The Richmond Country Club is a private social gathering place and sports facility for golf in the Hilltop District of Richmond, California,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

History

The land was originally inhabited by the Ohlone people; Spanish

conquistadores Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...

colonized the land in the 1840s and developed the Rancho San Pablo. The Richmond Country Club began formerly known as the Carquinez Golf Club, established in 1924. The club began to struggle during the deep recession. Which was a semi-private club meaning if you weren’t a member a round of golf could be played for 5 cents. It’s manager and head professional, Ed Sawyer, has been found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Ed poured his own money into the Carquinez CC until he ran out of cash. There were less than 40 members at that time. The course had been redesigned to the present configuration in the early 1930s, but was in poor condition and still lacked the necessary water for proper irrigation. The few existing members reached out to Pat Markovich who was well known on the West Coast as an excellent golfer and a member of the PGA. There was a small Board of Directors, but Pat Markovich ran the Carquinez CC. The club was not an immediate success. The country club was eventually rebranded as the "Richmond Golf Club" in the early 1930s. The country club has views towards the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge and Mount Tamalpais. The club is a former four-time

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

stop and the first in the United States to invite African Americans to participate in professional tournaments. They joined the likes of

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 ...

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 ...

and

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 ...

who won the 1945 Richmond Open with a 72-hole winning score of 283. In the early 1950’s Richmond Country Club hosted the

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of week ...

with the best players of the decade.

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 ...

won the first Richmond Ladies Open with a score of 224 after three rounds.

Patty Berg Patricia Jane Berg (February 13, 1918 – September 10, 2006) was an American professional golfer. She was a founding member and the first president of the LPGA. Her 15 major title wins remains the all-time record for most major wins by a fem ...

won the second Women's Open in 1952, shooting 8-under par from the men’s tees and set a women’s course record that stands to this day. In April of 1953 Pat Markovich and several other investors from Richmond bought the Maxwell estate located on the

Silverado Trail The Silverado Trail is a scenic route that travels 29 miles along the Eastern edge of the Napa Valley, parallel to and several miles to the east of California State Route 29. History The road began as a trail built in 1852 after flooding made the ...

in Napa to form the Silverado Country Club. The ranch was subdivided into 140 parcels and the area around the present day country club was formed into the Nitro Powder Company which changed hands to the Giant Powder Company (also formerly known as

Giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...

). In 1964 it was again sold to

Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succe ...

. A portion of the steel site was sold to create an expanded Richmond Country Club in 1974. The club covers thousands of acres in the northern Hilltop neighborhood between

Hilltop Mall Hilltop Horizon, formerly known as Hilltop Mall, East Bay Science and Technology Center and The Shops At Hilltop, was a regional shopping center in the Hilltop neighborhood of Richmond, California. Hilltop is managed and co-owned by Prologis ...

and

Point Pinole Point Pinole Regional Shoreline is a regional park on the shores of the San Pablo Bay, California (the northern arm of the San Francisco Bay), in the United States. It is approximately in area, and is operated by the East Bay Regional Park Dis ...

and is adjacent to Parchester Village to the west, near its entrance along Atlas road and the Richmond Parkway. It is served by

AC Transit AC Transit (Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District) is an Oakland-based public transit agency serving the western portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. AC Transit also operates "Transbay" ro ...

's routes 71, 376, and LA/LC. It is on more than and has been around since before 1900. Since 1991 the club has hosted a charity tournament for disadvantaged students of Salesian College Preparatory (formerly Salesian High School). In 2018, Pat Markovich was inducted into the Northern California PGA Hall of Fame section.

References

External links

Richmond Country Club

History of the Club
* Wikimapi
aerial image
of the Richmond Country Club Parks in Richmond, California Buildings and structures in Richmond, California 1974 establishments in California {{ContraCostaCountyCA-struct-stub