Williams Country Club - West Virginia - USA

Located in the Ohio River Valley, golf at Williams Country Club was played here just prior to the club’s formation back in 1932 when Emil Loeffler – greens keeper at Oakmont – was tasked with setting out the fairways on land that was then known as “the old Griffith farm”.

Named after J.C. Williams, the president of Weirton Steel, who owned the property, the Williams course started life as a 9-hole layout and it only became a full 18-hole affair in 1937 when a clubhouse was also brought into use on top of a ridge overlooking the Ohio River, some 400 feet below.

Some of the more remarkable holes include back-to-back par fives at the 562-yard 3rd and 544-yard 4th, the water-protected par three 12th and the 497-yard 14th, played to a sand-encircled raised green.

The steel company withdrew its involvement in the club fifty years after its formation and it was successfully operated by the membership until 2015, as evidenced in the club hosting West Virginia Open competitions, Tri-State PGA tournaments and other such prestigious events.

In May of 2015, James C. Markovitz, a Pennsylvania businessman and long-term member of Williams Country Club purchased the property with the intention of restoring it to its former glory. Since then, a bunker renovation programme has completed and more than 300 trees removed.