Our Story
In 1911 a small group of citizens formed the McAlester Country Club. The year before, a strip of land 160 acres long had been rented for thirty-two dollars and fifty cents a year. It had been Indian Territory four years earlier, and in 1914 the club bought all 160 acres for $2,400. The man behind the effort was Melvin Cornish, a local attorney and the club’s first president.
The pest house on the first green
One of the first problems the new board faced was what to do with the pest house standing near what is now the number one green. Pest houses were common then, used to quarantine victims of communicable diseases, each with a cook and several guards. This one was in use when the club bought the land and held several victims of smallpox. The board shut it down so the golf course could be built.
At the board meeting of 29 April 1911, plans were requested for a building 40 by 60 by 16 feet. Work started on 14 June and the open-air pavilion was finished on 12 September, at a cost of $8,000.
Arthur Jackson’s original nine
Arthur Jackson designed what is still called the original nine. He came to Oklahoma from Scotland in 1907, and in 1912 became assistant pro at Tulsa Golf and Country Club, a few years after laying out three Oklahoma courses including this one. The course was ready for use in 1911, the club’s first year.
Those holes stand much as Jackson left them. Some fairways have been lengthened, some shortened. Sand greens were used for the first fifteen or twenty years, and in the 1920s bermuda grass was put in by inmate labor from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. The inmates came early in the morning, the club fed them their noon meal, and they worked until late evening.
Professionals
The first golf professional, hired in 1911, was Guy P. Crooks, who served eight years. He and the next nine men to hold the job were not official professionals, since none belonged to the PGA. The first PGA professional, James H. Shelton, arrived in 1957.
The club also employed Bob Dickson, the 1967 U.S. and British Amateur champion, a two-time PGA Tour winner and a one-time Champions Tour winner.
Since then
Tennis courts, swimming pools and a driving range have been added. A second nine, designed by PGA professional Carl Higgins, was completed in 1999 and intermingled with the old nine to form the course as it plays today.
Since 1958 the club has hosted the MCC Invitational, one of the longest-running individual medal-play tournaments in Oklahoma.