The land on which the Springfield Country Club is located was part of the 1720 land grants in West Springfield that were called the “10-acre lots”. The original plan for the granting of the 10-acre lots was to provide houselots for the descendents of the town’s first settlers but very few houses were built on the lots and the land quickly became pasture land for the residents who lived along Elm Street.
The idea of a Springfield Country Club originated in 1897, a time when Elm Street and Piper Road were lined with large trees and the land between them was occupied by pastures and orchards. At that time there was only one golf course in the area, the Hampden Country Club located at the Spalding Factory in Chicopee.
A group of Springfield golfing enthusiasts decided to start an informal golf course in Ethan Brooks’ hillside cow pasture. Their choice for a golf course was spectacular. The land along this bluff off Elm Street offers a breathtaking vista of the Connecticut River Valley.
Members of the group paid Mr. Brooks a dollar each per month for the privilege of playing golf in his pasture. They embedded tin cans for putting cups and whittled branches for pins. As interest in the game grew they formed the Springfield Golf Club and purchased seventy-five acres of land from Brooks, who was also a founding member of the club. The hill quickly became known locally as “Country Club Hill”. In winter the hill was a popular “sledding place”.
A nine-hole course was laid out by Robert Webster of the Spalding Company, which included fairways that ran into and out of swamps as well as up and down the hill. There were about 40 members at the start of the first year but by season’s end the membership had grown to 100. Both men and women were included in the membership but it is said that the ladies were a little shy of the cows in the pasture at the foot of the hill.
Membership continued to grow, additional land was leased to enable the course to be expanded to 18 holes and by 1900 the membership had passed the 400 mark.
In 1907 a fire destroyed the original clubhouse resulting in the construction of the clubhouse which presently stands on the property.
In 1984, the Board of Governors presented a long-range proposal, consisting of; modifications to the golf course, construction of a new pro shop and expansion of the dining facilities. The cost for the undertaking was estimated at $800,000. The project has been completed. It was financed by the development of luxury condominiums on unused club owned land adjacent to the golf course.