Losantiville Country Club

Losantiville Country Club is a private club in Pleasant Ridge, a neighborhood on the northeast side of Cincinnati, Ohio, about seven miles from downtown in a straight line. It was founded in 1902 by Jewish Cincinnatians who were refused membership at the city’s established clubs, and it takes its name from Losantiville, the name the city’s first settlers gave the town in the late 18th century. Its 18-hole course is attributed by the club to Tom Bendelow, the Scottish-born designer whom the club calls the Johnny Appleseed of American golf.

The course is a par 70. On the scorecard the club publishes on its website, it measures 6,501 yards from the Black tees, with a course rating of 72.2 and a slope of 133. That is short by modern standards, and the club makes the point itself: the course plays longer than its posted length, it says, because of rolling hills, uphill approach shots and doglegs, and its small greens slope from back to front, some of them severely.

The club has long been part of the competitive life of the region. Byron Nelson won the Ohio Open there in 1941, according to the Northern Ohio PGA’s list of champions, and the club lists the Ohio Amateur, the Cincinnati Metropolitan championship and a United States Pro-Am among the events it has hosted. Since January 2016, according to the university, it has been the home course of the University of Cincinnati women’s golf team.

A club founded against exclusion

Wikipedia records that the first lease was signed in February 1902, on the site of the old Oakley race track, and that the club was incorporated on March 23, 1906, with a new clubhouse dedicated in May 1907. The Pleasant Ridge neighborhood article on Wikipedia states plainly why the club was created: Jewish residents were excluded from the other country clubs of Cincinnati. Losantiville has not limited its membership to Jewish members for decades, Wikipedia adds, and the club’s mission statement today speaks of welcoming members of all ages and cultures.

The clubhouse was designed by the Cincinnati architect Rudolph Tietig, according to Wikipedia. A swimming pool was added in 1935 and renovated in 1995, and tennis became a second pillar of the club; it still describes its tennis courts, clay according to Wikipedia, as some of the finest in the Tri-state area. In 2002 Losantiville merged with Crest Hills Country Club, a club founded in 1939, and for a few years the combined club was known as The Ridge Club before the members voted to return to the original name. The clubhouse was completely remodeled from September 2009 and reopened in May 2010.

Tom Bendelow, the architect credited with the course, was one of the most prolific designers of the early American game, and the club calls him the most prolific course designer worldwide. Neither the club nor Wikipedia gives a date for his design at Losantiville. The club’s golf pages simply say that the club was founded in 1902 and that the course was designed by Bendelow.

Recent work on the course

The club describes a Golf Course Enhancement Project, carried out together with the installation of a new irrigation system. It brought new forward tees on every hole, new back tees on a few holes, the reshaping of some fairways and the renovation of every bunker on the course. The club does not date the project on its public pages.

The practice facilities have been rebuilt in stages. In 2016 the club opened two short-game areas: a warm-up green next to the parking lot and a second area out on the course, with target flags and a full green with a bunker. A new practice tee, which the club says enlarged the hitting area by more than 40 percent, opened in 2020. It has four target greens at measured distances. The practice tee opens half an hour before the first tee time and closes an hour before dark, and the short-game areas are open all year, subject to frost.

What it asks of you

Losantiville is a course of angles and slopes rather than length. The club puts its greens at an average of 10 to 11 on the Stimpmeter and stresses that most of them slope from back to front, so staying below the hole is the first rule of the round. Many holes run down into a valley and up out of it, which means a lot of uphill approach shots to small, raised greens. Trees, a creek and a few ponds come into play, and out of bounds runs along Langdon Farm Road on the 16th.

The club’s scorecard gives each hole a name and a short description. The yardages below are from the Black tees. The front nine is a par 35 of 3,254 yards, and the back nine a par 35 of 3,247 yards.

• 1st, The Early Bird: par 5, 473 yards. A double dogleg that long hitters can reach in two; a large tree and a bunker guard the front right of the green.
• 2nd, Blue Heron: par 3, 178 yards. Perhaps the signature hole, according to the club, with a small pond and a creek along the front and left of a green that tilts toward the water.
• 3rd, Fathers & Sons: par 4, 425 yards. A dogleg left with a blind landing area in a valley and an uphill second shot; a miss left falls into a steep valley.
• 4th, Luckyduk: par 4, 356 yards. A short dogleg right on a fairway that slopes hard from right to left; the club advises a fairway wood or hybrid off the tee.
• 5th: par 4, 321 yards. Short, tight and straight up a hill to a tiny green defended by two large bunkers.
• 6th, The Fence Hole: par 4, 438 yards. A dogleg left with a sharp drop about 180 yards from the green; the front of the green is open to a running shot.
• 7th, Eagle Eye: par 3, 199 yards. Uphill by about half a club, to a small green with one bunker at the front right.
• 8th, In Beauty Lies Treachery: par 4, 423 yards. Down into a valley and back up, with two centerline fairway bunkers and what the club calls maybe the most severe green on the course.
• 9th, Arnold’s Doggy Leg: par 4, 441 yards. A long dogleg right with trees on one side of a narrow landing area and a creek on the other; the hardest hole on the card for men and women.
• 10th, Fuhgeddaboutit: par 4, 334 yards. Short and uphill, to a severely sloped green guarded by several bunkers in front.
• 11th, Sanibel Sunset: par 4, 451 yards. The longest par 4, downhill from the tee and back up to a green with a slight false front.
• 12th, Evans Scholars: par 3, 213 yards. The longest of the short holes, with a bunker at the front left.
• 13th, Vista: par 4, 397 yards. Downhill and gently right, with fairway bunkers to avoid and a green that accepts a running approach.
• 14th, Finish Strong: par 4, 306 yards. The shortest par 4, to a small, raised and heavily contoured green fronted by bunkers.
• 15th, Redbud: par 4, 411 yards. A dogleg left where a pond ends the fairway; fairway bunkers line the left side.
• 16th, The Long Game!: par 5, 556 yards. Long, narrow and straight, with out of bounds on the right along Langdon Farm Road.
• 17th, Double Down: par 3, 167 yards. Downhill and playing shorter than its yardage, with a slope down to a pond behind the green.
• 18th, Caddies’ Delight: par 4, 412 yards. Uphill all the way to a green with a false front, below the clubhouse and golf shop.

Four other sets of tees shorten the course. The Orange tees measure 6,161 yards (rating 70.6, slope 129 for men), the Silver 5,675 yards (68.2 and 124), the Teal 5,077 yards (65.4 and 119) and the Gold 4,459 yards (63.6 and 116). For women, the club gives ratings for the Silver tees (76.4 and 133), the Teal (70.7 and 122) and the Gold (67.8 and 115).

With four par 3s, two par 5s and twelve par 4s, several of them under 360 yards from the back tees, the course offers chances for a good score to a player who controls distance. The difficulty lies in the greens and in the uneven lies of a hilly site: a player who keeps the ball below the hole will find the course much kinder than one who does not.

What golfers are saying

As a private club, Losantiville has only a modest number of public reviews, from golf apps, map listings and review aggregators, most of them by members and their guests. The points below summarize what recurs in that material. They are other people’s opinions, not ours; nobody from Panxis has played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• The challenge of the layout is the most common praise, with fast greens and a course that plays differently from one round to the next.
• Reviewers describe the course as well maintained.
• Narrow fairways, small greens and well-placed bunkers are seen as a classic test that rewards strategy over power.
• Visitors to the clubhouse praise the friendly staff, the food and the welcoming atmosphere among members.
• Beyond golf, reviewers mention the pool events and the pickleball courts, lit for night play.

What comes up against

• The slippery, back-to-front greens can produce big numbers for anyone who leaves the ball above the hole, and the tight fairways punish loose driving.
• App users rate the course hard, and the hilly lies may not suit less experienced players.
• One reviewer of the facilities would like better fencing around the pickleball courts.
• One review notes that the club does not carry the prestige of some other Cincinnati clubs, while rating the golf course itself highly.
• Access is the underlying limit: the club is private, and play depends on an invitation from a member.

Who can play

Losantiville Country Club is a private club, and it says so on its guest page. Guests may play when invited by a member, under rules the club publishes. Guests who live in the area and do not belong to another local club may play no more than six times during the in-season period, which the club defines as March 15 to November 15; guests who are members of another local club may play an unlimited number of times as a member’s guest. In-town guest play may be restricted on weekends and holidays. Out-of-town guests have no restriction on times or number of rounds. Guests have access to the locker rooms and practice areas and are held to the club’s rules on carts, dress and etiquette.

The club has a caddie program staffed by trained young men and women, and its golf program includes a men’s tournament club, eight major men’s club tournaments, women’s 9-hole and 18-hole leagues, lessons and junior clinics. It also hosts charity and corporate golf outings. The club says it is accepting new member applications.

Getting there

The club’s address is 3097 Losantiville Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45213, telephone 513-631-4133. Pleasant Ridge lies on the northeast side of the city, next to Amberley Village, and the course is bordered on one side by Langdon Farm Road. In a straight line, the club is about seven miles from downtown Cincinnati and about 15 miles from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, which lies across the Ohio River in Kentucky. These distances are measured on the map and not by road. The club provides directions from its contact page.

Green fees

The club publishes no green fees, and none are given here. The course is open only to members and their invited guests.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location; the Losantiville Country Club website for the scorecard, the hole names and descriptions, the tee ratings and slopes, the description of the course, the enhancement project, the practice facilities, the guest rules, the golf program, the events it has hosted and the contact details; Wikipedia’s articles on the club and on Pleasant Ridge for the founding, the lease, the incorporation, the clubhouse, the pool, the merger and the remodeling; the Northern Ohio PGA’s list of Ohio Open champions for the 1923 and 1941 Ohio Opens; the University of Cincinnati athletics website for the women’s golf team; the 18Birdies app and review aggregators for the reviews; Wikidata for the identifiers.

Where sources disagree, we say so. The club and Wikipedia give 6,501 yards from the Black tees with a rating of 72.2 and a slope of 133, while the 18Birdies app lists 6,419 yards with 71.7 and 132, probably a card from before the new back tees. The club’s hole description calls the 8th the most difficult hole on the course, while its own card gives the 9th the number one handicap for men and women. The text for the 12th says 210 yards from the back tees, while the card gives 213. One magazine directory says the club was founded in 1895; the club and Wikipedia say 1902, and so do we. Some review aggregators describe the course as a Donald Ross design; the club and Wikipedia credit Tom Bendelow, and so do we. Wikipedia dates the vote to restore the Losantiville name to 2009 in one passage and 2010 in another. The club lists Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead, Bobby Nichols and Hale Irwin among the major champions who have won tournaments on the course; we could only confirm Byron Nelson’s 1941 Ohio Open and Stephen Zappe’s 1923 Ohio Open, and give those alone as facts. One golf directory, last updated in 2013, lists a different telephone number from the one on the club’s website.

The opinion section summarizes reviews on golf apps, map listings and review aggregators, read in October 2026. We report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations from reviewers. Nobody from Panxis has played or visited this course, and this page is no substitute for a round.

The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. This page contains no commercial link and earns us no commission. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.

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Closest to this one in our United States directory:

• Avon Fields Golf Course — 3 mi
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• Inverness Club — 175 mi
• Eagle Crest Resort — 215 mi