Congressional Country Club
Designed by Devereux Emmet
History
Congressional Country Club opened in 1924, born not of golfing necessity but of ambition — a club conceived by a group of Washington power brokers, financiers, and statesmen who wanted a stage worthy of the capital’s growing stature. The founding membership rolls read like a page from a congressional directory, and the club’s name was no accident. From its earliest days, Congressional was built to impress, with a clubhouse modeled after a Mediterranean villa and a golf course meant to match that grandeur stride for stride.
The original design fell to Devereux Emmet, a New York architect whose portfolio already included respected work across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. Emmet was known for laying his courses naturally into the land rather than forcing dramatic terrain where none existed, and at Congressional he worked with a rolling, wooded property in Bethesda that offered him room to build a course of genuine scale. His original layout gave the club a foundation substantial enough to host a U.S. Amateur as early as 1949, signaling that Congressional was built for championship golf from the start.
The decades since have brought significant change. Robert Trent Jones Sr. reworked the course in the 1950s, and further renovations followed under Rees Jones, whose efforts prepared the Blue Course for a string of majors — the U.S. Open in 1964, 1997, and 2011, along with a PGA Championship in 1976 and a Senior PGA Championship. Each round of changes reflected the demands of modern championship setup, but the club has kept Emmet’s original routing as its structural backbone even as the course was lengthened and modernized to meet the game’s evolving standards.
Playing Notes
Bring your full bag and your patience — this is a big, physically demanding property with 36 holes spread across rolling Maryland terrain, and walking either course will test your legs before the round tests your swing. Expect tree-lined corridors that squeeze off the tee, thick rough that punishes anything sprayed sideways, and greens that run fast and firm enough to make three-putts a real threat if you're careless with speed on approach. Ball-striking accuracy matters more here than raw distance; the challenge tends to come from tight driving lanes and demanding green complexes rather than length alone, so leave the driver in the bag on holes where positioning off the tee sets up the rest of the shot. Carts are available and many will prefer them given the terrain, but this is a course where club selection, wind awareness on exposed stretches, and a realistic read of your own shot shape will matter more than how far you can bomb it.