“Fairways were something less than fair, greens were bumpy and weedy, and a tributary of Red Cedar meandered across several fairways, collecting balls and encouraging professional profanity.” –1921 Club member
It’s not quite how we imagine our course now, but it’s quite something to imagine.
In 1921, a group of East Lansing and College faculty golfers created nine-hole links over the MAC Cavalry Field. The members paid an annual fee of $5 to join the course, which was located approximately where Demonstration Hall now stands on the Michigan State University Campus. The course for the Club was arranged in a circular form around the outside of the field, leaving room in the center for the riding of the Cavalry. The maintenance crew consisted of a voracious herd of sheep, which kept the course neatly cropped and partly fertilized.
Membership in the Club grew rapidly, with many Lansing and East Lansing businessmen joining in 1921 and 1922. Dues were increased to $10 per year. By 1922, it was reported that "a gasoline-driven grass cutter has been purchased and the greens will be kept closely trimmed.”
In 1923, the members closed down the campus course and constructed a new nine-hole course and a clubhouse on land leased from former MAC President Snyder.
During this interim time the vision was to create an 18-hole club and find the best golf course land in the city. In 1927, arrangements were made for purchasing a 210-acre "highlands" site in the northern tier of town on Lake Lansing Road. As the first settler in the area, Isaac Carl and his family relocated from New York and they farmed the front 80 acres. Eventually, his son Charles Carl built the 1893 farmhouse that is still on the property today and expanded the farm to 210 acres. Construction of the current course began in the fall of 1927. 
In 1929, after surveying the new land, the charter members established the name "Walnut Hills Golf Club" representing the hardwoods that outlined the property and the rolling landscape that enhanced the course strategy.
The official opening of the new Walnut Hills golf course was held on July 4, 1929. Opening ceremonies featured the raising of the flag and introduction of the Officers of the Club. The course was then played en masse by the membership. An exhibition match was held featuring the head pro and a member of Lansing Country Club against the head pro and a member of Walnut Hills Country Club. As the members admired their new English Tudor clubhouse, then under construction, and played the new eighteen-hole course, it is not hard to imagine some reminiscing about their more humble beginnings nine years earlier. This ideal rolling site has become a center point of the community over the last century.
The dynamic site and quality architecture has been the establishment of one of the finest parkland golf courses in Michigan. Walnut Hills established a course with classic historic architecture only found in the ’20s “heyday” of golf course architecture.
Today triplexes trim the turf instead of sheep but the vision is the same. Golf played by a community of members in an extraordinary and timeless setting.
