Youngstown - Ohio - USA

Youngstown Country Club was founded as Mahoning Golf Club in 1898, with a 9-hole course brought into play for the members. In 1905, a growing city forced the club to decamp to another location, but it remained there for only a couple of years before moving to its present site on what was the 131-acre Holland Farm and changing its name.

Walter Travis was engaged to design only his third 18-hole course after Ekwanok in 1899 and Salisbury Links (now Cherry Valley Club) in 1907 and the cost of Youngstown's construction was reputed to be in the region of $75,000. The formal opening took place on 28th June 1912 with a brilliant evening reception in the new clubhouse which had cost $60,000 so obviously no expense was spared at the club’s new premises.

Donald Ross was then called in to remodel the layout in 1924, so it’s not known how much of the original Travis design remained in use after this work was carried out.

In the book The American Private Golf Course Guide, author Daniel Wexler describes Youngstown as “a shortish course but one offering several points of interest, particularly in its north eastern section, where a brook prominently affects the 354-yard 2nd, the 402-yard 3rd, the 341-yard 15th and the 323-yard 14th, a potentially driveable par four featuring both a long creek carry and a tiny, heavily bunkered green.”