Brookhaven Country Club: Presidents Course

Brookhaven Country Club was founded by Dallas attorney and entrepreneur Robert H. Dedman Sr., who began construction on November 11, 1957, with the goal of building an affordable, family-oriented country club for the growing Dallas metropolitan area. The facility held its grand opening on Easter Sunday in 1960. Byron Nelson, the Texas-born Hall of Fame professional, served as chairman of the advisory board during the club's construction and early operation, lending Brookhaven an immediate connection to the highest levels of American professional golf.

The club grew into a 54-hole complex comprising three distinct eighteen-hole courses — the Championship Course, the Master's Course and the President's Course — making Brookhaven one of the largest private golf complexes in Texas. The original design work is credited to Press Maxwell, the Oklahoma City-based architect and founding member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, whose body of work helped define postwar private-club golf across the Southwest. At Brookhaven, Maxwell collaborated with Byron Nelson on early design contributions, an unusual pairing that connected the property to two significant figures in mid-century Texas golf.

The President's Course is the most accessible of Brookhaven's three layouts, designed as a player-friendly companion to the longer Championship and Master's courses. Lined by some of the largest mature trees on the property, the course is positioned by the club as an inviting venue suited to seniors, juniors and beginners as well as members seeking a shorter round. The ninth hole, framed by the clubhouse in the background, is identified by the club as the course's signature hole.

Brookhaven also occupies a notable place in the history of American private-club management. Robert Dedman Sr. went on to build the company that became ClubCorp — today operating as Invited Clubs — into the largest owner-operator of private clubs in the country, and Brookhaven sits among the earliest properties in that network. The full campus today extends well beyond golf to include tennis and pickleball courts, fitness facilities, swimming pools and multiple dining venues, but the three-course golf complex, anchored by Press Maxwell's original design work, remains the foundation of the club's identity in Farmers Branch.