Laurel Country Club

Overview: Laurel Country Club is one of Mississippi’s oldest golf institutions, with a parkland course in Laurel shaped by Seymour Dunn. The layout belongs to an earlier period of American golf, when a local club, its professional and the surrounding community built a course as part of a broader social and sporting institution. Its present profile is therefore about continuity as much as technical design. The course has retained a long connection with the city, while its 18-hole routing and tree-lined setting provide the structure for contemporary play. The historical date is important, but it should be read as the opening of the course rather than the founding date of the club.

History: Laurel Country Club was founded in 1917, and the club’s official history says play began on the course in late 1919. The first official tournament was held on February 14, 1920, which is the reliable course-opening milestone used here. Seymour Dunn, a professional from New York’s Lake Placid Club, laid out and supervised construction of the first nine holes and became the club’s first golf professional. The clubhouse followed soon afterward, and the club has continued as a private Mississippi institution for more than a century.

Did You Know? The club’s early tournament history includes visits from Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, Louise Suggs, Carol Mann and Kathy Whitworth. Their appearances connect this local course with several major figures from the formative decades of women’s professional golf.