Maketewah Country Club began in 1897 as the Avondale Athletic Club (AAC) and was located near the present-day Xavier University stadiums. Robert White, later first President of the Professional Golf Association, laid out the initial course at AAC. In 1903, during a dispute between the owner of the property and the membership, the main facilities of AAC were closed down. However, the club’s golfing members were permitted to keep playing during their reincorporation as the Avondale Golf Club (AGC). The club then leased the clubhouse and the golf course (less than 3,000 yards) and continued to operate. It took several years of exploring and negotiating as AGC members looked for property to build a new modern course. In 1905, the club became one of the five founding members of the Cincinnati Golf League (present day GCGA) and began interclub play that year. Then, in 1910, club member Barney Kroger spotted five adjoining dairy farms only two miles north on Reading Pike. The property looked promising; he had the land surveyed, and contacted noted Chicago golf course designer, Thomas Bendelow. Mr. Bendelow walked the grounds, confirmed to the members that a championship 18-hole layout was indeed possible, and began a layout of the city’s first 6,000 yard course. With this seal of approval, the club decided to make the move from Avondale to Bond Hill and renamed itself The Hamilton County Golf Club (HCGC). Making the move in 1911 were the entire membership, club staff, the trophies, and Head Golf Professional, Richard Cass. During those early years, the transition was made from dairy farms to finished golf course meeting USGA standards. As most golf clubs of the day, the local Professionals, Cass, and Archie Simpson, Jr., made alterations each winter to minimize the effects of spring floods and dry summers. Charles “Chick” Evans held the first club scoring record shortly after the course opened, and it’s reputation as a course of value and character quickly grew, having been selected to host the first Ohio Open as well as the Ohio Amateur in 1917. By 1919, the membership had acquired additional land where current holes #1, #16 & #17 sit today. With this additional acreage the HCGC hired Donald Ross to design and construct the first true professional golf course on our property. That year of 1919 was key to Ohio golf, as Ross also spent time at two other courses along the train route from Cincinnati to Toledo, where he was preparing Inverness CC for the 1921 Open. The new Ross course was also in full operation by 1921 under our new name, Maketewah Country Club. Routings of only two of Bendelow’s original holes (present #6 and #12) were reused, and, for example, Bendelow’s 600-yard par 5 went in the opposite direction of the present hole #15. In 1929, the club purchased the final piece of property we own today, adding the sites for present-day holes #2 & #3. That same year, Ross, along with his associate, Walter Hatch, finalized a Maketewah course redesign with the additional land acquired. The Ross routing has remained mostly unchanged since then. Even though most of Bendelow’s fairway bunkers were kept for the final installation, Ross also added his own, and reshaped fairways to complete the design. Maketewah CC has continued its place in Cincinnati golf history as a site for over 50 United States Open Qualifiers, three Ohio Amateurs, two Ohio Opens, and over 25 Men’s and Women’s Mets. Other accolades and accomplishments over the years include having the most individual members to have won the Men’s Met, and the most single digit handicaps of any club in the state of Ohio.