100 Years: Country Club of Jackson

By Tom Lang

    Jackson has had three golf courses turn 100 years old; including the Country Club of Jackson adding to the list here in 2026. Arbor Hills turned one century old last year as did Sharp Park a couple years before that.

    Interestingly, in a sport general dominated by men, research provided by the CC of Jackson credits a woman – Clara Carter – with bringing the sport to the people of Jackson way back in 1898. Since then, the city of Jackson has been a beacon of Michigan golf, having also produced three PGA Tour pros in Brian Stuard, plus the late brothers Dave and Mike Hill – and Elaine Crosby on the LPGA Tour. All four won professionally.

    Clara Carter attended school in New York, and when she returned to her native Jackson, she organized a group of about three dozen people who laid out a 9-hole course on a local 16-acre private park owned by another woman, Mrs. M.A. Littlefield. They began play in 1898 on their temporary course, said to be 2,700 yards long at par 37, with room for only 9 holes on the land. In 1900, the group formally organized the Meadow Heights Country Club.

    As the popularity of 18-hole courses grew state and nationwide, Meadow Heights ended its run about when the Country Club of Jackson was formed in 1925. The latter’s plans were to build 18 holes that opened on June 10, 1926, with some 200 golfers playing on the first day.

    I had the chance to try CC of Jackson in July, the home course of Crosby. She played tennis for the University of Michigan but switched to golf before graduating, made the varsity squad then won twice on the LPGA Tour and added four runners up during her pro career in the 1980s and ‘90s. For 18 years starting in 1999, Crosby hosted the Wendy’s Charity Classic at Country Club of Jackson. The charity pro-am raised over $3 million for Wendy’s Wonderful Kids and the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

    Just weeks after our round, Crosby competed in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open played at Barton Hills in Ann Arbor, another 1920’s club. 

   CC of Jackson has three 9-hole layouts: the Pines, the Woods and the Marsh (which was added to the original layout in 1992 with an Arthur Hills design).

    I really liked the original front nine stretch of holes 3, 4 and 5 (Pines). Hole 3 is a straight up par three with a wonderful and challenging green complex. Hole 4 is a par four left turning dog leg with a beautiful looking approach to a green that sits beyond a dip in the fairway. Hole 5 also turns left as a par five with another nice green complex supporting bunkers guarding the front, 25 yards ahead of the green.

    Holes 3 and 4 on the Woods course are holes 12 and 13 from the original layout. They were my favorites – if for no other reason due to the beautiful elevation changes in that region of the course – a much more dramatic departure from the land that’s generally on the flatter side overall. 

    Hole 12 features a nice long drive to get to the elevated start of the fairway. Once over a gully, the fairway turns right and goes downhill to the green. It’s a very long par four with a couple of nice big trees framing the right side during the approach shot to the green. 

    Hole 13’s back tees are highly elevated and is the highest point on the golf course. The green has been expanded in the past few years because it had shrunk over time. A nice set of bunkers guard the right and left side of that green.

    “This is my favorite place,” Crosby told me. “It’s defiantly an old-style course. And these are the kind of ones I tended to play better on tour. The 12th, 13th and maybe 15th (Woods 3, 4 and 6) are considered the signature-wise holes.”
    The club’s biggest tragedy came in mid-October of 1952, when fire destroyed the original Spanish-style clubhouse – along with almost all the personal golfing property of members who stored their clubs inside it during the off season. Members moved at lightning speed to replace the building with the current brick and mortar building, which was planned, built and opened less than one year later – the same time the nines were put back to their original order.

    Other key dates in the Country Club of Jackson timeline include:

1929: moved 13th green to make hole 65 yards longer

1932 and ’34: Walter Hagen exhibitions

1950: Joined Detroit District Golf Assoc. (Now GAM)

1951: Ben Hogan exhibition

1952: Clubhouse burns to the ground

1953: new Clubhouse opens

1992: new 9 holes by Arthur Hills; also ended gender-specific tee times.

2002: New Pool, new Tennis Courts open