1926
Charles R. Frazier becomes first president of MPCC.
Charles R. Frazier, together with a group of sixty-four prominent Honolulu businessmen, organized a country club and golf course as one of the amenities promised in the brochure for his Lanikai development.
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MPCC Charter of Incorporation is signed on May 5, Architect Seth Raynor draws up plans for the golf course.
Renowned golf course architect Seth J. Raynor came to Honolulu in 1925. Perhaps it was just chance that brought them together, but when Frazier took Raynor out to look at the tract of land he was proposing as a site for the golf course, Raynor was immediately enthusiastic.
The Honolulu Advertiser of January 23, 1927, reported his response: “There is no doubt in my mind but that a course of championship length can be laid out there that will easily rank among the best five or six in the United States.”
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1928
Original clubhouse is built.
The first MPCC clubhouse was built in 1928 on the Lanikai slopes of Alala Ridge. Two entrances from Ka’elepulu Drive led to a small building constructed precisely on the site of the present office wing…it was a two-story, wood-frame building, with stained redwood siding and a wood-shingled roof. On September 14, 1928, Mid Pacific Country Club opens with eight holes and the ninth hole is completed two weeks later.
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1946
Membership is opened to women as Lady Members.
The MPCC bylaws were changed in 1946 to grant women privileges under the regular membership of their husbands and to allow single or married women to join as Lady Members.
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1947
Women’s Division established
MPCC’s lady golfers, with the encouragement of Club Professional Alex Beckley, had formed an active group of their own.
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1948
Willard Wilkinson is contracted to build second nine holes
After World War II, Alex Beckley persuaded the Club to construct the back nine, which would give MPCC a full eighteen-hole golf course. Golf course architect Willard G. Wilkinson, who at the time was one of the only eighteen registered golf course architects in the entire United States, was engaged to build the second nine holes. He followed Seth Raynor’s original design closely.
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1949
Back nine completed; MPCC becomes eighteen hole golf course over Labor Day weekend
When the Club ran out of money, MPCC members finished the back nine by themselves. Alex Beckley, Willie Aki, and Herbert Campos, chairman of the “Second Nine Committee,” were the three men directly responsible for most of the work.
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1950
First Jennie K. Wilson Invitational Tournament
Alex Beckley encouraged the twenty or so members of the Women’s Division to sponsor a 54-hole tournament. The Women’s Division decided that it would be appropriate to name their tournament after a woman of Hawaiian ancestry – one who truly reflected her Hawaiian heritage. Jennie Kapahu Wilson was unanimously selected. “Auntie Jennie” suggested the tournament motto, “Kulia I Ka Nu’u” (Strive for the Highest).
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1956
Lanikai Cup and Campos Cup Tournaments combine into the first Mid-Pacific Open Tournament
The Lanikai Cup was open to amateurs while the Campos Cup Tournament for professionals. The Board of Directors decided to combine the two to create the Mid-Pacific Open Tournament, which is open to all Pro and Amateur golfers.
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