Santa Maria Country Club

The Santa Maria Golf and Country Club was incorporated in the early 1920s to acquire land and build a golf course. The club acquired 160 acres about three miles south of Santa Maria and built a nine-hole course on half the property. The depression of

the 1930s was a difficult time for the club. Many members forfeited their stock for nonpayment of assessments, and the club hadto sell its undeveloped land to Santa Barbara County to pay its debts.

Country Club continued to operate during World War II. The many military personnel at Camp Cook and the Army Air Corps base at what is now the Santa Maria Airport were permitted to play at the club, which was the only course between Santa Barbara and Morro Bay.

After the war, efforts were made to acquire additional land for another nine holes. The club signed a long-term lease of 37 acres of airport land. In the 1970s activity commenced to pur-chase this leased land from the airport. At that point, as a mechanism to finance the land pur-chase, the club was restructured as a nonprofit organization with transferrable memberships.

During the 1920s, golf became extremely popular in the United States, and courses were built for the "masses." These courses tended to be built in the same manner as the early Scottish links courses, utilizing natural contours with very little excavation or earth movement. Design was rudimentary, with courses designed, laid out, and staked in only a few hours. It seems clear that the Santa Maria course developed in this manner. Every hole was a straight line, with no doglegs. The main green traps were the sides of the natural sand hills. The original fairways were built in the same manner as the Scottish links courses. Turf was planted only on the tees and the landing areas of the fairways. The original layout of the course did not have any of the penal or strategic features that have become common in modern golf courses.