Anyway, golf courses were scarce in Northeast Georgia right after World War II, but Gainesville had a public nine-hole course and it was a good one. But when Buford Dam was being built it became obvious that course was going to be under what is now Lake Lanier. Jesse Jewell got involved and proposed the idea of forming a country club. Then, his plan continued, the country club would acquire land for a new 18-hole golf course if the City of Gainesville would take the money it got from the government for its old golf course, and hire the best golf course architect they could find, The agreement was that it would be a public golf course.
That's pretty much the way it worked out: the fledgling Chattahoochee Country Club bought land, and the city hired Robert Trent Jones to design a course on it. Robert Trent Jones was recognized then as one of the best American golf course designers, and many of his courses are legendary today. The Chattahoochee is a great golf course.
But the fact is the old Gainesville golf course was also designed by one of America's best golf course designers, Donald Ross. How it came about that Ross designed a course in Gainesville seems lost in the fog of history, but he did. Ross became a legend, primarily for his design of Pinehurst, in North Carolina, and even today there is a group that memorializes him and insists he was the greatest golf course designer of them all. Yet, there's more to the national prominence gained by Gainesville's little nine-hole golf course. Tommy Aaron's father was the pro at that Donald Ross designed course, and it was there that Tommy began a career which eventually brought the Green Jacket of a Master's Champion home to Gainesville.
This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/8/129373