The Richmond Country Club is a former four-time PGA Tour stop and the first in America to invite African Americans to play in professional tournaments. They joined the likes of Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead who won the 1945 Richmond Open with a 72-hole winning score of 283.
In the early 1950’s Richmond Country Club hosted the women’s professional tour with the best players of the era. ‘Babe’ Didrikson Zaharias won the first Richmond Ladies Open with a score of 224 after three rounds. Patty Berg 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.
We began in 1924 as the Carquinez Golf Club. Our original ProShop was less than ten feet wide and twenty feet long. By 1927, we had grown to 300 members and built a clubhouse which still stands today. Some of those early members flew their private planes to the golf course and used the 9th fairway as a runway.
In 1938 the Richmond Country Club hired Pat Markovich, the Assistant Golf Pro at San Francisco Golf Club, as Richmond Country Club’s ProShop Manager. It was Pat Markovich who changed our name from Carquinez Golf Club to Richmond Country Club. Pat Markovich also attracted the professional tournaments, helping the Richmond Country Club become one of the bay area’s elite private clubs. A painting of Pat Markovich hangs in the clubhouse to commemorate and celebrate his contribution to the Richmond Country Club.
Via Richmond CC