1 man keeps game affordable as high-end golf explodes around Augusta | Destination Aiken
In recent years, as high-end private courses throughout the area, Aiken Golf Club has remained refreshingly unchanged.
1 man keeps game affordable as high-end golf explodes around Augusta | Destination Aiken Kevin Cunningham Jim McNair knows he could charge more at his golf course. “But we’re happy where we are,” he says. He means the greens fees start at $30.
But he’s content with his location, too, in Aiken, S. C. , just 25 minutes from Augusta , where the Masters gets underway this week.
If you keep up with headlines in the game, you know that Aiken has emerged in recent years as one of the hottest golf destinations in the country, with a proliferation of exclusive enclaves. McNair’s course is something different. He runs Aiken Golf Club , which his father purchased in 1959 and which he took over in 1985.
The club itself goes back much further. Established in 1912, it began with 11 holes, built as an amenity to a hotel, and was later expanded to 18 by John Inglis, a golf professional and founding member of the PGA of America who’d worked with Donald Ross in New York. Then the Depression hit.