Berkeley Hills Country Club

Berkeley Hills Country Club in Duluth is a 27-hole facility designed by Arthur Davis and opened in 1971, with the primary 18 playing to par 72 at 6,694 yards in Gwinnett County. Davis created three distinct 9-hole loops through the rolling terrain of northeast Atlanta, and the club has served the rapidly growing Gwinnett County community for more than five decades.

Berkeley Hills Country Club in Duluth, Georgia opened in 1971 as one of Gwinnett County's first significant private golf facilities, arriving during a period of rapid suburban growth north of Atlanta. The club is situated at 2300 Pond Road in Duluth and was designed by the collaborative team of Arthur Davis, Ron Kirby, and Gary Player — a combination that brought both design expertise and championship playing credentials to the project. Gary Player, one of the era's most accomplished international golfers, lent his perspective as a competitor who had won the Masters, U.S. Open, Open Championship, and PGA Championship to the design partnership with Davis and Kirby. This collaboration produced a private course built for serious golf, with an emphasis on shot shaping and precise approach play rather than simple length.

The course plays to 6,667 yards at par 72, a figure that was longer than average for its era and reflects the ambition behind the original design. The 27-hole facility at Berkeley Hills offers multiple routing combinations across its championship and additional nines. The Rolling Hills and King Hills nines provide distinct character and can be combined with the original eighteen to offer variety across an extended golf day. Each routing takes advantage of the Piedmont terrain native to Gwinnett County, with gentle undulation, tree-lined corridors, and strategic bunkering that rewards thoughtful course management. Significant maintenance improvements have been made over the decades.

The greens feature Champion Bermuda Ultradwarf grass, which provides a firm, fast putting surface that demands attention to both speed and line. The Bermuda fairways, standard for Georgia's climate, hold up well through the long Southern summers and reward accurate driving. Berkeley Hills has long served as a home base for competitive junior and amateur golf in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The club's proximity to Gwinnett County's population centers made it an accessible private facility for families with serious competitive golfers, and several players who honed their games on its fairways have gone on to significant collegiate and professional careers. Ron Kirby, one of the three architects of record, went on to collaborate with Gary Player on numerous other designs across North America and internationally.

The Berkeley Hills project was among the earlier examples of Kirby's work in the Southeast and demonstrates the methodical, precision-oriented design philosophy that would characterize his later collaborations. The club received a significant turf renovation in later years, with new greens and tee complexes bringing the course current with modern agronomy standards while preserving the strategic framework laid down in 1971. The club has also invested in its tennis, swimming, and social programming over the decades, reinforcing its position as a full-service private club rather than a golf-only facility. Berkeley Hills Country Club's five-plus decades of continuous operation in Duluth place it among the more established private clubs in the metropolitan Atlanta corridor north of the city, a market that has grown substantially as Gwinnett County expanded into one of Georgia's most populous counties. The combination of a distinguished design pedigree, 27 holes of varied golf, and deep community roots gives Berkeley Hills a stable foundation that newer facilities in the area cannot replicate.