Highland Country Club’s golf course opened in 1922 and is attributed by the club to Donald J. Ross, who, per the club’s own history page, “personally supervised” construction. While that phrasing originates from the club’s modern website rather than surviving correspondence, it establishes the 1922 involvement and the course’s opening year in local institutional memory. The property itself was carved from the Hills & Dales estate lands associated with the Callaway family, with a Neel Reid–designed clubhouse noted alongside the Ross course in a regional landscape history published by the Southern Garden History Society. Together these sources fix both the year and the principal designers of the golf and clubhouse complex as it emerged in the early 1920s.
The club’s pages repeat longstanding local claims of high-profile visitors in the early years; in particular, a 1925 exhibition at Highland featuring Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, and Watts Gunn is documented in a LaGrange Chamber of Commerce image preserved on Wikimedia Commons. The exhibition, held three seasons after opening, both corroborates the course’s early maturity and hints at the club’s regional standing within a Georgia golfing corridor that included Ross work in nearby Columbus and Augusta.
As for later Ross involvement, no primary documentation (plans, letters, invoices) surfaced in accessible online collections to confirm a formal “redesign” phase by Ross after 1922. A club web page mentions Ross “assisted with another local course in 1947,” but that statement does not specify Highland and is not supported by cited primary material; absent archival minutes or dated plans, it should be treated as tangential to Highland’s own timeline.
There is, however, evidence of subsequent modernization by other architects. GolfPass and GolfNow list Finger Dye Spann as having renovated the course, with GolfPass attaching the year 1972. While directory listings are secondary sources, they consistently attribute a 1970s update to the FDS firm—a detail that aligns with a period when many private clubs reworked bunkers, tees, and drainage to contemporary standards. The exact scope at Highland (e.g., whether greens were rebuilt or only bunkers/tees adjusted) is not described publicly and would require club files to confirm.
Unique Design Characteristics
Highland’s present-day character—hilly ground, narrow arboreal corridors, and compact, lively greens—mirrors how a 1922 Ross routing would have engaged this Piedmont site, even if individual features have evolved. Independent course descriptions consistently note the course is “hilly,” with “tree-lined fairways and small, fast greens,” and that water hazards influence approximately six holes. Those traits are not generic to every Ross course; here they create a specific playing cadence in LaGrange: uphill/downhill approach demands, frequent lie variability, and green-entry angles that prize control over power.
One hole, in particular, stands out in contemporary accounts. The present “signature” par three is the seventeenth, a mid-to-long iron from an elevated tee across water to a peninsula target. Whether the pond configuration or green pad precisely reflects Ross’s original construction cannot be asserted without plans, but the hole’s shot value today—demanding a fully committed carry with little bailout—provides a late-round counterpoint within the routing and typifies Highland’s tendency to place exacting tests at natural low points between ridges.
Because the club has not published original drawings, an authoritative inventory of which individual green contours or bunker placements remain faithful to 1922 is not available. The small-surface scale and the general reliance on ground movement for defense (rather than sheer length) do, however, align with the way Ross courses of this era were scaled for hickory/early-steel play and have remained effective at Highland given its modest 6,589-yard back-tee yardage.
Historical Significance
Highland’s significance within Ross’s Georgia portfolio is twofold. First, it is a small-city private club that still frames golf within a larger garden/estate context—the Hills & Dales connection and a Neel Reid clubhouse dating to the founding year mark Highland as a collaboration between a leading residential architect and a leading golf architect on a single, integrated property. Second, the 1925 Jones-Hagen-Gunn exhibition situates Highland within the state’s interwar golf culture; few Ross venues can point to that trio on the same tee sheet, and the image evidence confirms LaGrange’s role as a host to elite golf pageantry mere years after opening. While Highland rarely appears in statewide or national rankings, its documented centennial celebration in 2022 underscores a continuous membership culture built around the Ross course, which helps explain the course’s enduring local reputation.
Current Condition / Integrity
In broad terms, the course today remains a private, 18-hole, par-72 layout on the original club grounds, still playing at roughly mid-6,500s yardage. The greens are bent-grass and described as quick; the corridors are tree-lined; and the routing continues to traverse the site’s ridges and valleys. Those conditions suggest that Highland has preserved its original footprint and strategic rhythm even as components have modernized. Nevertheless, the presence of Finger Dye Spann on modern architect lists implies a significant renovation phase after Ross—likely during the 1970s—that altered at least some bunker forms, and perhaps tees and drainage.
Practice infrastructure has been refreshed and includes a driving range and short-game spaces, and the club remains strictly private, with access limited to members and invited guests—facts that shape how the course is maintained and presented day-to-day.
Citations and Uncertainty
Highland Country Club – “Donald Ross Golf Course” and site pages (accessed 2024–2025). Establishes 1922 opening, Ross authorship as held by the club, and general golf/club amenities.
Magnolia (Southern Garden History Society), Summer/Fall 2008: note on Highland CC carved from Hills & Dales estate; Ross course and Neel Reid clubhouse at opening (1922).
LaGrange Daily News, “100 Years of Highland: Country Club holding centennial celebration,” Aug. 12, 2022. Confirms centennial context and local attribution of designers.
Wikimedia Commons (via LaGrange Chamber of Commerce), photo of 1925 exhibition (Hagen, Jones, Gunn) at Highland CC. Documents a significant early event.
Golf.com Course Finder entry for Highland CC; Foretee.com Highland CC page. Corroborates par, yardage, and describes present “signature” par-3 seventeenth over water and general course traits (hilly, tree-lined, small fast greens).