Highland Country Club

The 18-hole course opened in 1945 as one of Donald Ross's later North Carolina designs, laid out on sandy, gently rolling ground west of downtown Fayetteville — terrain well suited to the firm, fast turf Ross favored. In 2009, Kris Spence — a Ross specialist also responsible for restoration work at the Country Club of Salisbury and Mimosa Hills, both researched elsewhere in North Carolina's golf-living data — rebuilt Highland's bunkers, a targeted renovation rather than a full redesign intended to sharpen strategic definition while keeping Ross's original routing intact. The course has long been regarded as one of the strongest in the region.

Highland does not offer public or resort play; membership is by invitation only. Prospective members go through a formal sponsorship process rather than simply submitting an application and waiting in line, and the club does not publish its criteria, dues, or initiation costs. Buying a home in the surrounding area — including the residential pocket that carries the Highland Country Club name — does not include or require club membership; no bundled or resident-priority arrangement was found in the sources reviewed. A buyer drawn to Highland should treat proximity and membership as two entirely separate pursuits, with the invitation process itself, not a real-estate transaction, as the actual path in.

The neighborhood immediately around the club, informally known as Highland Country Club, is a settled, mostly single-family area built up largely in the 1960s just north of downtown Fayetteville and the historic Haymount district — its name and Scottish-highlands theming echo Fayetteville's own Scottish settlement history. It is a distinct residential area from the club itself: there is no evidence of a developer agreement, HOA-club bundling, or resident-priority membership arrangement tying the two together, so it should be described to buyers as a well-established neighborhood near a prestigious private club, not as a golf community with confirmed club access.

Highland's amenity base extends well past the golf course: seven tennis courts, a recently renovated swimming pool with a diving board, full-service dining recognized locally for its Sunday buffet, and banquet facilities that support a year-round social calendar. The combination of golf, racquet sports, and a strong dining program is typical of an established Southern city club built for family use across generations, rather than a golf-only or resort-style operation.

Highland sits just north of downtown Fayetteville and the Haymount historic district, in Cumberland County, within the broader Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) military and civilian population base. In the same Fayetteville golf market, Gates Four Golf & Country Club anchors a large, purpose-built gated golf community on the opposite (southwest) side of the city — a structurally different pattern (bundled residential development vs. freestanding urban private club) that a buyer weighing Fayetteville golf living should understand represents two distinct choices, not two versions of the same thing.