The Tryon community formed a golf club in 1916 after local patron Emma Payne Erskine purchased an old dairy farm in the valley now occupied by the course. The nine-hole layout was set out in 1914 and opened for play in 1917, with a rustic clubhouse completed in 1922. Contemporary and later accounts consistently credit Donald J. Ross with the design, but the documentation is thinner than at many Ross clubs: the National Register of Historic Places nomination describes the course as “very likely” by Ross; a club-produced early history notes that no plan sheets, invoices, or correspondence survive and that the principal direct evidence is a notation in one of Ross’s notebooks, supplemented by a 1914 homesites plan and the course’s enduring Ross-like ground features. In practice, the Tryon case rests on period local reporting that work was under a “distinguished engineer,” Erskine family and club testimony naming Ross, and subsequent visits by Ross Society researchers who judged the “bones” consistent with his hand.
The routing, set predominately east–west along Little Creek, was from the outset intended to play as eighteen by alternating tee positions within each box, a pragmatic response to the site’s small footprint. In 1922, when the log clubhouse opened on the north side of the property, the club renumbered holes to start and finish at the building. Through the 1920s and early 1930s the course featured sand-and-oil putting surfaces typical of the region; in 1940 the club voted to convert to grass greens and made slight adjustments to five tee boxes (at today’s 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9) to accommodate stronger players. A 1930s–40s maintenance program introduced fairway irrigation, and in 1968 the club built a single alternate green (today’s “12th” when the course is played as eighteen) to relieve shade wear on the third hole—an unusual, site-specific solution that preserved the nine-hole footprint while sharpening the second loop’s character. The essential routing, however, was not rebuilt; holes still follow the original corridors and cross the creek at largely the same points.
Unique Design Characteristics
Tryon’s most distinctive trait is its two-loop, one-routing logic: the same fairway/green complexes are approached differently on the “back nine” via alternate tees, shifting angles into small targets without duplicating the first loop. This is most apparent at Holes 1–3, where the creek and ground falls are used differently on the second pass. The opening hole plays slightly downhill off the clubhouse terrace to a fairway that twice interacts with Little Creek before rising into a green bunkered on both sides—a classic Ross use of modest hazards to make the final 40 yards exacting rather than heroic. Hole 2 runs straight but is cut by the creek, with a narrow, elongated target that punishes approaches missed pin-high; the alternate tee on the second loop reduces the carry but shifts the preferred entry line to the opposite flank. Hole 3 (a short par 3 across the creek) is one of the clearest surviving “Ross tells” on the property: a front-tilted, small green with flanking bunkers that reward a flighted, below-the-hole tee shot over brute yardage.
The middle stretch reveals how the routing threads the site’s natural benches. Hole 4 plays down then up over Little Creek to an elevated green, compactly ringed by sand. Hole 5, a par 3 from the highest point on the course, falls to a defended target whose contours and surrounding short grass make a two putt uncertain when above the hole. Hole 6 carries a retention pond off the tee into a fairway that slopes away from the player—an understated use of tilt as a hazard—before reaching a green set in front of the pro shop. The finishing side (7–9) climbs gradually (7), then turns back east with the creek bisecting the dogleg at 8, before concluding with the short par-3 ninth over Little Creek back to the clubhouse terrace. In every case, the small bent-grass greens and tight surrounds are the core defense, a scale that reads convincingly as 1910s Ross on the ground and has been retained through later maintenance eras.
Historical Significance
Within Ross’s North Carolina portfolio, Tryon matters for its early date and its mountain-valley context. If the attribution stands—as the National Register authors argue is “very likely”—Tryon represents Ross’s earliest original work in the North Carolina mountains, predating better-known western-NC commissions by several years. It is also a rare survivor of the “nine plays as eighteen” design solution executed at the scale of a town course and then preserved substantially intact. Club lore and regional press identify Tryon as a centennial-era community touchstone, frequently cited among the state’s notable nine-hole rounds and recognized for its 1922 clubhouse and golf landscape together on the National Register of Historic Places (2013). The course’s Depression-era conversion from sand to grass greens and the mid-century irrigation program make it a compact case study in how small Southern clubs modernized without abandoning their Golden-Age footprints.
Current Condition / Integrity
Routing and corridors. The 1914–17 routing remains legible hole-by-hole, with only localized tee shifts (1940) and the 1968 alternate green added to manage wear. Creek crossings, fairway alignments, and green sites correspond to descriptions in the National Register inventory, and green-to-tee walks preserve the quick cadence expected of a nine-hole club.
Greens and bunkers. The 1940 conversion from sand to grass required minor dimensional adjustments to the pads, but green locations were retained. Today’s small bent-grass greens, paired with a limited palette of simple bunkers at flanks and fronts, form the course’s signature. There is no published evidence of large-scale green relocations or recontouring campaigns since 1940.
Mowing lines, grasses, and trees. Fairways were shifted to Bermuda and tees to Bermuda/zoysia in the post-war period; greens are bent. The club notes loss of a tree line on the north side of Little Creek at the second hole in the 1940s that was not replanted, subtly opening the corridor. Bridges and cart paths have been replaced in kind, with a wave of bridge work circa 2009–10 using low timber parapets; these interventions updated infrastructure without changing hole strategies.
Preserved vs. altered or lost.
Preserved: overall routing; green sites; the alternate-tee/eighteen-from-nine concept; creek-mediated strategy at 1–3, 4, 8–9; small-scale, tightly defended greens.
Altered: grass greens (1940) replacing sand; tee adjustments at five holes in 1940; one additional green (1968) to protect the shaded third; modern turf and irrigation.
Unknowns requiring primary verification: the extent of Ross’s direct field presence in 1914–17; any original Ross plan sheets; and as-built drawings from the 1940 green conversions.
Sources & Notes
National Register of Historic Places Nomination — “Tryon Country Club,” North Carolina SHPO (2012; listed 2013). Establishes course chronology (laid out 1914; opened 1917; clubhouse 1922), describes the east–west routing in Little Creek valley, documents the 1940 sand-to-grass conversion and tee adjustments (holes 3,5,7,8,9), details the 1968 addition of an alternate green used as the “12th,” and provides hole-by-hole summaries and site features (bridges, cart paths, practice-range entrance). Source also states Ross authorship is “very likely” but based on secondary sources.
Tryon Country Club — official website. “History” (club founded 1916; added to National Register 2013; authorship attributed to Ross), “Course Tour” (nine-hole Ross design; played as eighteen via alternate tees; par 72 men / par 75 women; rating/slope combinations; hole-by-hole descriptions noting stream crossings, bunkering, and green character).
Tryon Country Club — “The First 50 Years” (club history booklet). Assembles early local reporting and club memory; explicitly notes the absence of Ross plan sheets/invoices and states that the only direct evidence of Ross’s authorship is a notation in his notebook; corroborates maintenance/modernization milestones (irrigation program; 1936 transition to Bermuda greens described in period coverage; Depression-era activities).
North Carolina Modernist (Tryon architects PDF) & Tryon Daily Bulletin reporting (2013–2016). Provide community context, credit Emma Payne Erskine with initiating the golf project and (in some accounts) with engaging Ross; centennial and National Register coverage that recaps the course’s early timeline.