Great Southern Golf Club was an 18-hole golf course located in
Gulfport, Mississippi
Gulfport is the second-largest city in Mississippi after the state capital, Jackson. Along with Biloxi, Gulfport is the co-county seat of Harrison County and the larger of the two principal cities of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolit ...
overlooking the
Mississippi Sound
The Mississippi Sound is a sound along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It runs east-west along the southern coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, from Waveland, Mississippi, to the Dauphin Island Bridge, a distance of about . The sound is sepa ...
. Designed by
Donald Ross and built in 1908, the Great Southern Golf Club was the oldest golf course in Mississippi. To satisfy mortgage debts, the land was sold at auction in 2021 to a residential developer.
After 114 years of operation, the golf course closed in May 2022 due to lack of funding.
History
When entrepreneur
Joseph T. Jones completed construction of the
Great Southern Hotel
Yue Hwa Building () is a historic building located at the junction of Eu Tong Sen Street and Upper Cross Street in Chinatown, Singapore, next to Chinatown MRT station. Built by Swan and Maclaren in 1927, it was then the tallest building in Chin ...
in 1903, he also provided guest amenities to attract more tourists. In 1908, the Jones family funded construction of a 9-hole golf course overlooking the
Mississippi Sound
The Mississippi Sound is a sound along the Gulf Coast of the United States. It runs east-west along the southern coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, from Waveland, Mississippi, to the Dauphin Island Bridge, a distance of about . The sound is sepa ...
to draw in more guests to their hotel.
The course was designed by
Donald Ross and built by New Orleans architect Charles Nieman.
The golf course was located east of the Great Southern Hotel, between Gulfport and
Biloxi
Biloxi ( ; ) is a city in and one of two county seats of Harrison County, Mississippi, United States (the other being the adjacent city of Gulfport). The 2010 United States Census recorded the population as 44,054 and in 2019 the estimated popu ...
. In 1910, a clubhouse was built, and the course became the Great Southern Golf and Country Club.
In 1921, land north of the
L&N Railroad
The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States.
Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of the ...
(now
CSX Railroad
CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
) was acquired, and the golf course was expanded to 18 holes.
Years of significance
Notable guests and professional golfers who played the course included:
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
,
Walter Hagen
Walter Charles Hagen (December 21, 1892 – October 6, 1969) was an American professional golfer and a major figure in golf in the first half of the 20th century. His tally of 11 professional majors is third behind Jack Nicklaus (18) and Tig ...
,
Gene Sarazen,
Byron Nelson
John Byron Nelson Jr. (February 4, 1912 – September 26, 2006) was an American professional golfer between 1935 and 1946, widely considered one of the greatest golfers of all time.
Nelson and two other legendary champions of the time, Ben Hoga ...
,
Sam Snead
Samuel Jackson Snead (pronounced English_phonology">sni:d.html" ;"title="English_phonology.html" ;"title="nowiki/>English phonology">sni:d">English_phonology.html" ;"title="nowiki/>English phonology">sni:d May 27, 1912 – May 23, 2002) was an ...
,
Ben Hogan
William Ben Hogan (August 13, 1912 – July 25, 1997) was an American professional golfer who is generally considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the game. He is notable for his profound influence on golf swing theory an ...
,
Glenna Collett-Vare and
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (; Didrikson; June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete who excelled in golf, basketball, baseball and track and field. She won two gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Summer O ...
.
In March 1944,
Jug McSpaden
Harold Lee "Jug" McSpaden (July 21, 1908 – April 22, 1996) was an American professional golfer, and golf course architect.
Early career
Born in Monticello, Kansas, McSpaden became interested in golf at the age of ten, after seeing Harry Va ...
won the first of two
PGA Gulfport Open The Gulfport Open was a golf tournament on the PGA Tour that played in the 1940s on Mississippi's oldest golf course, the Great Southern Golf Club of Gulfport.
At the 1945 event, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead finished play in regulation tied for the ...
tournaments held at Great Southern Golf Club. Sam Snead defeated Byron Nelson in a playoff at the 1945 Gulfport Open.
Ownership of the course changed hands several times through the years, along with name changes to the course. From the 1960s to 1990s, it was part of the
Broadwater Hotel Resort under the name Broadwater Sea Course.
In 1964, the club hosted the
Mary Mills Mississippi Gulf Coast Invitational that was won by
Mickey Wright
Mary Kathryn "Mickey" Wright (February 14, 1935 – February 17, 2020) was an American professional golfer who played on the LPGA Tour. She became a member of the tour in 1955 and won 82 LPGA Tour career events including 13 major champion ...
.
In 1993, the course was purchased by local residents and members of the golf club, who renamed it the Great Southern Golf Club.
In 1999, the Great Southern golf course was renovated by architect
Brian Curley, who retained the original square greens from Donald Ross's original design.
Decline
In 2005,
Hurricane Katrina destroyed up to 400 trees on the property and demolished the 95-year-old clubhouse.
Flood water from the gulf storm surge decimated the golf course grasses and damaged infrastructure throughout the course.
In 2013, a new 4,800 sq ft clubhouse was completed, and the golf course was restored.
The debt incurred from storm recovery resulted in a
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy filing in 2019, because there was insufficient funding from membership fees and public-play rates to maintain operations.
In 2021, the property was sold at auction to a developer with plans to construct single-family homes.
In April 2022, after more than 100 years of operation, Great Southern Golf Club announced that Mississippi's oldest golf course would close May 9, 2022.
References
External links
*
Great Southern Golf Course on the MS Gulf Coast Introduction – WLOX-TV
{{Authority control
1908 establishments in Mississippi
Buildings and structures in Gulfport, Mississippi
Golf clubs and courses in Mississippi
Defunct golf clubs and courses
Buildings and structures demolished in 2005