Kalispel Golf and Country Club (formerly known as Spokane Country Club) moved to its present location in 1910. Thirty-six years later, the club was chosen to host the first U.S. Women’s Open championship, won by Patty Berg, the only one ever contested as match play.
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Kalispel Golf and Country Club (formerly known as Spokane Country Club) moved to its present location in 1910. Thirty-six years later, the club was chosen to host the first U.S. Women’s Open championship, won by Patty Berg, the only one ever contested as match play.
Kalispel
Spokane Country Club was formed in 1898 in the South Hill district of Spokane where golfers played over a rudimentary 9-hole course. The club moved to its current location along the banks of Little Spokane River in 1910 to enjoy an 18-hole course designed by an emigrant Scotsman from North Berwick, Robert Johnstone, who was the professional at Seattle Golf Club.
Cornishman and four-time major champion, “Long” Jim Barnes, assisted Johnstone with Spokane’s original design and thirty-six years later, the club was chosen to host the first U.S. Women’s Open championship, won by Patty Berg, the only event ever contested as match play.
Robert Muir Graves conducted a course remodel in 1988, but the par 72 layout that’s in play today at the foothills of Rattlesnake Ridge is largely the one that was laid out by an Englishman and a Scotsman more than one hundred years ago.
In late 2015, the Kalispel Tribe of Indians purchased Spokane Country Club and changed the club’s name to Kalispel Golf and Country Club – a poignant commemoration to the people of the Northwest Plateau.