Historic Portland Golf Club turns 100 years old this year

There is no shortage of golf history when it comes to the Portland Golf Club. As the club turns 100 years old this year, it’s amazing to see the events and the players who have come and gone through the Portland Golf Club as you turn the pages of the history book.

There was the 1946 PGA Championship, the 1947 Ryder Cup, the LPGA Portland Classic, the Oregon Amateur, the 1982 U.S. Senior Open and for six years the Fred Meyer Challenge. And there have been 10 PGA Tour stops.

And the names who have played the course read’s like a golf’s who’s who: Ben Hogan won the 1946 PGA Championship, Jack Nicklaus has won there, Arnold Palmer has played there as has Sam Snead, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Billy Casper, Kathy Whitworth and Joanne Carner along with other golf superstars.

The Portland Golf Club is truly a spectacular place with an even more spectacular history attached to it.

“This club has served both professional and amateur golf in the Pacific Northwest,” said long-time member Ed Ellis, who also help found the LPGA event and Fred Meyer Challenge at the club. “We might be a private club but it’s a club that believes in what golf is all about. We want to give back as much as we can.”

Giving back continues next year when the Portland Golf Club hosts the 2015 United States Women’s Amateur.

“We’ve been able to showcase lots of great golf through the years,” said Ellis. “For both the professionals and amateurs.”

The Portland Golf Club is a member-owned course and it’s obvious the members have done what they can to showcase their course and golf through the years. The list of tournaments that have been played at the club is impressive. Hogan won the 1946 PGA Championship and then following years led the American team to a win in the Ryder Cup – a Ryder Cup which nearly wasn’t played. The Ryder Cup had not been played since 1937 because of the war but member Robert Hudson wanted to change that. Hudson saw the success with the 1946 PGA Championship and wanted to get the Ryder Cup going again. Hudson got the Portland Golf Club to agree to host the event and he even paid for the British team to travel to the U.S. Hudson met the British team at the docks in New York after traveling across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary. With a dock workers strike going on, Hudson had to work some magic just to get their golf bags off the ship. They traveled across the country via train before arriving for the Ryder Cup. The U.S. won 11-1.

Recently, the top players form the LPGA and PGA Tour have been drawn to the course. The Portland Golf Club played host to the LPGA Tour event for five years and then was the venue for the Fred Meyer Challenge, an exhibition event headlined by Portland native Peter Jacobsen and bring in PGA Tour stars for a two-day tournament.

“We had the best players in the world play the Fred Meyer Challenge,” said Ellis. “That really helped put Northwest golf on the map.”

The event was one of the first non-PGA Tour events to make it onto national television after ESPN broadcast the tournament early on.

The Portland Golf Club is traditional golf. With tall fir trees, rolling greens and a layout that has survived the times, it’s no wonder the Portland Golf Club was a popular place for the professionals when they hit town. Gary Player once said the Portland Golf Club would be the kind of course God would design in heaven. The layout has been durable – with only minor tweaks through the years including a re-do of the 13th green to lengthen the hole.

The clubhouse has been re-modeled inside recently and now has a chance to show off trophies from the club’s terrific history.