Bowden Golf Course, known formally as Charles L. Bowden Golf Course, is a

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". Th ...

located in

Macon, Georgia Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in the U.S. state of Georgia. Situated near the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is located southeast of Atlanta and lies near the geographic center of the state of Geo ...

History

The course was designed in 1938 by John C. Cotton, a Macon professional golfer, and built by labor supplied by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

on the site of a former airfield in east Macon, known as Miller Field. Most of the growth in golf courses between 1933 and 1942 came from

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

initiatives, changing the face of golf in the United States. By early 1937, more than $12 million of work at about 368 courses had been completed throughout the country. Macon was able to take advantage of this program, securing $55,000 of the $70,000 needed to develop the course. The local Junior Chamber of Commerce raised much of the rest through contributions and the sale of memberships. The course was completed in September 1940. The property consisted of approximately 229 acres with an 18-hole course, a driving range and a putting green. Several cobblestone benches that were installed when the course was built are still present at some tees. New structures, including a replacement clubhouse, a golf cart shed, and maintenance buildings, were built in the 1970s and are not historically significant. Holes 1 and 10 are at the site of the former Miller Field. In 1961, Bowden Golf Course became the first public facility in Macon to become racially integrated. In March 2015 the course was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Notes

References

Golf clubs and courses in Georgia (U.S. state) Works Progress Administration in Georgia (U.S. state) Sports in Macon, Georgia Geography of Macon, Georgia African-American sports history African-American history of Georgia (U.S. state) {{GeorgiaUS-NRHP-stub