Shoal Creek Club is an invitation-only private golf club in the
southeastern United States
The Southeastern United States, also referred to as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States. It is located broadly on the eastern portion of the southern United States and the southern por ...
, located in
Shelby County, Alabama
Shelby County is located in the Central Alabama, central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the population was 223,024. The county seat is Columbiana, Alabama, Columbiana. The largest city is A ...
, southeast of
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
. Opened in 1977, the course was designed by
Jack Nicklaus
Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed The Golden Bear, is a retired American professional golfer and List of golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest go ...
and is rated as the top golf course in the state. Shoal Creek is consistently listed as one of United States top courses, most recently being ranked #50 in ''Golf Digest'' and #70 in ''Golf Week''.
Tournaments
Shoal Creek has played host to numerous
PGA PGA is an acronym or initialism that may stand for:
Aviation
* IATA code for Page Municipal Airport, Coconino County, Arizona
* ICAO designator for Portugália, regional airline based in Lisbon, Portugal
* Abbreviation for Prince George Airport ...
,
USGA
The United States Golf Association (USGA) is the United States national association of golf courses, clubs and facilities and the governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. Together with The R&A, the USGA produces and interprets the rules ...
, and
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
events, including the
PGA Championship
The PGA Championship (often referred to as the US PGA Championship or USPGA outside the United States) is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It is one of the four men's major championships ...
(
1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...
,
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
), the
U.S. Amateur
The United States Amateur Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Amateur, is the leading annual golf tournament in the United States for amateur golfers. It is organized by the United States Golf Association and is currently held each August ov ...
(1986), and the
U.S. Junior Amateur (2008). It hosted the
Regions Tradition
The Tradition (known as the Regions Tradition for sponsorship reasons) is an event on the PGA Tour Champions. First staged in 1989, the PGA Tour recognizes the event as one of the five senior major golf championships. Unlike the U.S. Senior Ope ...
, a
senior major for five years (2011–2015), until its move to
Greystone Country Club, a few minutes down the road.
[ Shoal Creek hosted the ]U.S. Women's Open
The U.S. Women's Open, one of 15 national golf championships conducted by the United States Golf Association (USGA), is the oldest of the LPGA Tour's five major championships, which includes the Chevron Championship, Women's PGA Championship, W ...
in 2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...
.
In addition, the course has been the site of USGA qualifiers for the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Mid-Amateur, and U.S. Junior Amateur, as well as the Southern Golf Association Championship. Other tournaments hosted there include the 1978 Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...
Championship, the Jerry Pate
Jerome Kendrick Pate (born September 16, 1953) is an American professional golfer on the PGA Tour Champions, formerly on the PGA Tour. As a 22-year-old rookie, he won the U.S. Open in 1976.
Early years
Born in Macon, Georgia, Pate grew up in the ...
Intercollegiate Tournament (1992–1996), the Women's Alabama Golf Association Junior Championship (1992), the Birmingham Golf Association Junior Championship (2001), and its own Shoal Creek Senior Invitational since 1998.
Course
There are several sets of tees; the back tees (5 star) are at
with a course rating
A golf handicap is a numerical measure of a golfer's potential that is used to enable players of varying abilities to compete against one another. Better players are those with the lowest handicaps.
Historically, rules relating to handicaps have v ...
of 76.2 and a slope rating
The slope rating of a golf course is a measure of its relative difficulty for a bogey golfer compared to a scratch golfer. It is used by handicapping systems to equalize the field by accounting for the likelihood that, when playing on more difficu ...
of 145.[
]
Membership
Up until 1990, Shoal Creek had no African-American members. A firestorm began when club founder Hall Thompson commented that the club would not be pressured to accept African-American members, stating "this is our home, and we pick and choose who we want." These comments, made prior to the 1990 PGA Championship
The 1990 PGA Championship was the 72nd PGA Championship, held August 9–12 at Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama. Wayne Grady won his only major championship, three strokes ahead of runner-up Fred Couples.
In the final ro ...
, made the tournament front-page news as civil rights groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civi ...
threatened to protest the event and sponsors pulled advertising from the tournament. The PGA considered moving the tournament away from Shoal Creek, but in the end reached a compromise with the club: local insurance executive Louis J. Willie was invited by the mayor of Birmingham to become an honorary member with full membership to come after the waiting-list period of any membership application. Willie was also the first black member of the Kiwanis Club
Kiwanis International ( ) is an international service club founded in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, and is found in more than 80 nations and geographic areas. Since 1987, the organizatio ...
of Birmingham, The Downtown Club and The Club, all civic and social clubs.
This incident forced everyone associated with golf – clubs, the PGA, and the USGA – to look at minority access in the sport. The PGA and USGA changed rules regarding course selection, requiring clubs that hosted events to meet inclusive membership requirements.
In 1994, four years after the 1990 incident, Willie remained the only black member of Shoal Creek. In October of that year, sensational young golfer Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records.
*
*
* Woods is widely regarded as ...
won the individual intercollegiate championship by two strokes and led Stanford to team victory in the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate tournament held at Shoal Creek. At this time, Shoal Creek founder Hall Thompson said of Woods, "You're a great player, I'm proud of you. You're superb." Shoal Creek did not host any major golf event until 2008, when the club hosted the U.S. Junior Amateur.
In regards to membership, Shoal Creek has welcomed some African-Americans (two women) and Jews as members. In September 2009, Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice ( ; born November 14, 1954) is an American diplomat and political scientist who is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the 66th Uni ...
, the former United States Secretary of State
The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
under President George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
became a full member of Shoal Creek. To date, only two women have been allowed to join. Rice is originally from the Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...
area. In addition to joining Shoal Creek, Rice became a member of Greystone Golf & Country Club
Greystone Golf & Country Club is a private 36-hole golf club in the southeastern United States, located in Hoover, Alabama, a suburb southeast of Birmingham.
Opened in 1991, the first of the two courses was the Founders Course, designed by Bob ...
. On August 20, 2012, Rice was one of the first two women admitted to Augusta National Golf Club
Augusta National Golf Club, sometimes referred to as Augusta or the National, is a golf club in Augusta, Georgia, United States. Unlike most private clubs which operate as non-profits, Augusta National is a for-profit corporation, and it does no ...
.
References
External links
* {{official, http://www.shoalcreekclub.com/
Nicklaus Design
– Shoal Creek
Landmarks in Alabama
Golf clubs and courses in Alabama
Golf clubs and courses designed by Jack Nicklaus
Buildings and structures in Shelby County, Alabama
History of racism in Alabama
1977 establishments in Alabama