Chattanooga Golf & Country Club (CGCC) stood on its Riverview bluff above the Tennessee River long before Donald Ross was engaged. The club dates to 1896, but the Ross commission occurred in the early 1920s, when the club retained him to produce a comprehensive new layout on the existing property.
Contemporary directories and modern club histories converge on that window; Golf.com’s Course Finder pegs the work to 1920, while the club’s own account describes a Ross design “in the 1920s,” and independent histories summarize it as “early 1920s.” Given those converging yet imprecise signals, it is most defensible to date Ross’s plan to circa 1920, with construction following immediately thereafter. No surviving club minutes or correspondence have been published to specify his site visits or phasing, but the present routing still reflects his intention to anchor play to the river’s edge for both strategy and setting, most clearly in the outward-half stretch near the water.
There is no documentary evidence that Ross returned for a second phase after the early-1920s build. The next clearly recorded intervention came more than eight decades later: in 2005 the club hired architect Bill Bergin to execute a holistic restoration/renovation “to what would feel like a 1920s Donald Ross course,” guided by a 1940s aerial. Bergin rebuilt all greens and bunkers, re-grassed fairways, added tees, and lengthened the course by roughly 300 yards from the back while shortening forward options—an approach the club credits with “bringing it back to the original design” in overall character, if not in literal fabric.
Unique design characteristics
Ross’s routing at Chattanooga was organized as two returning nines, with the outward half running anti-clockwise along the outside of the property and the inward nine circling an interior residential enclave. Within that frame, several holes demonstrate his property-specific solutions. The right-dogleg 2nd elbows off the tee to a perched target—an early positional ask before the river sequence. The best surviving window into Ross’s riverside intent is the 7-to-9 run: the par-5 7th turns down into the river corridor, the par-4 8th continues along it, and the par-3 9th finishes the sequence, using both wind and lateral water/lowland influences to shape preferred angles. Today’s descriptions of these holes as course “highlights” underscore how the present routing still channels Ross’s choice to exploit the river edge.
On the back nine, short par-4s at the 11th and 17th embody his habit (here, course-specific) of alternating demands. The 17th is the course’s most idiosyncratic hole: a drivable two-shotter that plays across an old logging pit to a small, defendable target. Its scale tempts aggression, but recovery from the pit’s surrounds can be fraught—an example of risk framed by a natural land scar rather than ornamental hazard. The closing hole is a long par-3 (about 222 yards from the back), finishing near the clubhouse terrace; paired with the very short 13th (~128 yards), this creates notable par-3 variety in both length and presentation. The opening hole remains a downhill “vista” drive falling toward the river basin; modern materials show additional bunkering on the left added in restoration to reinstate the intended line-of-charm.
Bunker placement and form today intentionally reference Ross-era precedents rather than copy any one historic photograph. Bergin modeled edge style after Worcester Country Club and Interlachen, two Ross courses with flashed sand faces and clean upper lines, and redistributed fairway bunkers to reinstate diagonal angles off tees like the 2nd and into lay-up zones on the 7th and 16th (the latter a back-nine par-5). Greens were completely reconstructed—with all the interpretive caveats that implies—but many continue to present the kind of front-to-middle tilt and small run-offs that keep approaches honest on holes like 8 and 11, especially in firm conditions.
If one is seeking the clearest living examples of Ross’s work as opposed to modern homage, the 7th–9th river run and the general corridoring and sequencing of the outward nine are the strongest candidates. These play over and along the same river bench that dictated Ross’s original routing decisions and still use the river’s wind and lowland transitions in ways that no post-war remodel could have invented from whole cloth.
Historical significance
Within Ross’s portfolio, Chattanooga sits in the productive 1919–1923 band when he was expanding and refining numerous southern and mid-Atlantic courses on varied terrains. Its importance locally is outsized: CGCC is frequently cited among Tennessee’s leading courses and has long been a state-championship host. The Tennessee State Amateur was played here repeatedly across the 20th century—1922, 1926, 1930, 1934, 1939, 1948, 1952, 1957, 1962, 1967—and returned again in 1983 and in 2023, giving the course one of the deepest hosting résumés in the state. That continuity of competitive use across a century underscores how the routing continues to test elite players even as green speeds and equipment have evolved.
Current condition / integrity
Chattanooga today plays approximately 6,694 yards from the back markers at par 71, with only three par-5s (4, 7, 16) and par-3 bookends at 9 and 18; multiple tees produce pronounced yardage variety. Integrity-wise, the routing bones—especially the riverward stretches and sequencing of the nines—remain recognizably Rossian, but virtually every surface was rebuilt in 2005: all greens, bunkers, tees, and fairways were reconstructed or re-grassed to recapture a 1920s aesthetic and to broaden strategic options. In that work Bergin lengthened the course by about 300 yards from the back while also providing shorter forward tees to improve access. Following the restoration, the club converted its putting surfaces from bentgrass to an ultradwarf bermudagrass (MiniVerde is widely reported) to accommodate summer performance along the Tennessee River; this conversion occurred in the 2010s, with published references to MiniVerde usage by mid-decade and the club summarizing it as “just a few years ago.”
Tree management has opened views to the river and downtown and restored width in several corridors, sharpening the intended diagonal options into landing areas (aesthetic and agronomic benefits that the club and outside observers have both noted). The net result is a course that feels historically grounded in its corridors and sequencing, while candidly modern in its green-surface construction, sandline detailing, and turf palette. For researchers, the key distinction is this: Chattanooga’s Ross heritage is strongest in its routing decisions and land-use choices along the river bench; the putting surfaces and bunker edges you play today are 21st-century reconstructions designed to evoke, not replicate, the 1920s originals.
Citations & notes (including uncertainties)
Club golf page (“designed… in the 1920s”; 2005 Bergin work; ultradwarf conversion noted generally): Chattanooga Golf & Country Club, “Golf” page.
Top100GolfCourses profile (course yardage/par; routing description; hole-by-hole highlights; Bergin’s detailed quotation on scope, 1940s aerial, bunker models, length changes, “four holes along the Tennessee River,” logging-pit 17th, par-3 yardages): “Chattanooga Golf & Country Club,” Top100GolfCourses.
Golf.com Course Finder (attribution to Donald Ross “in 1920”; back-tee yardage/par/USGA data including ultradwarf greens): “Chattanooga Golf & Country Club – Course Profile,” GOLF Course Finder.
Tennessee Golf Association records (State Amateur “Trophy Room,” listing host sites and winners by year; 2023 event announcement): Tennessee Golf Association site.
Local coverage of 2023 Tennessee Amateur at CGCC (contextual confirmation): Chattanooga Pulse, Aug. 4, 2023.
Additional reference on MiniVerde greens in use at CGCC (directory content; corroborates ultradwarf usage though not an install year): MiniVerde official site / GOLF Course Finder text. Note: sources vary on exact conversion year; club site gives only a relative statement.
Uncertainties & disputed points
Exact Ross year(s): Golf.com lists “1920,” while the club and independent directories say “early 1920s” without a specific year. Absent primary minutes or dated plans, this directory treats the redesign as circa 1920.
Ross return visits: No public documentation confirms a second Ross phase after the initial build; later alterations (notably the 2005 Bergin work) are well documented by the architect, but mid-century changes sometimes cited anecdotally lack citable primary sources here and thus are omitted.
Greens conversion date & cultivar: The club’s website notes only a recent conversion to “ultra-dwarf Bermuda.” Trade and directory references often ascribe MiniVerde specifically, but do not provide an install year; this summary therefore avoids asserting an exact date.