History

         Golf was the fastest growing sport in the county in the fall of 1923 when a small group of investors purchased a quarter section of heavily timbered land on the far northeast side of Oklahoma City. Leading the effort was Perry Maxwell, a rising star in the world of golf course design.

          Maxwell, whose legacy courses would eventually include Southern Hills, Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club, and Prairie Dunes, called his new course Twin Hills, an apt description of the topography that included dramatic elevation changes, a meandering creek, and enough blackjack oak trees to carve out narrow fairways. Alistair Mackenzie, the most famous golf course designer in the world,  called Maxwell's new eighteen-hole creation one of the best courses in the United States.

          The cost of membership was $300, with annual dues of $60. Adding value to play at Twin Hills was the first head pro, “Wee Bobby” Cruickshank, a Scottish golfer who would go on to become a leading player on tour. In the summer of 1925, although the course was not yet playable and there was still no clubhouse, Maxwell and his associates sold the land and improvements to a colorful frontier entrepreneur named Dorset Carter, who gave the course to his son, Keefe Carter, a talented teenage sensation who had just won the prestigious Western Amateur Championship, considered one of the four majors at the time.

          The Carters completed construction of the course, added an irrigation system to keep Bermuda fairways and Bent grass greens alive, and built a $40,000 clubhouse using locally quarried sandstone. Their efforts were rewarded in 1934 when the Western Amateur Championship was staged at Twin Hills. One national reporter described the course as “a heavily wooded, cavernous layout . . . a true test of golfing skills with yawning canyons and blackjack oaks crowding the fairways.”

          The Carters did not stop there. In 1935 Twin Hills was selected as the site for the PGA Championship, a seven-day contest with thirty-six holes of medalist play to get down to sixty-four qualifiers who then competed in match play. Among the leading contenders were pioneers of the sport such as Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazan, and a rising young professional named Johnny Revolta, who won the tournament on his way to being the leading money winner on the tour that year. The purse was $7,200, the largest in tour history.

          After the elder Carter died the following year, the family sold the land and all improvements to three local oil pioneers who at first considered subdividing the land for homes but changed their minds after they discovered the quality of play. With a $400,000 investment, they hired Perry Maxwell to update the layout with new greens on holes one, eight, and sixteen and drilled three new water wells for an underground irrigation system. In November of 1939 the revamped course opened for play once again with local automobile magnate Fred Jones as president of the club.

          Jones and the new owners added even more value for players when they hired Henry Picard as the new head pro. In his playing career, Picard had won twenty-five tour events including the Masters in 1938 and the PGA Championship in 1939. Ben Hogan called him “the greatest teacher I ever knew.” Cashing in on his friendships, Picard famously staged an exhibition match with himself, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, and Bryon Nelson.

          In 1942 the investors converted Twin Hills to a member-owned country club, just in time to take advantage of a booming economy after World War II and the demographic impact of the Baby Boomers born from 1946 to 1964. As the club became more family oriented, members invested in a new Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, a new pro shop, and an addition to the clubhouse for special events.

          Golf was still king at the Perry Maxwell layout, with a national reputation that attracted the attention of the charismatic new King of Golf, Arnold Palmer. In 1959, just as television was raising the profile of professional golf, Twin Hills was host to the Oklahoma City Open, a regular stop on the PGA Tour. Arnie, in dramatic fashion, won the event and returned the next year as runner-up to Gene Littler. Arnie played Twin Hills one more time in 1968 when he and Jack Nicklaus competed in the PGA Team Championship.

          Although lack of parking space thereafter kept the course off the PGA Tour, Twin Hills prospered as a family-friendly country club. In 2000 the greens were redesigned by Mark Hayes, a former club member and the winner of the 1977 Players Championship, who told the press he was “putting Perry Maxwell back into the course.” Topping that was the opening of a new clubhouse in 2023, 100 years after Perry Maxwell first walked the land and created his first masterpiece. The future of Twin Hills, destined to match the glory of its past, is still full of promise.

By Dr. Bob Blackburn

For more of this story, see the author’s book, Twin Hills: A Centennial History, Cottonwood Publications, 2023, available at Twin Hills Golf & Country Club.