Elegant. Exclusive. Expensive. Few things in Houston symbolize these words like the River Oaks Country Club. Nouveau riche name-droppers know that the casual mention of a home in the River Oaks community will impress, but the elite who can boast membership in the Country Club as well as the community aren’t the kind to pepper their conversation with such indiscreet disclosures. Private is a term that describes the River Oaks Country Club in more ways than one, and the members like it that way.

For the 1,560 or so individual members and their families, River Oaks Country Club is home away from home. For the other four million or so individuals in Houston, it’s an icon of wealth and privilege they can view only from the other side of a gate tended by a guard with the reserved demeanor of a Victorian butler. While most Houstonians may be content to accept the curtain of privacy drawn around the club, many golfers can’t help but wonder what treasures lie hidden in the manicured greens and tree-lined fairways behind the clubhouse.

Golf Started it All
River Oaks truly is a community that golf created. On Feb. 1, 1923, the River Oaks Country Club filed incorporation papers. That year, founders Thomas H. Ball, Thomas H. Guthrie and T.W. House Jr. carved the club out of the northern half of 375 densely wooded acres on the south bank of the Buffalo Bayou. It wasn’t until the following year, 1924, that developers filed the first subdivision plat for the southern half of the tract and gave club members the option to purchase lots adjacent to their already beloved club. When River Oaks developers and prominent businessmen Hugh Potter, Will Hogg and Mike Hogg made additional land purchases in 1924, they brought the total acreage of the River Oaks development to more than 1,000 acres. These thousand acres have been a Houston landmark ever since.

At that time in Houston’s history, a time when horses and mules outnumbered automobiles, a love of golf may have been the only force strong enough to drive well-to-do city residents out to the west-side hinterlands where River Oaks held court. Undeveloped land and farms surrounded the Country Club, and prospective golfers or residents could access River Oaks only by dirt road. To say that River Oaks was a highly speculative development with less than brisk lot sales would be an understatement. In 1925, while trying to promote the early River Oaks to reluctant buyers, Will Hogg relied on “a golf course, which for natural beauty, natural protection, immediate access, and park-way approach, can never be duplicated in Houston?” as the primary draw. It took some time, and some reduction in the original 3.5 to 14.25 acre lot size, but his description eventually did bring in buyers. Now, almost 80 years later, Hogg’s words seem eerily prophetic; his description remains true, and his proclamation that River Oaks could never be duplicated in Houston stands unchallenged.

The Course of History
From the moment of its creation, the River Oaks Country Club has made a tradition of seeking out the best designers, architects and pros to create a golf course and club environment to exceed members’ expectations. Donald Ross, the foremost golf course architect of his time and one of the most revered to this day, designed the original River Oaks course in 1923. John E. Staub, the local architectural legend who also designed Ima Hogg’s Bayou Bend mansion, as well as numerous River Oaks estates, completed the original Spanish Colonial clubhouse building in 1924. Jack Burke, a top PGA competitor of the era, rounded out this extraordinary collection when he took the reins as the club’s first golf pro in the fall of 1924. Golf was still in its infancy in America when the club opened, but Houston’s golfers couldn’t have had stronger hands to support their first steps onto the fairway.

The Scotland-born Ross, who also designed such courses as Oak Hill, the Broadmoor and the legendary No. 2 course at Pinehurst, created at River Oaks a 6,375 yard, par 71 course with tree-lined fairways, small greens and challenging bunkers. The course was a resounding success. “By 1926, the word about River Oaks had gotten out across Texas, and top players from throughout the state were eager to play the Ross layout. In late May of that year, the Texas Golf Association conducted its 20th annual tournament here, with more than 150 participants entering,” wrote Frank R. Giordano Jr., in “A Chronicle of River Oaks Country Club.”

Twenty years later, on Feb. 18, 1946, local golf enthusiasts formed the Houston Golf Association, and golf in the Bayou City has never been the same. Houstonians today can’t help but take pride in the success of the city’s Shell Houston Open, but perhaps the proudest of all are the members of the River Oaks Country Club. After all, this is where it started back in 1946 as the Tournament of Champions. According to the HGA’s historical records, “The week of May 9-12 the Tournament of Champions teed it up at River Oaks Country Club. Byron Nelson, who had won 11 straight tournaments the year before, beat Ben Hogan by two shots for the $2,000 first prize. Sam Snead finished third but was reportedly ‘very distracted’ by the sunsuit-clad models carrying signs that identified the players.” The appearance of so many golf luminaries at the inaugural tournament foretold great things for the HGA and for the future of golf at River Oaks Country Club. Both have grown and changed in the half-century since that momentous day, but they continue to remain at the top of their game.

While the River Oaks golf course boasts elements of the original Donald Ross design to this day, the march of time and the progress of the game have left their marks. During the years of World War II, the club made its first major changes to the course in an attempt both to improve playability and ease maintenance demands. Renovations and reconstruction on the course have continued ever since. Joe Finger, a frequent collaborator with Jimmy Demaret and Byron Nelson, as well as a renowned designer in his own right, remodeled and modernized the course in 1968. Finger added new bunkers, increased the length of the course and took some controversial measures to stretch an even par 72 out of Ross’s original par 71 course. Most recently, well-known modern course designer Reese Jones, who has worked on numerous Ross courses, updated River Oaks in 1998 to achieve its current par 72 design at 6,865 yards from the back tees.

As surely as the golf course itself has undergone evolution from classic to modern, the clubhouse and other club facilities have kept pace. The current brick clubhouse with its distinctive columned portico replaced the original, smaller wood building in 1969. It is this version of the clubhouse you will see behind the gate as you near the north end of River Oaks Drive. Sheltered behind it, the golf course, tennis courts, pools, private party facilities and all the accoutrements that make the club a luxurious extension of its members’ homes quietly meld every modern convenience with time-honored tradition.

More than Golf
Expanses of luxurious grass and the slice of golf balls through the air may be what many of us associate with the words ‘country club,’ but at River Oaks, the course shares the spotlight with the courts. Since the club created its tennis membership in 1929, then held the first River Oaks Invitational in April of 1931, it has held a special place in the hearts not only of tennis fans in Houston, but of clay court aficionados worldwide. According to Chief Operating Officer and General Manager Joe Bendy, what now is known as the River Oaks International Tennis Tournament is the longest-running clay court tournament held at the same location in North America.

Each year during the first week of April, River Oaks becomes the place to be for tennis. Since the club will be celebrating the tournament’s 70th anniversary in 2004, it promises to be an even more spectacular event than usual. For those who don’t know a serve from a volley, it may be worth marking calendars and boning up on tennis vocabulary. If you’ve always wondered what goes on behind the gates, but you can’t wrangle an invitation from a member or qualify for a spot in a golf tournament, the daily tickets to April’s tennis tournament offer the only avenue for non-members to get a glimpse behind the gates of the River Oaks Country Club. Tennis anyone?

H Online