Virginia Country Club

Virginia Country Club was founded in 1909 by partners behind Long Beach's Virginia Hotel, first opening a nine-hole, sand-green course in 1910 that members largely designed themselves. When the original lease neared its end, the club moved to a 135-acre tract at historic Rancho Los Cerritos, where Scottish architect Willie Watson's new eighteen-hole, grass-green course was dedicated on August 31, 1921. During the 1930s, Golden Age masters William P. Bell and A.W. Tillinghast reworked the design, and John Harbottle III led a major renovation around 2001 to 2002, with Todd Eckenrode's Origins Golf Design refining the course in 2015. Today it stands as one of Southern California's finest surviving Golden Age layouts, its rolling, tree-lined ground a monument to classic architecture.