Prominent Nashvillians founded the club in 1901 at the Maxwell House Hotel as the Nashville Golf and Country Club, with a nine-hole course near West End. Former U.S. Senator Luke Lea offered 144 acres along Richland Creek if the club would relocate and build an eighteen-hole course; members voted to move on June 10, 1914. Herbert H. Barker prepared the routing and George Livingstone directed construction from 1915, and Donald Ross redesigned the course in 1921. It has since been renovated by Bob Cupp (1991) and restored in 2018.