Atlanta Athletic Club

About the club

Atlanta Athletic Club was founded in 1898 by a group of 65 men led by Burton Smith, originally as a pure athletics club with no golf course. The club initially operated from a 10-story building on Carnegie Way (later Edgewood Avenue) in downtown Atlanta. In 1904, AAC added golf to its program by establishing the East Lake Country Club on a 178-acre tract in DeKalb County, designed by Tom Bendelow. John Heisman, the Georgia Tech football coach for whom the Heisman Trophy was named, served as the club's athletic director starting in 1908. The club's most famous member was Bobby Jones Jr., who grew up playing at East Lake and learned the game there as a young boy. In 1913, the legendary Donald Ross redesigned the East Lake course. However, as membership gradually moved north of the city and the East Lake area deteriorated in the 1960s, AAC made the decision to relocate to Johns Creek in the late 1960s. In 1964, three new Robert Trent Jones-designed 9-hole loops opened at the Johns Creek location, later named Highlands and Riverside. Joe Finger added a fourth 9-hole course in 1971. The club sold its historic East Lake property in 1967, which later became the current East Lake Golf Club.