Brunswick Country Club

Brunswick Country Club is a private club on the Darien Highway (U.S. 17) north of downtown Brunswick, on the Georgia mainland opposite the Golden Isles. Its 18-hole, par-72 course is Donald Ross's 1938 work: he designed the back nine and redrew the greens of an existing nine, and the full course opened in 1939. Love Golf Design restored it in 2006 and 2007 from Ross's own green drawings, which now hang framed in a clubhouse hallway. The course plays to 6,802 yards from the Blue tees, with a 6,437-yard Ross tee and forward sets down to 4,790 yards. The ground is flat and largely open off the tee, with trees lining many fairways, drainage ditches crossing three front-nine holes, a pond across the front of the 6th green and water to the side of the 8th and 18th. The interest is at the greens. Rebuilt to Ross's sizes, shapes and contours, they are guarded by deep, grass-faced bunkers, and they are what visiting players and writers single out. The 16,000-square-foot clubhouse opened in 2009 with a golf shop, dining room, grill room and bar, locker rooms, a fitness center and a pool, and it overlooks the 9th and 18th greens. A teaching center is led by PGA professional Ray Cutright. The club has hosted the Golden Isles Invitational, an amateur event that now counts toward the World Amateur Golf Ranking, since 1949, and allows limited unaccompanied guest play arranged through a visitor's golf professional.