Idle Hour Country Club

Idle Hour Country Club occupies a compact, gently rolling tract along Richmond Road just a few miles from downtown Lexington. Today it functions as a private, member-owned club with an 18-hole course from the longest “Ross” tees playing to roughly 7,018 yards at par 71. Practice amenities are in place—driving range, putting green, and short-game areas—serving an active golf membership alongside the clubhouse and racquet/swim facilities that cluster near the course’s in-and-out loops. Visitors encounter a tree-lined Bluegrass setting with mid-scale elevation changes and several interior water features, including a pond fronting the par-3 thirteenth. The club emphasizes daily member play and periodically stages prominent amateur competitions; most recently, the Southern Golf Association selected Idle Hour for the 118th Southern Amateur in July 2024, bringing a national elite-amateur field to the Ross layout. Course presentation is contemporary—bentgrass playing surfaces at tournament speeds—but the corridors, many green sites, and a number of bunkering patterns continue to reflect the club’s early-20th-century origins.