corroborating period photos) convinced the club that many of Ross’s 1930 refinements—most notably the sophistication and placement of green-side and centerline bunkers—had been compromised by later work. A master plan by Ron Prichard led to a staged restoration completed in 2009. Prichard rebuilt every green to recapture Ross’s interior contouring at modern speeds, re-established grass-faced bunker lines and several centerline hazards that shaped angles in the 1930 plan, expanded greens back to original perimeters, restored fairway widths, and, where the evidence was thin or a later alteration was deemed unsalvageable, created historically sympathetic solutions (most prominently a new par-3 17th on recovered ground). The renovated course reopened in 2009 and immediately hosted the 2010 U.S. Women’s Amateur, a proving ground for the restored presentation.
Unique design characteristics
Ross’s Charlotte work made deliberate use of the property’s clay-based uplands and the Briar Creek corridor, composing a sequence that tests trajectory and land use more than forced carries. The 2nd shows this early: Ross set a green that falls away on its back tier so that the best access to certain hole locations requires a flattened, skipping approach; Prichard’s restoration also reinstated centerline bunkers that divide ideal lay-up lanes. The built-up 3rd is a case where Ross engineered interest on a bland rise: foreground bunkers break up the uphill approach and the green’s interior rolls let short-iron approaches feed or repel based on precise landing points.
At the 4th, a par 4 across subtly canted ground, the restored putting surface exhibits the “rolling waves” characteristic of Ross’s late-1920s/1930 efforts at Charlotte—movements that divide the target into distinct pinnable sections without relying on severe surrounds. The front-nine 8th uses Briar Creek as a diagonal crossing for the second shot on a long par 4; the creek isn’t pressed against the green but sits on a line that tempts longer players to chew off more to gain a flatter stance for the approach.
The back nine preserves the theme of angle-making and elevation. The 11th par 3 is a down-then-up one-shotter to a green nestled in a natural dell where missing either short or long leaves a challenging uphill recovery. The 12th incorporates one of the restoration’s most debated features: a fairway bunker in the center of the corridor roughly 205 yards from the green, reintroduced from aerial evidence to force a decision off the tee and restore the advantage to the player who places the drive precisely on the correct half of the fairway. The 13th (a short par 5 in member play) climbs to a green perched on a ledge with the stream in relative proximity—unusual in Ross’s work, and a reason the hole’s approach psychology feels different from standard “go/no-go” fives.
Prichard’s 17th replaced a Trent Jones par 3; laid into previously wooded land, it plays slightly uphill to a broad, 45-yard-wide target whose interior contours and fronting bunker tie visually and strategically to the reinstated Ross vocabulary elsewhere. The 18th, a dogleg-right home hole, culminates the round with one of the course’s best putting surfaces: interior plateaus and fall-offs, restored flanking bunkers, and a fairway that again presents choices rather than dictating a single line.
Taken together, the clearest surviving expressions of Ross’s Charlotte work—either intact or convincingly restored—are 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 13, and 18. These holes are supported by documentation and photography from the Ross years and by the 1930 aerial that guided the Prichard plan; they show Ross using pushed-up greens suitable for clay soils, diagonal or centerline bunkers to govern angles, and green interiors with distinct shelves and rolls calibrated to the site’s drainage and exposures.
Historical significance
Within Ross’s North Carolina portfolio, Charlotte is notable for the duration and layering of his involvement. He was engaged to expand and redesign the course in 1915, returned for the 1925 grass-green conversion, and then undertook a serious 1930 strengthening (club and secondary sources describe an addition of more than forty bunkers and more sophisticated interior contours). Post-war visits in 1942 and 1947—whether to advise or to direct small-scale tweaks—extended that arc into a fourth decade. Few Ross clubs can document that span of direct attention on the same property.
Championship history underscores how the site has absorbed modernization without surrendering the strategic ideas Ross set here. Prior to the Prichard work, the club hosted the 1972 U.S. Amateur and the 2000 U.S. Senior Amateur; after restoration it quickly staged the 2010 U.S. Women’s Amateur and later the 2018 U.S. Mid-Amateur (with stroke play shared with Carolina Golf Club). The remodeled course was named Golf Digest’s Best New Remodel of 2009, and Charlotte appears in classic-course rankings such as Golfweek’s “Top 100 Classic” list (No. 63 in 2012), reinforcing that the restoration recaptured recognizable Ross character at competition standard.
Current condition / integrity
The routing today reads as Ross throughout, with one exception: the par-3 17th is a Prichard creation replacing a 1960s Trent Jones hole. Elsewhere, the club has prioritized Ross’s 1930 forms. Bunkers have been rebuilt in grass-faced, irregular patterns that match period imagery; greens were rebuilt to reacquire lost perimeter and interior contour—bringing back front tongues/false shoulders and back shelves that support distinct day-to-day set-ups—and fairway widths were increased to reconnect tee-shot options with green angles. Tree management reopened original vistas and restored wind exposure on several elevated green pads.
A mid-century pond that once fronted a green and certain RTJ fairway pinch points were either softened or deleted, in part because they interfered with how Ross’s hazards governed angles rather than enforced carries. The club lists 7,335 yards, par 72 (75.9/146) from the back tees, with multiple forward options; in USGA setups the course has flexed from roughly 6,560 to over 7,000 yards depending on the championship. Turf remains cool-season on the putting surfaces, a choice that complements the restored interior contour and seasonal presentation of the green sites.
In sum, the course now plays closer to the documented 1930 Ross iteration—updated for length and agronomy—than at any point since the 1960s, while acknowledging that the 17th is a modern insertion by design.
Sources & Notes
USGA — “Charlotte Country Club Course Preview,” Women’s Amateur 2010 (history summary; Laxton nine in 1910; Ross hired to expand in 1915; grass greens in 1925; later Ross tweaks in 1942 & 1947; RTJ alterations in 1962; 1938 aerial discovery; Prichard restoration scope; Best New Remodel 2009).
Charlotte Country Club (official site) — “About Us” and “Brief History” (founding as Mecklenburg Country Club in 1910; rename in 1917; current course yardage 7,335, rating 75.9/slope 146; USGA championships hosted).
GolfClubAtlas — Course profile by Ran Morrissett (hole-by-hole evidence; Ross return in 1930 with “forty-three new bunkers”; quotations from Ross letter re: work on holes 1–3; descriptions of 2, 3, 4, 12, 13; restoration rationale; creation of new 17th; analysis of RTJ influences and their reversal).
Golf Digest — Best New Remodel 2009 announcement and feature (Charlotte CC as Best Remodel; Prichard’s restoration described and illustrated).
USGA Championships — 2018 U.S. Mid-Amateur hub and media guide; confirmation of Charlotte CC as host/primary site, with Carolina Golf Club as stroke-play co-host.
Top100GolfCourses — Summary page (notes on club origins, RTJ work, Ron Prichard remodel; mentions Briar Creek crossing on No. 8 and yardage >7,300).
Disputed or uncertain points
• Initial Ross involvement date (1913 vs. 1915). GCA and some narratives place Ross’s first Charlotte work in 1913 (revising the nine), while the USGA summary credits the club’s decision in 1915 to “expand the golf course and [bring] in Donald Ross to design the layout.” Given the USGA’s explicit dating and the club’s public history, 1915 is used above for the formal 18-hole design, with a note that preliminary advice in 1913 is plausible.
• Water feature origins near one green. The GCA profile suggests a mid-century pond fronting a green was unlikely to be Ross’s work and may date to later alterations (possibly RTJ in the 1960s); Prichard’s restoration deemphasized such forced carries in favor of Ross’s angle-driven hazards. Because the club’s public materials don’t specify the pond’s provenance, this is treated as inferred from comparative evidence.