- Golfweek magazine recently listed the 18-hole, par 72 golf course as the best private course in Mississippi.
When Carter Callaway bought the Hattiesburg Country Club (HCC) in 2017, he set an ambitious 10-year goal of transforming the antiquated property into the South’s finest private country club.
After major renovations to the golf course, and hefty upgrades to the tennis and pickleball courts, Callaway is halfway to the finish line. The Giddis Golf Center for the Southern Miss golf team, to be shared with club members, is nearing completion. Soon, plans include converting the outdated pool area into a resort-style upgrade. After that, he’ll tear down the original clubhouse, with low ceilings and wasted space, and build an energy-efficient, plantation-style clubhouse with high ceilings and spectacular views.
Last year, Golfweek magazine listed the 18-hole, par 72 golf course as the best private course in Mississippi. Max Maxwell and Nathan Crace redesigned it in 1999.
Callaway’s journey to country club owner began as something of a fluke.
Born in the Delta, Callaway grew up in Jackson, the son of legendary golf pro, the late Charlie Callaway.
“All I ever wanted was to play golf professionally,” he recalled.
Instead of heading to college with his pals, Callaway spent a year learning the ropes from Bob Toski, a legendary teaching pro and the PGA Tour’s leading money maker in 1954.
“My dad sent me down there to live and work with Bob for a year,” said Callaway, who worked at Toski’s driving range in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “But at the same time, I was missing all my high school buddies who went off to college.”
In the spring, Callaway enrolled at Ole Miss and was set to walk onto the school’s golf team in the fall.
“I only lasted a semester,” he said, with a laugh. “I was pretty good at getting up and going to golf practice, but I wasn’t very good at getting up and going to class.”
Callaway returned to Florida, worked on his golf game for another year, and turned pro when he was 20 years old. He lived in Orlando and traveled the country for three years, playing the golf circuit.
When a rotator cuff injury sidelined him, Callaway returned to Jackson for shoulder surgery.
“I was out of golf for about a year, and needed something to do, so I reached out to a buddy who was flipping houses, and he showed me the ropes of buying and selling houses in south and west Jackson,” said Callaway, who met his wife, Katherine, at a wedding in Jackson during this time.
“I stumbled upon flipping houses just to make some extra money and was able to make a pretty good living at it,” he said. “I never got back into professional golf.”
About four years later, Callaway’s wife accepted a pharmaceutical job in Hattiesburg.
“It was right around the time Hurricane Katrina hit (Aug. 29, 2005) and soon after,” he said. “We were selling our house in Madison and trying to buy one in Hattiesburg, but everything on the market had been snatched up.”
Callaway saw an opportunity in the homebuilding market, and he and his house-flipping partner established Kendallbrook Crossing subdivision in Oak Grove. After building a few spec houses there, Callaway found success custom-building high-end homes in the Hattiesburg area.
“Being a golfer coming to the Hattiesburg area, I played all the golf courses and fell in love with HCC,” said Callaway, who joined the club in 2006 when it had approximately 600 members.
“Things were going well, but when the economy had a dip in 2008, the club also had a dip,” he said. “People were dropping their memberships because everybody was struggling at the time. And if you’re going to get rid of anything, you’re going to get rid of your club membership. From that time, the club started about a 10% decline every year. They’d lose members and then assess the remaining members to make up the difference. And after a time or two of doing that, people didn’t want to pay the assessments, so they dropped their memberships. And then the next year, they’d have to assess even more. They couldn’t put money back into the facilities, so the quality of the club continued to decline.”
Luckily, the golf course didn’t suffer much during the decline, thanks to the wizardry of longtime greenskeeper, Frank Ogletree.
“He was able to manage on a very tight budget,” said Callaway. “I remember hearing stories of equipment being so old, the wheels were coming off.”
But other details of the golf course started to weaken.
“For example, I noticed the golf cart paths had more and more potholes, and the bathroom on the course was one that nobody wanted to go into,” he said.
Around 2015 or 2016, the club was down to 250 members, and the board of directors was seeking solutions to turn around the property. Callaway asked if they would be willing to sell to an individual with money to inject into the club.
“I spent a year working on a business plan,” he said. “The formula of running it member-owned and by a board no longer worked. It must be run like a business to survive for a long time, not just quick fixes. I came to the realization that it might not be the smartest investment in the world, but I saw potential.”
Callaway needed the right partner. Cue Paul Maholm, a Major League Baseball player with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs and L.A. Dodgers, who had retired to Hattiesburg and was looking for interesting projects. Maholm, a Holly Springs native, had grown up playing golf and studied the PGA Golf Management Program at Mississippi State University. Callaway, a father of three, and Maholm met coaching little league baseball, which their sons played.
“Paul was all in,” Callaway said. “We agreed we needed to make it a family club.”
The transfer of ownership took place in 2017 as HCC Mississippi LLC, and Callaway and Maholm dug in, flipping burgers, serving food, and pitching in where needed.
“After a few years, Paul was ready to move on to other ventures,” said Callaway.
Enter Russ Bloom, a native of San Diego, Calif., and owner of Bloom Golf Management in Pass Christian, with contracts for clubs in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.
“Russ had been our consultant running the club, and wanted to buy in,” said Callaway. “It was a natural fit.”
Lake Garner, DDS, a dentist in Hattiesburg whose entrepreneurial thumbprint expands to real estate and beyond, saw the possibilities of the club’s growth. Callaway and Garner had crossed paths on a couple of real estate projects.
Callaway, Bloom, and Garner moved forward under the same business name, HCC Mississippi LLC.
With improvements made to the golf course and clubhouse, Callaway tackled the tennis courts. He consulted with Justyn Schelver, the longtime director of tennis at Reunion Golf and Country Club in Madison, on ways to incorporate the fast-growing pickleball sport into the renovation project. The result: six pickleball courts and three renovated tennis courts on the upper level, and four completely rebuilt tennis courts on the lower level. Schelver was recently hired as the director of tennis to grow the program.
“What I love about HCC is how it’s so inclusive of all ages,” said Andy Douglas, a retired manufacturing manager and tennis player from Cambridge, England, who attended the club’s first-ever Cinco de Mayo tennis tournament in early May. “Everyone’s so happy and friendly; it’s such a familial atmosphere. Usually, tournaments have an air of tension, but not this one. It was great to see everyone having fun.”
Callaway is enthusiastic about Southern Miss’s 3,500-square-foot indoor golf hitting facility being built at the end of the driving range. It will feature three hitting bays, an indoor putting studio with full club repair resources, a teaching bay to highlight fitting equipment, and video swing analysis software and a TrackMan Simulator in each hitting bay. The new tee box addition will expand the driving range distance to 340 yards.
“Eddie Brescher, the Southern Miss (golf head) coach, has been a great partner on this facility,” said Callaway. “The plan was in place before I bought the club. It’s going to be a very cool amenity.”
The swimming pool overhaul will extend the club’s summer season year-round.
“We want members to feel like they’re at a high-end resort, a vacation in town,” he said.
Callaway considered renovating the 1950s clubhouse, but decided the more realistic approach was to build a new one.
“We’d literally cut the building in half, with a 20- to 25-foot gap between the new building and the other half,” he explained. “We’d build a temporary wall and construct the new building while we live and operate out of the existing one.”
Managing the club has its challenges, admitted Callaway.
“I mean, the food and beverage business is a nightmare, but we’re getting there,” he said.
The Mother’s Day brunch brought 200 members and their guests.
“The chef (Nic Netti) was phenomenal,” said Callaway. “He’s done a really good job.”
With 600 members, Callaway is aiming for 800, the magic number that allows him to continue to make improvements while also creating a great experience for families.
“I don’t want to have so many members that you can never get a tee time,” he said. “I’ve heard stories …”
Ogletree’s sights are set on constantly enhancing the golf course.
“It’s the best it’s looked in the 25 years I’ve been here,” he said in May.
When Callaway bought the club, the average age was in the upper fifties. “We’ve been able to bring that down by 10 years at least,” he said. “We’ve been able to bring in new, younger families, and that’s what you have to do to survive in the country club world.”
The club has brought back a version of the famed Magnolia Classic, held annually from 1968 to 1993 at HCC the same week as The Masters. Thirteen years ago, HCC member Justin Cockrell started the Magnolia Amateur, which draws 160 of the nation’s best golf amateurs. Callaway started the Magnolia Junior last year, which is held annually in the latter part of September.
“The Magnolia Amateur is always the first week of July and has grown to one of the most elite amateur tournaments in the country,” said Callaway. “It’s been pretty cool to see golfers who played in this tournament go on to play the PGA Tour.”
The Mid-South 4-Ball Tournament, a mainstay for 50 years and held annually in mid-May, is the club’s premier non-member event.
For now, the HCC has five levels of membership: corporate, full club, junior, non-residential and social.
“A commitment I made to the members when we took over was no more assessments,” Callaway said. “If I run the business correctly, I don’t need to assess people. As the club improves, dues will go up marginally and the initiation fee will increase.”
In seven years of ownership, Callaway hasn’t taken a penny from the club.
“That’s how I want it,” he said. “Maybe one day down the line, I’ll make some money, but right now, I want to reach my 10-year goal, and once I get there, things will be good.”
Lynne Jeter
