Burning Tree Country Club ☆ Follow

The Burning Tree Club golf course is an 18-hole par-71 layout designed by the firm of Colt, Mackenzie and Alison, with Charles Hugh Alison serving as the primary architect, and opened for play in 1923. The course measures approximately 6,748 yards from the championship tees, with a course rating of 72.5 and a slope rating of 130. Constructed on rolling, forested hillside terrain in Bethesda, Maryland, it emphasizes strategic ground play over aerial carries, featuring wide fairway entries, subtle swales, and contours that reward precise approach shots. The routing includes all but one hole doglegging left to right.

The club's peak influence marked a period drawing members from the upper echelons of the federal establishment, including Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. Eisenhower particularly favored the club as the nearest top-tier course to the White House, logging frequent rounds and arranging Marine One helicopter flights for access starting in 1957. In 1953, the club commissioned golf architect Robert Trent Jones to assess and modernize the original Colt and Alison layout, leading to targeted redesigns of greens on holes 1, 5, 7, and 8. The greens are the strength of the course with superb conditioning.