Highland Country Club history

Elmer Gerth moved on to be golf professional in Richmond, IN, then Coral Gables, FL. His caddy master, Harry McAtee, succeeded him in 1944.

In 1945, the original clubhouse was sold and a new clubhouse was built at the present Franklin Street Road site.

In 1946, the club had 400 members; that year a local newspaper called Highland “the Golfingest Club in Town,” when it hosted the Women’s Western Open.

In 1958, at the height of his golfing career, Highland Park was renamed "Charley Boswell Golf Course at Highland Park." Charley sponsored many Pro/Am tournaments, raising more than a million dollars for the Helen Keller Eye Research Foundation.

The purchase of additional land was acted upon and the club doubled in real estate in just a few years. It was becoming a very popular site for entertainment and golf when fire hit once again in 1960.

The members once again picked up their hammers and nails and rebuilt the clubhouse in 1961.

A fire beginning in the kitchen, swept through the clubhouse building on March 14, 1968.

"It was built to burn", said Birmingham Fire Marshal, Agron Rosenfeld, Friday morning, June 30, 1972, the day the grand old clubhouse burned to the ground. "Like somebody had lit a box of pine knot kindling", a bystander remarked.

Completed on July 4, 1974, and designed by Geoffrey S. Cornish, a famous New England golf course architect, the back nine offers exceptional challenge and adventure to the average golfer with its quick sloping greens and surrounding bunkers.

Retiring in 1980, the lower level lounge is renamed in his honor.

The white frame cottage that served as the golf professional's residence was raised in 1981.

In 1983 the course planned to expand from 9 holes to 18.

A new 25 meter pool with diving well was built in 1985 to replace the smaller pool that was located just behind the clubhouse.

In 1998, Bob Barrett, co-founder and CEO of Honours Golf, and Bob Cupp, a renowned golf course architect, applied their wisdom and art, breathing new life into Highland Park’s old links.

In an effort to correct several landslides and to improve the course, new tees were constructed for holes 12, 13 and 17 in 2000.

In 2007, 14 acres of land south of number 6 tee were sold for another condominium development.

Construction of new homes off the main driveway began, with the first home completed in 2008.